Would be nice if the article explained what Teleport was to begin with. I had to google it to see what that is.
I apologize. It's intended to be a VPN (virtual private networking) end point.
Traditionally, you could have set up a virtual private network (essentially making your computer away from home act as if it's a part of the home local network) by either using software (macOS) or a router with the VPN details specified at both ends.
The Teleport device is a VPN end point with ethernet and wifi in it, so you can travel with it, connect to a network where you're traveling (hotel? airbnb?) and have your computer act as if it's connected to the network at home. Having ethernet and wifi in it is intended to make it a swiss-army-knife-sort-of-tool - the connect-to-any-network endpoint.
This is useful for simple things like connecting to local drives for private filesharing, or for appearing to be in your home country if traveling internationally and needing to access resources that aren't available in the new country. For example, I'm currently traveling, and my health insurance, my electricity, and my local government site where I can register to vote are not available when traveling outside my home country. Seriously. I couldn't pay my bills or check my voter registration.
I expect the device probably works when set up with a non-Amplifi router, but I didn't do that - I set it up with the Amplifi router at home because that seemed to make the most sense. This is the difficulty: we have some readers who think I was being unfair by mentioning DNS settings for a device intended for home users who don't really tinker with settings, and then we have a Teleport device that's intended to make VPN easy, but is very difficult to set up - I was sure I had it working at home, and left the country only to find out it's not configured properly.
The technical details are interesting, but you saved the showstopper for (almost) last. No way that I would enable a remote access feature that requires logging in with one of the two biggest invaders/sellers of privacy.
I've installed dozens of these and dozens of Eero's - replaced 6 Eero's so far and 0 of these. Also why such a low score on edge cases like DNS for DHCP Clients when the average user doesn't even know what DHCP and they are safeguarded currently from not being able to connect to the internet. I also remember when Eero first came out it missed the same features but received a higher (albeit .5) star rating. Seems that the author doesn't take into account the average user and knocks Amplifi because it uses Facebook and/or Gmail (last time I checked they had 100's of Millions of users) and because of the DNS issue which is a shame because overall it seems like the heat maps were better then Eero.
What are you using there to map the signal coverage in your house?
These are done with NetSpot (review coming) - also available, and more affordable, but with fewer features is Wifiner (review coming) from the same people.
Netspot will give you a full PDF report on every wifi station it can find, and all of the types of measurements you can do. Wifiner won't export that, just the heatmap.
The hardest part of any of these is drawing the map of the house.
This is wifiner, with one of their default maps. None of my maps have me bothering to place a couch or kitchen table, or draw dimensions on the map. One of the basic steps both products require is for you to place two points and tell it the distance between them, so that it knows the scale. Note that instead of the dB readings, Wifiner just gives a thumbs up-down scale.
The technical details are interesting, but you saved the showstopper for (almost) last. No way that I would enable a remote access feature that requires logging in with one of the two biggest invaders/sellers of privacy.
I've installed dozens of these and dozens of Eero's - replaced 6 Eero's so far and 0 of these. Also why such a low score on edge cases like DNS for DHCP Clients when the average user doesn't even know what DHCP and they are safeguarded currently from not being able to connect to the internet. I also remember when Eero first came out it missed the same features but received a higher (albeit .5) star rating. Seems that the author doesn't take into account the average user and knocks Amplifi because it uses Facebook and/or Gmail (last time I checked they had 100's of Millions of users) and because of the DNS issue which is a shame because overall it seems like the heat maps were better then Eero.
OK.
1 person doesn't make a general consensus.
Eero has a had less then $50M invested in them -
Ubiquiti (who owns Amplifi) is publicly traded and has a valuation of over $6B.
I would just like to see a consistent set of criteria that all of these systems were review by because each one such as Eero, Velop, Amplifi, Google Wifi all seem to be different instead of a standard criteria set such as heatmaps, band steering, DHCP reservations, Ethernet Backhaul, Who the Buyer is (ie non technical, self taught.....), etc this will allow for an even review instead of ones based on features that the product may or may not include because no where in the Google Wifi review did it mention that a Google Account was required yet stars are taken away from Amplifi because they require Google or Facebook.
Anyways - Thank you for including a heatmap - that is very relevant data when comparing all kinds of Wifi systems. Clearly the end user went with Eero over Amplifi (even though as you stated the heatmap was better) due to personal choice and that's what all of this is a personal choice of what you want to use in your home.
Comments
Traditionally, you could have set up a virtual private network (essentially making your computer away from home act as if it's a part of the home local network) by either using software (macOS) or a router with the VPN details specified at both ends.
The Teleport device is a VPN end point with ethernet and wifi in it, so you can travel with it, connect to a network where you're traveling (hotel? airbnb?) and have your computer act as if it's connected to the network at home. Having ethernet and wifi in it is intended to make it a swiss-army-knife-sort-of-tool - the connect-to-any-network endpoint.
This is useful for simple things like connecting to local drives for private filesharing, or for appearing to be in your home country if traveling internationally and needing to access resources that aren't available in the new country. For example, I'm currently traveling, and my health insurance, my electricity, and my local government site where I can register to vote are not available when traveling outside my home country. Seriously. I couldn't pay my bills or check my voter registration.
I expect the device probably works when set up with a non-Amplifi router, but I didn't do that - I set it up with the Amplifi router at home because that seemed to make the most sense. This is the difficulty: we have some readers who think I was being unfair by mentioning DNS settings for a device intended for home users who don't really tinker with settings, and then we have a Teleport device that's intended to make VPN easy, but is very difficult to set up - I was sure I had it working at home, and left the country only to find out it's not configured properly.
OK.
Netspot will give you a full PDF report on every wifi station it can find, and all of the types of measurements you can do. Wifiner won't export that, just the heatmap.
The hardest part of any of these is drawing the map of the house.
This is wifiner, with one of their default maps. None of my maps have me bothering to place a couch or kitchen table, or draw dimensions on the map. One of the basic steps both products require is for you to place two points and tell it the distance between them, so that it knows the scale. Note that instead of the dB readings, Wifiner just gives a thumbs up-down scale.
-
1 person doesn't make a general consensus.
- Eero has a had less then $50M invested in them -
- Ubiquiti (who owns Amplifi) is publicly traded and has a valuation of over $6B.
I would just like to see a consistent set of criteria that all of these systems were review by because each one such as Eero, Velop, Amplifi, Google Wifi all seem to be different instead of a standard criteria set such as heatmaps, band steering, DHCP reservations, Ethernet Backhaul, Who the Buyer is (ie non technical, self taught.....), etc this will allow for an even review instead of ones based on features that the product may or may not include because no where in the Google Wifi review did it mention that a Google Account was required yet stars are taken away from Amplifi because they require Google or Facebook.Anyways - Thank you for including a heatmap - that is very relevant data when comparing all kinds of Wifi systems. Clearly the end user went with Eero over Amplifi (even though as you stated the heatmap was better) due to personal choice and that's what all of this is a personal choice of what you want to use in your home.