It will help you fix your bad Wi-Fi

I set up Amazon’s Eero Pro 6 mesh Wi-Fi system for $ 449 a few days ago and have already noticed a huge improvement in my home Wi-Fi.

You might want to give mesh networking a try if you know you’re paying for a fast internet connection, but feel like your home Wi-Fi is slow, or there are areas of your home where you don’t. cannot stream movies or video chat. Wi-Fi is important right now, with a lot of people working or taking classes in different rooms around the house.

Mesh networking, to put it simply, puts multiple wireless routers in your home so that they cover a larger area. It works better than cheaper Wi-Fi extenders.

Amazon Eero’s new model supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 standards, so you can have more gadgets connected to Wi-Fi without so much interference. It also has better antennas than the last generation Eero 5 that I was using before setting up the Eero Pro 6.

Here’s what you need to know about it.

The Eero Pro 6, like other Eero products, is very easy to install. All you need to do is plug a hub into the modem provided by your cable company, then use an app to add the other two in different parts of your home. It does all the work in the background so you don’t have to worry about making each unit talk to each other. I set up the new system in about 10 minutes.

I pay for a very fast gigabit internet but normally I get Wi-Fi speeds that are about 90% slower than that. I live in an old house with plaster walls that really mess up the Wi-Fi signal, even in places a few rooms away from my router.

The Eero Pro 6 has doubled or quadrupled my speeds around the house, increasing them from 100 Mbps to 700 Mbps, depending on the room I’m in. This means that I can now stream game services like Google Stadia to my living room, where I previously couldn’t, or download movies and apps much faster around the house. And that means there is enough speed for my wife and I’m doing multiple video streams at the same time.

I haven’t had any issues with dropped connections yet, as I’ve sometimes done with the regular Eero 5 and its competitor Google Wi-Fi, as they didn’t have enough strength to cover my entire House.

I don’t have kids old enough to use this feature, but Eero also allows you to manage different people in your home and block services. So your kids might not be able to use FaceTime after a while, for example, or visit some websites that you feel are inappropriate.

The standard Eero 6, which I haven’t tested, works the same but doesn’t provide such a powerful antenna or support the faster speeds that I pay from my cable company. But it can be a good alternative to the Pro model if you live in a smaller house or don’t pay for Gigabit internet.

The Eero Pro 6 is expensive. It’s on sale for Black Friday for $ 479, but otherwise costs $ 599. That’s more than double the price of the Eero 6. So only buy it if you’re paying for super fast internet access (at least 500Mbps) and need to cover up to 6,000 square feet.

It’s more geeky, but I would also like one of the access points to have more Ethernet ports. There are only two. You will always get a faster connection if you are connected. It’s best for game consoles where you need the fastest connection possible, or for things that are constantly plugged in like smart lighting hubs or your work computer. I have an additional switch that I plug into the back of the Eero to resolve this issue and increase the number of Ethernet jacks, but it’s something people who care about wired connections should know.

Sometimes your phone, tablet, or laptop connects to the farthest Eero hotspot. I asked Nick Weaver, co-founder and CEO of Eero, about this in a quick phone call.

He explained that the Eero doesn’t decide which gadget it connects to, and instead it’s the client device, like your iPhone or tablet, that decides which hotspot to use. Sometimes this device connects to the farthest for some reason. But Weaver told me you can turn on a feature called “band steering” that forces your gadgets to use a frequency of 5 GHz, if available, which can help it connect to the nearest hotspot. Another solution I found: turn off your Wi-Fi and turn it back on. But Weaver warned that doing this too often can blacklist a device from Wi-Fi and require you to re-enter your password.

Gamers and other computer enthusiasts who care about specific Quality of Service (QoS) settings won’t find them here yet. These allow you to prioritize certain devices, like a game console or PC, over others. But, Weaver told me that sometimes people forget they have a game console using the full network speed and then wonder why other gadgets are running slow. So instead, it cleverly handles this in the background. But Eero is testing a feature that gives more control to optimize video conferencing and gaming. Anyway, I play a lot of games and haven’t had any issues with the Eero working, so it’s not a big deal for me.

Finally, Eero sells subscription services with additional security features. There are plans for $ 2.99 per month or $ 9.99 per month (with discounts if you sign up for a full year in advance), and they provide extras like password management and ad blocking. This is another way for Amazon to make money from the product. I don’t mind much since I don’t pay for them and don’t need them, but I’ve heard people say that they’ve seen notifications on their phones to subscribe. Ignore them if you don’t need them.

Yes, if you are paying for a very expensive home internet connection and not getting the speeds you expect over Wi-Fi, you should consider a mesh networking system like the Eero Pro 6. I’m a big fan. Eero products for years and like the last update, which fixed many of the coverage issues I had even with the latest generation of Eero 5.

But it’s expensive, and if you don’t pay for super fast internet, don’t have coverage issues, or need to cover a lot of space with Wi-Fi, you don’t. do not need it.