Google WiFi

SumnerH

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Jul 18, 2005
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Alexandria, VA
In general, these high end wifi routers (be it this, Apple airport, whatever) are total a ripoff if you have a small enough place to be covered by one station.

For larger spaces, they're still not the most economic option, but may be worth it depending on circumstances.
 

saintnick912

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Oct 30, 2004
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Somerville, MA
Bumping this. I was interested, but then saw the information from Eero on their 2.0 update last week.

https://blog.eero.com/the-worlds-smartest-wifi-system-just-got-smarter-73888c4716e4#.w35a84e3a

My new place has some challenges in terms of networking layout:
  • The WAN (cable modem) is on one end of the unit, and would be difficult to relocate. Plus I have a few wired devices (receiver, tivo etc) there that have expensive or janky wireless options. So ideally there would be some sort of switch here.
  • I have a home office setup on an upper level lofted room, with a desktop PC and a home server/NAS type device. For performance reasons I'd like those two to be on a switch together.
  • Continuing along the same direction, at the other end of the house there is a thick stone wall with my bedroom outside of it. That and the rooms on the hallway from the office (bathroom and guest room) would ideally also be covered.
  • And then there is a thick concrete floor and a large open workshop/garage space downstairs, with a stereo and a Nest running.
So I ordered a 3 pack of Eero and one more:
  • Replaced my one router behind the TV with an Eero and a small gigabit switch
  • Replaced a wireless bridge in the lofted area with an Eero and hooked that to another small gigabit switch. This was positioned near the hallway end of the space to better reach the bedrooms and bathrooms down the hall.
  • Replaced a janky powerline-connected wifi point in the bedroom with the third Eero
  • Put the 4th Eero downstairs almost straight down from the one with the WAN, since it's a large open space down there it seems to cover it well.
So far the results have been encouraging. I have one network name across both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, and devices seem to move between the points smoothly. I'm able to stream audio/video in spots where I could barely read emails before. So my verdict is that it's expensive but it works well for my particular case.

Chose this over the Google WiFi because it seems like a more mature product and the support for the previous Google routers (OnHub) was not all it was rumored to be. Also disappointing that the Google WiFi nodes don't have the option of Google Home functionality, combining the two (mesh network and mesh assistant) could be a good feature.
 

Oil Can Dan

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The struggle to get wifi throughout my house continues. I was about to just pay through the nose to get everything hard wired, but I've decided to give Eero a try. In case anyone is thinking the same they are on sale this weekend via Amazon.
 

AlNipper49

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Apr 3, 2001
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Mtigawi
If I was having problems with wifi in a large house, and was reasonably technical, I'd try Open Mesh.
 

Oil Can Dan

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"reasonably technical" you say? That disqualifies me!

So after five years of trying various things to get wifi to work from one end of my home to the other to no avail, I installed three eero's last night and the results are really encouraging. I think I probably need to add one more to get to where I want to be, but as it stands it's working better than anything else I've tried (high end wifi router, powerline adaptors, other extenders).
 

finnVT

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Jul 12, 2002
2,153
Has anyone tried the google system? It seems like a good solution for me, but a couple things I can't quite figure out:

- Is the "Network Assist" something router-side or client-side? i.e., is it something that needs to be installed on every moveable device to allow them to shift from one router to another?
- If so (or even if not), any issues using this with VPNs?
- This completely replaces the ISP router, right? If I have a combo cable modem/router (FiOS), it will just plug into one of the ethernet ports and I'd use the google wifi instead, right?
- Presumably it's easy to add additional units if I still have deadspots, yes?