Eero Pro 6E review: Lightning-fast wireless speeds and unbreakable Wi-Fi comes at a cost

Eero is a mesh system that replaces a single Wi-Fi router (normally mailed out by your broadband supplier and tucked away in a cabinet or haphazardly positioned on a chunk of furnishings within the hallway) with a number of nodes dotted round your own home. Working collectively, these Eero nodes blanket your whole house with Wi-Fi, eliminating any blackholes in your protection.

When you’re unable to earn a living from home in sure rooms of your own home as a consequence of patchy Wi-Fi sign, or have to modify from Wi-Fi to 4G in your cellphone everytime you head out into the backyard …a mesh Wi-Fi system ought to resolve most of those points.

A single Eero Professional 6E node is able to offering sturdy Wi-Fi sign to 190m², which needs to be greater than sufficient for many small houses or flats. When you’re nonetheless struggling to get a powerful Wi-Fi sign in each room, Eero permits you to steadily add extra nodes over time as and if you want them. That is additionally helpful for those who transfer home.

All of this implies there is no obligation to splurge on a 3-pack of Eero Professional 6E out of the gate. As an alternative, you’ll be able to single a single system after which construct out the system over time.

Every Eero 6E unit arrives with two ethernet ports, which may ship as much as 1Gbps in wired speeds. When you desire utilizing a wired connection for sure devices round the home, the sheer velocity obtainable from the ethernet ports in the back of the Eero 6E will prevent from trailing Cat 5E cables round your own home. This is not the case with all Eero methods. For instance, the extenders obtainable with Eero 6 solely arrive with a USB-C for charging – no wired connectivity.

When you already personal one or two Eero units, it is attainable to include a brand-new Eero Professional 6E into the identical system. Eero has designed its system in order that disparate generations of its units can talk with each other, which makes any Eero buy fairly future-proof. In fact, you will not profit from the additional bandwidth afforded by Eero Professional 6E within the portion of your own home lined by the older Eero 6, however it’s good that the corporate guarantee older units are out of date with the arrival of every new technology.

Establishing an Eero system is extremely simple. The corporate gives detailed directions with the easiest way to pair its mesh system with each main UK broadband supplier, together with BT, TalkTalk, Sky, and Virgin Media. In contrast with signing up for a brand new broadband contract, the place a router arrives nearly with out rationalization within the publish… you’ll really feel in good palms with the extremely slick Eero app (obtainable on iPhone, iPad, and Android) that guides you thru the method of organising a brand new community.

For essentially the most half, Eero recommends plugging one in all its units into the again of your current Wi-Fi router. You may then disable your authentic Wi-Fi community (it is not excellent to have two devices side-by-side beaming out Wi-Fi, that would result in some interference or sluggish speeds) and begin utilizing the Wi-Fi equipped by Eero.

Actually, essentially the most arduous a part of the method is logging into your brand-new Wi-Fi community from every system dotted round your own home. Telephones, tablets, laptops, video doorbells, good audio system, good lightbulbs, video games consoles, Kindles, televisions …all the pieces will have to be switched to your new mesh system.

You will want to make use of the sensible Eero app so as to add a brand new Eero to increase the attain of your community, substitute an current node with a brand new mannequin, in addition to categorise and identify every new system that connects to your Wi-Fi. Sure, among the finest options in regards to the Eero system is the way in which that it divvies up the entire units linked to your community.

By default, it can categorise devices in your community below banners like Computer systems & Private, House, and Leisure. Eero additionally provides small pictograms to indicate completely different units, so even for those who haven’t spent any time triaging the devices linked to your own home Wi-Fi, it is best to simply be capable to discover what you’re in search of in a number of seconds.

Nevertheless, for those who do wish to put a while into tidying up the Eero app, there are a number of choices. Eero permits you to customise the identify of every system in your community too – this solely seems inside the Eero app, so that you may be as particular as you want utilizing names like “Work iPhone” and “My iPhone”, for instance. And you can even create particular person profiles for each family member and divide up the units between their homeowners. This may sound like a chore, however it’s actually well worth the problem.

With each gadget in your Wi-Fi community assigned to an individual, the Eero app will assist you to observe the entire broadband utilization of every individual at house. Not solely that, however Eero permits you to schedule downtime when particular person members of the family’ units received’t be capable to connect with the web, so you’ll be able to guarantee dinner is at all times phone-free, or cease youthful youngsters from logging into Snapchat and Twitch.television within the wee small hours when everybody else is asleep.

Eero permits you to set content material filters for all units related to a single profile or, if you need extra granular management, you’ll be able to customise the kind of content material blocked on every particular person system. Eero provides preset content material filters primarily based on age, with “Pre-College 0-5 years” providing essentially the most restrictive expertise on-line, “Pre-Teen 6-12 years” blocking all social media and grownup content material, and “Teenager 13-18 years” nonetheless filtering all grownup, unlawful and violent content material.

There’s additionally an “Grownup” choice, which lets you limit a number of classes of content material, like social media, gaming, purchasing, chat and messaging, social media, streaming, and grownup. This might be helpful for anybody who discover the preset classes above somewhat too restrictive, or who needs to limit sure content material for themselves, like social media or Netflix throughout work hours. For much more management, Eero permits you to record particular websites or providers that you just’d like banned for any customers.

A separate Exercise tab inside the Eero app permits you to observe your community speeds over time. That is extremely helpful for those who’ve been having hassle together with your broadband package deal and have to ship a screenshot to your Web Service Supplier to show how patchy your speeds have been over the previous few months. By default, Eero will run a velocity take a look at within the background at round 5am, so you will know earlier than you login to start out work whether or not your connection is working as anticipated.

Eero may also ship a weekly report, with the most recent statistics about your community velocity, together with quickest obtain and add speeds recorded within the final seven days, the entire quantity of information downloaded over your community, and extra. When you’re not on a vast plan — this might prevent from a nasty shock invoice on the finish of the month. When you’ve taken the time to set-up particular person profiles, you will additionally be capable to discover out who’s downloading essentially the most gigabytes throughout their units.

Establishing and managing a Wi-Fi community utilizing the Eero app is a whole pleasure. The Eero app is staggeringly well-made, with a pleasant interface that will not intimidate novices, explanations in plain English for a few of the extra technical performance, and better of all, it’s totally steady. Within the weeks that we have been including units, working velocity exams, and categorising each system in our house …the Eero app has by no means crashed or faltered. That is extremely reassuring on condition that making any modifications to your Wi-Fi depends on the software program.

Our solely criticism of the Eero app is that it locks some performance hidden behind a month-to-month subscription charge. Eero provides two subscription plans: Eero Safe and Eero Safe+.

Eero Safe prices £2.99 monthly or £29 per yr and unlocks the content material filters, advert blocking throughout your community, VIP precedence customer support, a weekly electronic mail report about your community exercise, and the flexibility to trawl by means of historic knowledge in your obtain velocity and utilization. With out a subscription, you will solely be capable to see statistics about your community utilization from the final seven days – and that latter feels deliberately designed to drive all Eero homeowners to cough up for the subscription plan.

Rival mesh methods – like Google Nest Wifi, and BT Entire House – assist you to trawl again by means of all earlier velocity exams with out handing over any further money. Eero is clearly monitoring the info, however it’s merely hiding it till you pay up. Likewise, Google would not lock parental controls behind a cost plan both.

Eero Safe does bundle improved risk prevention – stopping malware, phishing assaults, and different nasty surprises from stealing your knowledge or damaging your units. Since these safety measures happen at a community stage, it can block the risk earlier than it even reaches your smartphone, pill, or laptop computer. That is completely different to anti-virus software program, which must be put in on every system individually to supply any stage of safety. Google would not provide risk safety at no cost with its Nest Wifi system and consequently, this provides far more worth to the £2.99 monthly subscription tier.

Compared to Safe, the pricier Eero Safe+ subscription is a extremely compelling proposition.

It consists of the entire options listed above, but in addition bundles a subscription to the very good 1Password password supervisor (£2.99 monthly), Encrypt.me VPN (£3 monthly), Malwarebytes anti-virus subscription (£29.99 per yr), and DDNS. This prices £9.99 monthly, or it can save you by paying £99 for the yr.

Regardless of being purchased by Amazon again in February 2019, Eero nonetheless appears like an unbiased firm. That mentioned, there are hints right here and there. You should utilize an Amazon account to sign-in to the Eero app and you need to use Alexa-powered good house devices to place particular person profiles in timeout, change off the LED indicator lights, and pause Wi-Fi for all homeowners utilizing “Alexa, inform Eero it is time for dinner”.

In stark distinction to Google, which mixed the performance of its hands-free Google Nest good audio system with every Wi-Fi extending nodes with the most recent {hardware} refresh, Eero isn’t making an attempt to sneak Echo Dot audio system round your own home.

As talked about above, Eero isn’t even managed from the Alexa app – which controls nearly all of Amazon’s different good house efforts.

Eero Professional 6E launched in March 2022 and is available for purchase from plenty of excessive avenue and on-line sellers proper now, together with Amazon UK. Because the flagship mesh node obtainable from Eero – and the primary to reach with the cutting-edge new 6Ghz wi-fi customary – it is not low cost. A single Eero Professional 6E will set you again £349, whereas the triple-pack clocks in at £799.

Like the remainder of the Eero lineup, the Professional 6E blankets your own home in Wi-Fi sign so you’ll be able to watch boxsets with out buffering, get pleasure from uninterrupted video calls, and stream music from anyplace. The Amazon-owned firm’s intelligent TrueMesh system cleverly juggles your units, so that you’re at all times linked to the closest Eero for sturdy sign. With the Eero Professional 6E, the corporate will future-proof your community – unleashing a completely new 6GHz motorway for units that help the brand new customary.

Because it stands, there in all probability aren’t that many devices in your assortment able to profiting from this cutting-edge wi-fi expertise, so the Eero Professional 6E will solely develop into extra helpful over time. With two ethernet ports on each unit, you’ll get pleasure from 1Gbps wired speeds for a number of units from every node. In fact, you will have to have the most recent full-fibre speeds coming into your own home to essentially reap the benefits of the advances on this gorgeous Eero package …one thing that solely Virgin Media and BT-owned Openreach may help with, not Eero.