I live in a house, and for the longest time my biggest headache was that Wi-Fi simply did not reach everywhere. Move to a room far from the router and the signal drops off: videos buffer, video calls freeze.
So I took the plunge and set up two Amazon eero Pro 6E units as a mesh Wi-Fi network. It has been exactly six months now, so let me sum up what I liked, along with the parts where I honestly thought "this one is going to divide people."
One caveat up front: internet speed varies enormously depending on your plan, the structure of your home, and the devices you use. Please read this as one example of "how it went in my house."
What is mesh Wi-Fi, anyway?
Mesh Wi-Fi is a setup where you place several Wi-Fi devices (units) around your home and link them together so they form one big Wi-Fi area.
There is a similar-sounding product called a Wi-Fi extender (repeater), but in practice it felt like a completely different thing. With an extender, you usually end up with a separate network name (SSID) on the extender side. That is the annoying part where you manually switch between "the downstairs one" and "the upstairs one" depending on where you are.
Mesh Wi-Fi, on the other hand, basically gives you a single network name even with multiple units. The units talk to each other and automatically hand your device off to whichever unit has the best conditions at that moment. You never have to think about it, and that is the biggest difference.
In fact, when I carry my phone around the house, I have never once had to switch anything manually. That was the single point where I most felt "glad I bought this."
What kind of product is the eero Pro 6E?
The eero Pro 6E is a mesh Wi-Fi router that supports Wi-Fi 6E. Here are the main specs.
- Wi-Fi 6E (AXE5400)
- Tri-band: 2.4GHz / 5GHz / 6GHz
- Supports 2.5Gbps Ethernet (wired LAN)
- Around 100 simultaneously connected devices
- Coverage of about 190m² with one unit, 380m² with two, and 560m² with three
- Built-in smart home hub features supporting Thread / Matter / Zigbee
- Advanced security features available through the paid "eero Plus" subscription
Roughly speaking, it is positioned as a higher-end model for households on a gigabit-or-faster internet plan. It is enough to think of tri-band as meaning there are three lanes for the radio waves to travel on, and Matter / Thread / Zigbee as the names of communication standards used to connect smart home devices.
Why I went with two units in a house
My reason for choosing two units was simple: I looked at the stated coverage figures and thought "one might not be enough." Even if one unit looks sufficient on paper, a house spans multiple floors, so walls and floors weaken the signal. Floor area alone does not tell the whole story.
As it turned out, two units was the right call. Six months in, there is basically nowhere in the house where I think "the signal is weak here." I can move from room to room without video or music cutting out, and I can walk to another room mid-video-call and keep talking.
Of course results will vary with your building's structure and wall materials, but for anyone in a house struggling with a weak signal upstairs, a two-unit setup can be a very realistic solution.
The upside and the limits of Wi-Fi 6E and the 6GHz band
The "E" in eero Pro 6E is the E from Wi-Fi 6E. It is a standard that adds a new lane for radio waves, the 6GHz band, on top of the traditional 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The advantage of 6GHz is that relatively few devices use it yet, so it is less prone to congestion.
That said, to be honest about it: you cannot use the 6GHz band unless your device supports it too. If your phone or laptop is not Wi-Fi 6E compatible, it will keep connecting over 2.4GHz or 5GHz just as before. Buying a 6E router does not magically make everything faster.
Still, compatible devices are gradually increasing. If you plan to use it for several years, getting ahead of the standard is a reasonable way to think about it.
Stability after six months
This is the part I most wanted to write about in a long-term review. To cut to the chase: I cannot remember rebooting it once in six months. With my previous setup, unplugging and replugging the router whenever things felt slow had become almost a habit, but I have not done that at all since switching to eero.
I have not run into sudden dropouts either. As for speed, in my environment I get a steady 700Mbps or so. There are few moments where things feel noticeably different depending on the time of day, and "stable" is my honest impression across the whole six months.
That said, this is just what I measured in my own home. Speed varies greatly with your internet plan, your living environment, and the devices you connect, so please do not take it as a figure everyone will hit.
I think networking gear is the kind of thing you forget exists when it is working well. In that sense, barely having to think about it for six months is a pretty high compliment.
Setup and the app experience
Setup was almost anticlimactically easy. You install the dedicated smartphone app and follow the on-screen instructions. There is none of the old-school routine of typing an IP address into your browser and wrestling with settings you have never seen before.
Day-to-day management happens in the app too. Being able to check which devices are connected and how each unit is doing right from your phone is genuinely convenient. Being easy to set up even if you are not a networking person is a big selling point, though conversely, if you want to tinker with granular settings yourself, you may find it lacking.
Plenty of headroom even in a smart-device-heavy home
It supports around 100 simultaneous connections. At first I thought "I'll never use that many," but once you count phones, PCs, TVs, game consoles, plus smart speakers, smart plugs, lights, sensors and so on, the number adds up surprisingly fast.
On top of that, the eero Pro 6E includes smart home hub features supporting Thread / Matter / Zigbee. With compatible products, there are cases where you no longer need a separate dedicated hub, and cutting one device out of the setup is welcome both for the cabling and for how things look.
Honest downsides and who it may not suit
It is by no means a cheap product. Since mesh Wi-Fi means buying multiple units at once, the upfront cost inevitably ends up higher than a single standalone router. If you live somewhere a single router can cover, such as a studio apartment, it is likely to be overkill.
Some security features cost extra. The paid eero Plus subscription unlocks advanced security features, but that becomes a running cost. It is worth understanding that buying the hardware does not get you everything.
There are still not many Wi-Fi 6E devices. As mentioned above, benefiting from the 6GHz band requires device-side support, so if your goal is to squeeze the most out of the gear you already own, there may be a gap between expectation and reality.
If you rely on wired connections, check the port layout. If you want to connect several devices by cable, it is worth checking the product page beforehand to see whether the built-in LAN ports will be enough. If not, adding a switching hub solves it.
Who I would recommend it to
I would recommend it to people who:
- Live in a house or a home with many rooms and have spots where Wi-Fi does not reach
- Are on a gigabit-or-faster internet plan but feel they are not getting the most out of it
- Are not comfortable configuring networking gear and want to keep things as simple as possible
- Have lots of smart home devices and want headroom on connection counts
Conversely, it may not suit people who:
- Live somewhere a single router covers comfortably, such as a studio apartment
- Want to keep upfront costs as low as possible
- Want to fine-tune router settings themselves
Wrapping up
After six months, the two-unit eero Pro 6E setup has made the Wi-Fi in my house comfortable across the board. It connects everywhere, I never think about switching networks, and reboots are essentially unnecessary. Gaining more time where I simply do not have to think about my network has been the biggest value for me.
On the other hand, it is not a cheap purchase, and depending on your home it could be overkill. If you are considering it, start by comparing the size and structure of your home against the stated coverage figures and working out how many units you actually need.
