Upgrading Our Internet and our Wi-Fi: Chapter 1: My eero disappointment

Hardware
1

This will be something that I plan to update later, but I wanted to get it written down while I was still able to remember the details.

We recently upgraded our home Internet from 100 down/10 up to 400 down/20 up. The “Up” was the main consideration for us, but obviously knowing that I could get 400 down (or “up to” 400 down) was enticing.

I brought home the new equipment, managed to get it up and running and…

120 down / 20 up.

Re-ran the test.

160 down / 20 up.

Re-ran the test

140 down / 20 up.

This was over the course of several hours from several different devices, all using either SpeedTest website or their various apps.

When I talked to the tech support people, they said what you’d expect: “Well, to get an accurate result, you should plug directly into the modem.”

Ugh. So I shut down my Mac mini, brought it upstairs, and plugged it directly into the eero that is connected to the modem (the modem itself only has one Ethernet port).

240 down/20 up.

Huh, well, that’s significantly better. Still nowhere near 400, but ok.

Disconnected everything, brought it back to its usual spot and then plugged everything back in. Which is when I realized: "Wait, technically, I didn’t actually plug in directly to the modem. I plugged into the eero which is plugged into the modem. But would that even matter?

Well, I realized that if I told the tech support this, he would say “Did you test it with your computer plugged directly into the modem?” No. I hadn’t. So I unplugged everything from the Mac mini, brought it back upstairs, and plugged it directly into the modem.

455 down / 20 up.

Whoa.

Then I finally remembered that you can run a speed test directly from the eero app, and it runs one every night. I checked and it had run a self-test and clocked in at 430 down and 20/up.

Now, this system is fairly new: eero Pro mesh WiFi system (1 Pro + 2 Beacons) purchased in July of 2019. Seems completely reasonable that the eero Pro ought to be able to do better than this. It’s hardly the upper-edge of Internet speeds available (despite being the fastest available here).

Just to check, I swapped out one of my old eero units with Ethernet to see if it would do any better. It did much worse.

So, I’m at a loss as to know what to try now. I’ve contacted eero support and hope they’ll have some suggestions. Maybe my eero pro was just faulty and we never realized it because it was able to handle 100 down OK.

I really like the eero, and don’t want to have to try to figure out what else to try if they can’t offer me a solutution.

But I also know myself well enough to know that if I can get 400 but I’m only getting 200, I won’t be able to just live with that without trying something to make it better.

Here ends chapter 1. Hopefully Chapter 2 will be “eero Tech Support Fixes Everything!”

2 Likes
2

I have to say I found Eero pretty disappointing. I honestly can’t tell you what I tried or exactly what I did with it. I found little difference in performance. I eventually got a Verizon guy to change our router and replace it in a place he thought would be better. I also I think got a increase in speed. Huge improvements. I was very disappointed with the Eero to be honest. I haven’t even got any major wi fi ‘shields’ in our smallish house either. In one case the eero only had to transmit five feet vertically to the next floor, only wood between. No improvement what so ever.

1 Like
3

Interesting. I wonder if it’s meaningful that Ethernet was roughly half of your actual speed and WiFi was roughly half of that. That almost makes it sound like some kind of double work is occurring. Curious what support ends up saying.

I always get my stated speed but only pay for 120/6 ($30/mo!) so cant help test, unfortunately.

4

How good / new is the network cable you’re using?
I remembered that network switches used to be only 10/100 years ago so wondered if the same was true of network cables.
Looks like cat5 is only rated to 100Mbps at 100 meters (though maybe you’d see better over shorter distances?). You need cat 5e or better to get up to 1000Mbps.
The category of the cable is usually printed on the side of it.
If you’ve some spare cables might be worth switching them round too to rule out a dodgy cable.

2 Likes
5

Hmm. I got an eero (the basic $99 router) in March and have been getting 236/12 consistently which is about the upper limit of my network.

3 Likes
6

I recently replaced my AirPort Extreme (and Express) APs with Ubiquiti UniFi APs and I can’t be happier with the results. I’m consistently getting 400Mbps up and down in my speed tests, where as before, depending on the AP I was connected to, I’d get 250Mbps at best.

Wifi Speed Test Results
Wifi Speed Test Results974×381 23.2 KB

I realize the Unifi system isn’t designed for home use. But if you’re considering an alternative to eero, you may want to checkout the Ubiquiti AmpliFi line of mesh wifi products.

2 Likes
7

dang who is your isp to get those upload speeds?

8

My city added municipal fiber-to-the-home to our neighborhood a few years ago. I’ve been rocking 1Gbps ever since. I also told my wife we can never move ; )

2 Likes
9

Consistently getting great WiFi speed through our eero setup.

image
image1242×1180 123 KB

3 Likes
10

That’s a good thought. I tried the same cable that I had used with the Mac mini direct when I saw the highest speeds, and it was still only in the 200s. So, better, but not nearly as good as.

Still nothing from eero other than an automated reply.

2 Likes
11

I had similar speed issues when using the Eero vs. direct connect to my router. Eero Support suggested factory resetting all of my Eeros and that actually fixed my issue. Same speed through the Eeros or direct connect to router after the reset.

1 Like
12

Huh. Well. Since I still haven’t heard from them, I guess it is worth a try

If I do it now and if it doesn’t work, I can tell them that I’ve already tried that (assuming they do eventually get in touch).

If I do it now and it does work, well, then, problem solved.

1 Like
13

Where are you @jacobio? I am interested in this. Partly because as far as I know, in Pennsylvania it is ‘illegal’ for municipalities to set up delivery systems. I am not sure of the exact legal situation. Up until recently Comcast has a monopoly and speed was grim. Verizon now is part of the duopoly and in fairness much better.

14

I live in Utah. A bunch of cities formed a co-op of sorts to bring municipal fiber-to-the-home. The co-op provides the infrastructure and the homeowner picks from a fairly large selection of ISPs. It’s like how DSL used to work in the late 90’s and early 2000’s,

The ISP I went with doesn’t employ traffic shaping, supports net-neutrality and has a long track record of protecting their customer’s privacy.

Suffice it to say, I’m very happy with speed and reliability of my broadband connection.

We also have a couple of cities where Google Fiber is available (although, the build-out isn’t complete.)

3 Likes
15

While not Eero related, my verizon gigabit gets me about 250/250 over wifi when I am beside the router on my iPad, and 1000/1000 when I plug the ethernet into the iPad. I am wondering if there is a way to improve the wifi speeds

16

Are you suing the ISP-provided wifi access point? If so, you could very likely get better speeds by installing a prosumer wifi system like eero or AmpliFi.

1 Like
17

Yes, just using the verizon router.

19

I think they last month they’ve been absolutely buried with support from new customers with so many ppl working from home. They’re still digging their way out. I’d recommend asking your questions on the Eero subreddit, lots of info there.

1 Like
20

Thank you so much for the info. It really is interesting to me.

3 Likes
21

I found with Verizon it helped when I got them to give me a new Verizon router or whatever it is called. I had a similar problem. Frankly I found eero didn’t work well with Verizon stuff for me and I got Verizon to rejig my wifi somehow with a new router. Some of these things are years old. I find that it is way too technical for me. Most of this thread I can’t even understand for example and the whole point of eero is plug in and walk away I thought? Like Apple gear really for most people: power-use is a kind of ‘add on’ as I see it and shouldn’t be a requirement to use gear or get it to work as it should. The Verizon guy left his stapler behind, I phoned them he never came for it… ! I keep it safe.

2 Likes