Will an Eero alert you to new devices on network?

Due to concerns with a neighbor I’m looking at upgrading the security of my network and am looking for a router that will alert me to new devices on network. I also want HomeKit support ant Eero looks like the best option. I need something that will alert me when a new device connects to the network.

Eero does notify you whenever a device joins your network

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Perfect!! Thank you!! :smiley:

In addition to the notifications of newly-added devices, Eero’s app provides the option to block a device from the network.

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Eero will alert you when your own devices rejoin the network from time to time. There are a lot of false positives.

If you set a good, strong WiFi password, you will either have no problem with your neighbour joining it, or your neighbour works for an intelligence agency that is sitting on a very valuable zero-day bug. If it’s the latter, report them to their boss, because burning a bug that good to avoid paying for Internet should be a fireable offence :slight_smile:

Just FYI for those not aware…

For my family’s iOS devices, I have disabled Private Network for the home network. This has pretty much eliminated new device join notifications for known/trusted devices on my Eero setup. The exception is when relatives (for whom I am the IT department) visit after several weeks; in those cases, I get notified but it’s a good early warning when the notification comes in when they are just pulling up to the house. :grinning:

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I’m starting to suspect this. :joy: I do have a long password but there are two devices on my network I didn’t recognize. I paused their connection and haven’t had issues with any of my devices after that. I’m using CenturyLinks Wifi 6 gigabyte router and their app to monitor things.

And it’s more than just him using my internet for free. He’s not stable…putting it nicely…with nothing but time and money to waste.

I misread your initial post as that you’re already using Eero. There’s a lot of flakey crapware out there for consumer routers/modems/wireless APs so they may not be needing anything especially sophisticated to break in. I truly doubt that they could get onto an Eero (or other similar) network. Keep in mind though, that it’s trivially easy to change the MAC address on most computers, so trying to use consumer grade equipment to detect unwanted devices may not get you what you’re looking for. Really though, if you go with a good WiFi system you should be fine.

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Can you set up the Eero to only allow devices that you approve?

Yes, but I believe it is part of their subscription for “Eero Secure” or “Eero Secure Plus.”

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No. If they have the password, they can access the network.

Even worse, it used to be easier to identify devices by MAC address but newer devices like iPhones and iPads obfuscate their actual MAC address and show different ones which makes it more difficult.

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You can add any unwanted devices that you find to the block list, which is not quite the same thing as only permitting certain devices, but that’s what the WiFi password is for :slight_smile:

FYI, I’ve noticed an issue with my blocking/unblocking a device. It might be me. I can’t pin it down. I’ve informed eero Support.

I blocked an “unknown” device with the idea that when I noticed a device not working, I’d unblock it. I did find it, and it was my iPhone which for whatever reason was not recognised by the eero even though it previously had logged in. Perhaps after an IOS upgrade or something. Who knows.

Since unblocking, that iPhone sometimes drops the connection to the eero network and then is unable to connect. Same result when this happens even when I attempt to connect to the Guest network. I did a Settings → Reset → Reset Network on the device, and anecdotally it seems to helped.

The issue not yet irritating enough that I’l going to round and reset all the eero devices, but I mention it none the less.

In the meantime, I’m going to count on having a “good” WiFi password as adequate protection from real “unknowns” and will avoid blocking.

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Have you tired turning off private WiFi for your home network on your iDevices? (Thanks @JoePreiser)

Use private Wi-Fi addresses in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 - Apple Support (CA)

Now “on”. Have switched to “off” on iPhone and we’ll see what happens.

I think I like the idea of having private WiFi “on”, but for a debbugging exercise, will try.

Hard to test the negative, though.

Thanks.

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Note that you can turn it off for specific networks without having to turn it off for all networks.

Here’s Apple’s page about it:

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Good Catch! Yes, that’s what I did; but didn’t capture in my head that it was for that network to which I did it! Thanks for pointing out my misconception! Probably caused by reading too fast (bad habit).

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I just set up my Eero Pro 6 and used 1Password to create a random 63 character password. I don’t think he’ll be getting in, if he was in the first place. :joy:

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Wait! 63 randomly chosen characters, or a random character repeated 63 times?? :wink:

It was a minor character from one episode of the third season. No one will ever guess which one.

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