​EERO NO MORE

By Rick Roen
 
I have been contemplating a big change to my Wi-Fi and finally pulled the plugs on my Eeros.  It was a pretty good mesh system which I have used for the past few years. 

The advantages are a basically plug-and-play setup with very few user settings to adjust and pretty good meshing from one unit to another. 

The disadvantages are they have to be inside. The Wi-Fi signal has a hard time going through block walls from room to room and I have little possibility of running ethernet cable to each router. I had to locate them near windows in site of another Eero which was not always the ideal location.

The setup I replaced starts with a Starlink satellite, through an unused vent in the roof, into a wiring closet where the main Eero connected to the Starlink router.  This fed another nine Eero’s located throughout the house. The Starlink Wi-Fi is turned off.

My inner geek made me look at dozens of YouTubes about Wi-Fi and I finally decided on Ubiquity Unifi.  This brand is more oriented to commercial use, but they have a broad product range and are widely used at home. I had a hunch that a Wi-Fi signal could more easily pass through the flat wooden joist roof than through the block inside. That proved to be true.

Here is what I have now:

• Cloud Gateway Max – the Starlink connects by ethernet cable to this device which feeds everything else.  This unit also has a Unifi application suite that controls everything.
• Three U6 Mesh Access Point – these route up to the roof from the Cloud Gateway via ethernet and cover the entire house.  They are powered by PoE (Power over Ethernet) like many UniFi products. They are rated for outdoor use. I have them mounted on 3 foot PVC pipes that sleeve on top of drain vent pipes. The ethernet cable is rated for outdoors and is slightly thicker than normal.
• Three U6 Plus Access Points – these indoor units connect to the rooftop access points and extend the Wi-Fi signal to some out of the way places like the garage. These are also PoE and are mounted on walls with Velcro sticky tape.  I probably don’t have to have these, but the signal is slightly better where they are located.

The changeover was surprising easy.  You open a free admin account at Ubiquity, plug in the Cloud Gateway after which it automatically updated to the latest version. Then you make your initial settings which are mainly to name your SSID (Wi-Fi name) and provide a password.  From there you plug in each unit which is recognized by the Cloud Gateway web interface, adopt it and repeat for the other devices. The access points automatically use the Wi-Fi settings in the Cloud Gateway.

I have quite a few “smart” devices throughout the house like Nest Thermostats, SimpliSafe security system, Tempest Weather Station, Kasa Smart Plugs, etc.  Most of these automatically logged in to the new network since the name and password were the same. On a few devices I had to manually enter the info again.

Now my speeds are vastly improved throughout the house.  Starlink speeds of course vary widely even from minute to minute, but I was generally getting 10 - 80 Mbps. Now I am getting 160 – 320 Mbps and the outdoor coverage goes for hundreds of feet.

Problems – not many so far after two weeks.  The only thing I notice is a connection lag when I am on a Wi-Fi phone call and changing access points. The signal doesn’t cut out, but it takes longer to switch over than the Eeros.  I will investigate this since there may be some settings I can make.

Cost – about $1,300 including the outdoor ethernet cable.  UniFi has lots of options so you could start with a much cheaper setup.  For many houses just one access point would cover everything. A U6 Lite or AC Mesh are only $100. A Cloud Gateway runs between $130 and $200. An Eero costs about $65 and frequently go on sale.
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What’s Next – maybe security cameras.  I have SimpliSafe cameras, but they don’t always connect. The Cloud Gateway has a slot to add SSD memory to record video with UniFi camera.
There are LOTS of tweaks you can make to the network which I have not investigated.  For example, you could put all your smart devices on a separate Wi-Fi network and isolate them from your personal traffic.  Many of these devices “call home” and might have access to things you don’t want to share with North Korea.  There are lots of YouTubes on UniFi that explain all the network options and devices.