Eero Pro 6E mesh Wi-Fi review: More family sedan than sports car

Best Prices Today: Eero Pro 6E

This yr’s Computer Electronic Show (CES) got here and went, forsaking a flurry of thrilling bulletins concerning the newest Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6 community gear. Mesh methods like Netgear’s powerful-yet-too-expensive Orbi 6E system and TP-Link’s XE200 had been introduced as a throughput arms race continues to blossom, but there was no announcement from Eero. This is smart—in spite of everything, didn’t the corporate simply launch the Eero Pro 6 and Eero 6 routers? Yet right here we’re, with Eero having introduced its subsequent replace to its mesh routers unexpectedly on March 23. This included the Eero Pro 6E and the Eero 6+. 

Although ostensibly the large information right here was that Eero lastly has {hardware} supporting the 6GHz band, I’d argue that the extra essential replace to those methods is 160MHz assist. This is the means by which wi-fi speeds can method or transcend gigabit. I received an opportunity to spend a while with the Eero Pro 6E three-pack, and have been operating it as my main mesh system for the final two weeks. From the place I sit, this equipment continues to offer the type of typically hassle-free community expertise Eero is thought for, however patrons ought to mood their expectations concerning efficiency, whereas additionally noting one crucial omission: HomeKit Secure Router assist (extra on that later). 

Eero Pro 6E: What you get

Wes Davis / Foundry

My expertise with Eero’s earlier Wi-Fi 6 effort is oblique—I reviewed the Ring Alarm Pro for sister publication TechHive, which accommodates an Eero 6, however I haven’t truly seen an Eero Pro 6 in particular person. I used to be shocked, then, once I opened the field for the Eero Pro 6E, which makes use of the identical bodily design because the Pro 6, to search out that the {hardware} is a good quantity beefier than the low-profile Eero Pro that I’ve been utilizing for years now in my community. Still, in comparison with the behemoths that different corporations have been releasing, the Eero Pro 6E is a compact, unassuming router.  

Wes Davis / Foundry

Visually, as an homage to its namesake Eero Saarinen’s architectural model, it’s a tad extra subdued, and stays one of many extra inoffensive-looking, approachable routers available on the market immediately. Breaking up an in any other case clean, featureless facade is a single toggle-able standing LED, an Eero brand, and two ethernet ports on the again flanking a USB-C energy enter. There is one sneaky, main improve right here although: One of the 2 ethernet ports—both of which might function the WAN port, by the way in which—is a 2.5Gbps port, which is a primary for Eero’s {hardware}. You’d be forgiven for lacking it, because it’s labeled with the tiniest letters. If you didn’t learn something about it moving into, you’d by no means understand it was there, not least as a result of Eero is just like the 1995 Toyota Camry I used to drive—it’s going to reliably get you the place you’re going, but it surely’s not going to interrupt any data doing it.

The Eero Pro 6E is once more a tri-band router, however the place the earlier Eero Pro fashions featured a second, higher-bandwidth 4×4 MU-MIMO 5GHz band, the 6E includes a 2.5GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz band, all of that are 2×2 MU-MIMO. It’s powered by a leaner 1GHz CPU, too, versus the 1.4GHz CPU of the Eero Pro 6 earlier than it. The Pro 6E nonetheless features as a Zigbee hub and, in fact, works with Alexa. 

Eero Pro 6E: Performance

If you’re going into the Eero Pro 6E anticipating to have the doorways blown off, you’ll be sorely dissatisfied. That’s to not say it’s canine sluggish—removed from it—however while you examine it to the unbelievable throughput provided by the Orbi 6E system, it appears type of shabby by comparability. But that’s provided that you’re benchmarks proper subsequent to the router. Like a sleeper automobile, what it does greatest isn’t instantly obvious till you look deeper.  

I examined the Eero Pro 6E with three main items of kit: a MacBook Air that was hardwired to the Eero Pro 6E through a Plugable 2.5GbE USB-C ethernet adapter, a 2019 Lenovo Yoga with an AX201 card able to 160MHz channel bandwidth Wi-Fi 6 connections, and a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra that may pull off Wi-Fi 6E with 160MHz channel bandwidth. Rather than carry out web velocity assessments, I benchmark with TCP switch assessments utilizing the community testing software program iPerf 3, which simulates file transfers and studies throughput, and tells rather more concerning the efficiency of the community than a easy obtain take a look at. Because of that, I merely don’t hassle with web velocity assessments in any respect. I conduct a switch take a look at six occasions, then I common the throughput for every examined location.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Wi-Fi 6E efficiency was okay up shut, with the Eero doing a bit of worse than the Linksys Atlas Max 6E at lower than 5 ft away, with a direct line of sight. That quantity dropped off shortly once I moved away, managing “only” 639Mbps common, in comparison with 889Mbps on the Linksys and 1.22Gbps on the Netgear Orbi 6E. The story doesn’t enhance for Eero on the 6GHz band, with the sign not fairly reaching in not less than one location the place there was important bodily interference—this shouldn’t be a shock to anybody, as Wi-Fi 6E is by its nature extra range-limited and might’t push by way of substantial boundaries in addition to even a 5GHz sign. The Netgear and Linksys routers had been capable of hit this space, albeit with massively lowered throughput. 

Brad Chacos/IDG

Things get higher with Wi-Fi 6 on the 5GHz band—the Eero Pro 6E system isn’t as quick as the opposite two methods I exploit for comparability right here, but it surely nonetheless remained constant, with velocity holding inside a roughly 100Mbps vary in every single place it was examined.

Brad Chacos/IDG

On the Wi-Fi 5 protocol, the place most peoples’ gadgets nonetheless dwell, throughput on the Eero Pro 6E was in the identical ballpark because the dearer methods from Linksys and Netgear—and whereas it tended to be greater than 50Mbps slower, the $699 mesh system prices lots of lower than these routers.

Brad Chacos/IDG

Brad Chacos/IDG

It particularly shined on the two.4GHz band, the place it was neck-and-neck with the Linksys Atlas Max 6E when utilizing each Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 4 (2.4GHz gadgets don’t typically assist the Wi-Fi 5 protocol) requirements, and handily outperformed the Netgear Orbi 6E system.  

In wi-fi gaming periods, the place I performed Counter Strike: Global Offensive and stored a watch on latency, taking a number of screenshots at random intervals and averaging the ping—the very best common ping I noticed was 38ms, whereas enjoying wirelessly in my basement (the height measurement was 58ms, with a low of 25ms). That’s to not say the expertise was flawless, but it surely was as shut because it will get with out wires on a non-gaming router—or actually, even for many gaming routers. 

What does this imply in sensible phrases? It means within the day-to-day, the Eero Pro 6E mesh system is a secure mesh system that prices a bit greater than half what the Linksys system costs for efficiency that, for most individuals, shall be equivalent, or even perhaps higher, than what Linksys’s system gives. Excellent 2.4GHz efficiency and low intra-network latency signifies that when your sensible residence gear exhibits poor response occasions, it’s much less prone to be the community’s fault (although rather more goes into this than simply low latency). In my very own expertise, with a mostly-HomeKit-based sensible residence system, I noticed glorious efficiency, even with probably the most troublesome items of kit in my community.  

Eero Pro 6E: So lengthy, HomeKit? 

The Eero Pro 6E function set is unchanged from previous Eero methods, however for one key omission: There isn’t any present plan to assist Apple HomeKit. When the Eero 6 replace occurred in early 2021, these routers had been likewise launched with out HomeKit assist, with the corporate telling reviewers and prospects alike they had been merely awaiting Apple’s certification to maneuver forward with assist. That might be the case once more right here, however tellingly, Eero’s web site explicitly states not solely that there are not any plans to assist the function, however that the corporate feels it greatest to focus engineering efforts on velocity and efficiency. Eero was unwilling to elaborate on this when requested, which doesn’t bode nicely for followers of Apple’s HomeKit Secure Router function. 

Eero Pro 6E: Other options 

Otherwise, like earlier Eero methods, customers will discover within the Eero app what might be probably the most well-designed and intuitive router interface available on the market immediately, with some superior configuration potential for port ahead guidelines, UPnP toggling, and the choice to make use of a customized main and secondary DNS, must you desire to level your community at Google or Cloudflare, slightly than Eero’s most well-liked DNS—though this comes on the expense of Eero Secure and Secure+ options. It’s strong for a router smartphone app, towing a pleasant center line between being so technical it’d drive away extra novice customers and being so primary that it gives no actual management. Eero nonetheless gives no net interface for normal prospects, and anybody in search of fine-grained management of issues like transmission energy or toggles for superior options like OFDMA might want to look elsewhere. Past Eero routers provided no capacity to separate SSIDs between the two.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and that is still as true as ever with the brand new 6GHz variant—you’ll should depend on the negotiation between your gadget and the Eero router selecting the best connection kind. As earlier than, Eero gives WPA3 safety—the brand new safety protocol that, in a nutshell, guarantees to repair dangerous passwords by primarily by no means truly exchanging these passwords throughout authentication handshakes. 

Wes Davis / Foundry

Eero’s safety and parental controls suite—the aforementioned Eero Secure—is, in fact, obtainable right here. For $30 a yr, Eero offers community ad- and malware-blocking, together with the flexibility to view which gadgets used how a lot information over the day past, week, and month. Eero additionally offers parental controls within the type of primary profile-based content material filters. Users can select pre-made net and app filters for numerous age teams and go away it at that, or they’ll increase these settings by going to the Block & Allow Sites part to customise filtering to their liking. Anyone who desires to go additional might join the $100/yr Secure+, which gives all of that, in addition to malware safety from Malwarebytes for as much as three gadgets, Encrypt.me VPN service for 5 gadgets, and entry to the 1password household plan. Overall, the plans really feel value it, in the event you like these sorts of providers—customers ought to be aware, nonetheless, that Encrypt.me engages in logging users’ information, and the corporate is open about not providing privateness to customers who hope to make use of its service to circumnavigate copyright infringement legal guidelines. It doesn’t appear to be any of what the corporate is doing is especially alarming, however potential customers will need to concentrate on Encrypt.me’s insurance policies earlier than diving in.  

Wes Davis / Foundry

Eero Pro 6E: Final ideas 

Eero’s latest mesh routers are each bit the dependable community gear they ever had been. The addition of just one 2.5Gbps port is a drained misstep that many router corporations make, on condition that customers received’t seemingly see that velocity, both wirelessly or wired, at their consumer gadgets. For anybody already utilizing an Eero Pro 6 system, the profit conferred by a 160MHz connection might not be value the additional price, notably if any of their consumer gadgets assist 4×4 MIMO, which is obtainable by the Eero Pro 6, however not the Eero Pro 6E. 

At the tip of the day, nonetheless, the Eero Pro 6E’s strengths are in its capacity to really feel prefer it doesn’t exist. Often, once I’m reviewing a router, I discover myself consistently futzing with it for not less than just a few days whereas I iron out kinks, however this method labored with out problem for your entire time I had it. Although, to be truthful, I did change my current Eero community with these gadgets—a really simple course of, for the document—so my system configuration was preserved. Even so, video and music streaming, on-line video games, and my sensible residence gadgets labored completely, or not less than, as completely as they ever do. It was a transparent enchancment over my getting older Wi-Fi 5-based Eero system when it comes to responsiveness over the native community, however I’ve a sense it’s not an enormous leap over the Eero Pro 6, if in any respect (once more, I’ve not examined the Eero Pro 6). 

The Eero Pro 6E three-pack is a superb mesh system that continues to be dependable and simple to make use of. It might not sustain with the large canine in throughput, but it surely’s loads cheaper, and that mixed with trouble-free day-to-day use makes it a greater worth than the status mesh methods provided by different corporations. So at $699, would I run out and purchase one proper now? Of course not. But I wager if I did, I wouldn’t remorse it.