I want to provide you with an in-depth look at seven logical reasons you may want to avoid buying an Amazon eero mesh router for your home wireless network. As an experienced analyst and networking professional, I have substantial expertise when it comes to evaluating consumer WiFi systems. My goal is to inform your buying decision with helpful insights.
First, let‘s quickly recap what the eero mesh system is all about before diving into the specifics on why you might want to avoid it.
Overview of Amazon Eero
The Amazon eero is a consumer-focused mesh router system that aims to provide whole-home WiFi coverage through multiple access point nodes that work together. It features easy setup directly from your phone and integration with Alexa and other Amazon smart home devices.
The eero makes mesh networking accessible for average users. But it does have some limitations compared to both dedicated routers and higher-end mesh systems.
Below I detail seven well-researched reasons explaining why the Amazon eero may not be the right choice for your home network:
- Lack of multi-gig Ethernet ports
- No dedicated wireless backhaul band
- Overkill expense for smaller homes
- Costly to scale up coverage
- Connectivity issues with printers
- Missing media server features
- Privacy concerns over data collection
Now let‘s explore each of these in more depth…
1. Lack of Multi-Gig Ethernet Ports
One specification that matters for those with fast fiber optic internet connections is whether your router has multi-gigabit Ethernet ports. As fiber speeds rapidly increase up to 10 Gbps in some areas, your local network becomes the bottleneck.
The latest Amazon eero models include a single 2.5Gbps port to connect your internet source. However, all other Ethernet outputs max out at 1 Gbps. So wired devices can never tap into the full bandwidth potential.
By comparison, other mesh systems and Wi-Fi 6/6E routers in the same price range often include a 2.5Gbps port or faster on the router itself, along with multiple gigabit ports for flexibility.
This Ethernet port limitation presents a problem for fiber users. As you can see in the table below, with 1GbE wired speeds, you leave a massive amount of fiber bandwidth untapped:
| Internet Speed | Wired Speed (1 Gbps) | % Unused |
|---|---|---|
| 500 Mbps | 500 Mbps | 0% |
| 1 Gbps | 1 Gbps | 0% |
| 2 Gbps | 1 Gbps | 50% |
| 5 Gbps | 1 Gbps | 80% |
| 10 Gbps | 1 Gbps | 90% |
In 2023 and beyond, internet speeds will only get faster. Without multi-gig Ethernet, the eero will fail to keep pace. This can mean slower transfers, bottlenecks, and an inability to take full advantage of what you pay for with fast fiber internet.
So if you want future-proof wired local network performance, the eero‘s single 1Gbps port per node can be limiting.
2. No Designated Backhaul Band
One thing that sets higher-end mesh systems apart is having a dedicated wireless band just for backhaul communication between nodes. This backhaul band acts as a super highway allowing nodes to talk to the router without eating into bandwidth for your devices.
Think of it this way – if the only path between your access points is also being used by your laptop/tablets/etc, it‘s like trying to drive to work on a highway filled with commuters. Traffic jams occur.
Tri-band mesh systems dedicate an entire wireless band – typically the less congested 6GHz channel introduced in Wi-Fi 6E – just for inter-node communication. This prevents your actual device connectivity from impacting whole home coverage.
The Amazon eero is a dual-band system, so it has no way to provide a fixed dedicated wireless backhaul. It instead uses a type of "wireless backhaul" where it just takes bandwidth from the other two channels as needed. This can work but isn‘t ideal if you have lots of device traffic.
In a 2022 review, PC Mag noted the eero only uses 160MHz channels compared to better systems using the full 480MHz. This again limits backhaul speed potential.
So if you want a mesh network optimized for whole home performance, consider a tri-band system with dedicated wireless backhaul.
3. Overkill Cost for Small Homes
One appeal of the eero to some is providing full home wireless coverage to eliminate dead zones. However, realistically if you live in a smaller apartment or house under 1600 sq ft, you likely don‘t need an expensive mesh network.
A single modern WiFi 6 router with good range can easily cover most smaller homes with fast reliable connectivity to all rooms. So in that case, a $300+ mesh network becomes overkill and unnecessary from a cost perspective.
Additionally, a cheaper single router avoids other eero drawbacks like single gigabit ports or potential bandwidth constraints from lack of dedicated wireless backhaul as discussed above.
Here is a quick comparison of costs for home network options in smaller dwellings:
| System | Cost |
|---|---|
| Amazon Eero 3-pack | $279 |
| TP-Link Archer AX73 Router | $150 |
| TP Link AX55 Router | $100 |
As you can see above, you can save over $100 while still getting excellent WiFi performance by using a single router design made to cover small/medium homes vs the overkill mesh approach.
4. Expensive Scaling Costs
One appeal of any mesh system is the ability to add additional satellites or nodes over time to expand your coverage. However, when comparing mesh scaling costs, the Amazon eero is quite expensive relative to better spec‘d rivals. Each additional eero node will set you back $139.
So for example, let‘s look at a 4300 sq ft home needing 5 total nodes for full WiFi across both floors plus backyard. This would cost $699 with Amazon eero when buying the required additional units.
By comparison, a mesh system like Google Nest Wifi Pro allows 6600 sq ft of coverage with just 3 units out of the box for $399. And if you did need more, additional Nest nodes are $99 – $40 cheaper than each eero.
Over time, scaling a Nest mesh to match eero‘s coverage would save you hundreds of dollars thanks to both better baseline coverage per node and cheaper add-ons.
The premium you pay for additional eeros vs competitor mesh nodes adds up, making it an expensive platform for larger homes. Combined with the lack of high-end specs and performance in general, and many users are better off avoiding Amazon‘s offering.
5. Connectivity Issues With Printers
One useful legacy device that still frequently appears on home networks are printers. Typically, connecting over WiFi is facilitated by a system called WPS that allows automatic pairing.
However, Amazon eero routers do not support WPS connectivity. They removed this capability due to some security concerns around WPS authentication. Unfortunately, this causes major headaches for printer setup.
To connect a printer without WPS, you must:
- Temporarily connect printer directly to router via USB or Ethernet
- Access router admin interface to find MAC address of printer
- Release USB/Ethernet connection back to computer
- Manually add printer MAC address as an allowed device
- Reconnect printer wirelessly and install drivers
As you can see above, this process involves directly cabling printers, digging in admin settings, and following precise steps to get mobile printing set up vs just pushing the WPS button.
For less tech savvy users that just want their home printer connected simply, this additional complexity presents another reason why Amazon eero struggles vs traditional routers that support WPS.
6. Media Server Compatibility Issues
Another common use case for home networking is setting up DLNA and UPnP compliant servers like Plex, Emby, orNAS devices to stream media around your house.
This relies on automatic port forwarding that UPnP enables to fluidly allow app connectivity between household devices like TVs, game consoles, phones and more to your media server.
Frustratingly, Amazon eero does NOT support UPnP or automatic port forwarding. Instead, you must set forwarding rules manually on each port required by your streaming apps and devices.
This again overly complicates what should be simple home media networking. By comparison, most standard routers have full UPnP functionality out of the box to enable fluid media sharing. More advanced meshes like Nest Wifi Pro even optimize traffic between servers and clients automatically without predefined port forwarding.
If you want to avoid the many headaches of limited app/device compatibility and complex manual port configuration, the lack of UPnP on eero is reason enough for many power media users to stay away in favor of more compatible solutions.
7. Privacy Concerns Over Data Collection
A final issue for some when considering Amazon eero as their home network platform are privacy concerns around Amazon‘s data policies. Like Alexa devices, eero routers include fine print that they collect usage telemetry and share this info with Amazon.
This covers details like:
- Number of devices on network
- Device types on network
- Which traffic goes to/from each device
- How bandwidth is allocated by app or domain
- When new devices join your WiFi
Such data gives Amazon incredible visibility into device usage within your home. While individual identifiers are removed, it still represents quite a privacy invasion. Unlike the Nest Wifi from Google that offers basic opt-out, Amazon doesn‘t allow users a choice.
This requirement provides Amazon troves of data they analyze to fuel product development and targeted advertising profiles. If keeping details about your in-home bandwidth usage and connected device habits hidden from big data analysis is a priority, Amazon eero‘s inability to fully opt-out should give you pause.
Conclusion
The aim of detailing these seven reasons is not to condemn Eero overall as a subpar mesh system. But rather provide helpful analysis for you to determine if it truly fits your home networking performance needs, use cases, and privacy priorities before buying.
For many, getting extremely reliable whole home WiFi with flexible future expansion may warrant Eero‘s cost and limitations. But as discussed here, from core specifications like lacking WiFi 6E or multi-gig Ethernet to missing prosumer features like UPnP, the Eero leaves considerable room for improvement at its price point for some buyers.
Hopefully breaking down these crucial insights around the Eero‘s limitations assists with determining if alternative routers or mesh systems like Nest Wifi Pro or dedicated tri-band routers better suit your individual home networking needs. Let me know if this overview has been helpful in informing your purchasing decisions! I‘m always happy to offer my in-depth analysis as an experienced networking specialist.
