New Router

[Babs]

My home is a long ranch-style, with a basement and upstairs (we never use the upstairs). ~5000 square feet on the main floor,

Ranch-style houses don't have an upstairs.

[doctorcoug]

Two weeks with my mesh network, and it totally lives up to the bill! Absolutely love it. When the internet is dead from the ISP, which is daily, it automatically turns off the wifi so I can connect via 3g. It transitions from one node to the next node to the next with ease as I walk through the house.

In short, I'm very very impressed.

via a galaxy s3 far far away

[FMCoug]

Just installed mine the other day. So far it had been great.

[falafel]

Ranch-style houses don't have an upstairs.

They do if they have a basement.

[clackamascoug]

I recently sent my son a computer, including the old router and wireless card. For my new system I got this set up.



If I knew it would have been so much nicer, I would have done it last year.

($149)

[doctorcoug]

One month in and I'm very pleased to say this is the best networking device I've used. This list includes cisco, linksys, dlink, netgear, and axim. Hands down it gets the job done.

I'll reiterate, my favorite feature, besides self heal and self install, is the wifi down mode. The network is smart enough to take itself down when it recognizes the gateway has no connection so that mobile devices may connect automatically to wireless data. It is superb.

When my mother was visiting and asked for access, I told her there was a public network available for ten bucks a day that accepted paypal. That was my way of keeping her from ignoring my kids. Well, that would have been nice if I had actually stuck with it.

via a galaxy s3 far far away

[FMCoug]

Just installed mine the other day. So far it had been great.

This has definitely solved my WiFi coverage problems. However, it sets itself up as a separate network that routes to your main network and I have had some problems with kerberos authentication over wireless among other things.

[Northwestcoug]

Our old router bit the dust a month ago, so we looked at the big names to upgrade. We figured ~$150 should get us a decent one, and we ended up with a Linksys. Almost immediately we noticed problems with our wi-fi. It seemed if it wasn't accessed for a few minutes it would slow to a crawl. We tried changing a bunch of settings, but nothing really changed much.

So out of the blue eero showed up in my twitter feed, and then a couple of days later the Wall Street Journal reviewed it. Their verdict; a little pricey but very good. HLS for me.

If you're not in the know, it's a multiple access point system. Unlike other routers, it pushes software updates automatically. I went online to see what they recommended. I'm not sure if I want to give away the size of our home to the CS crowd, but they suggested getting a set of 3 access points. The price: 500. Here's what you get with a 3 pack:

hqdefault.jpg

Anyways, I just finished setting it up. It was extremely easy and fast. It's based on a cell phone app. The process even tests location strengths and helps finding locations for best coverage. I've gone throughout all the house and the backyard to test streaming video. I haven't found a dead zone yet. I'm very pleased. A guest network is easily configured, and you send invites via text to your guests.

I'm sure I could have found a cheaper solution, but this is working great. If you're looking to upgrade, apparently a couple of startup companies will be offering somewhat cheaper but similar systems this summer. But definitely look into eero. I highly recommend it.

https://eero.com

[old_gregg]

why not just set up some repeaters for about $450 less

[Jeff Lebowski]

I used to use a system with repeaters like that. I was quite proud of how it worked and even helped a few CS folks rig up a similar system. Then I got an Apple Airport Extreme ($180) and I found that I could turn off all my repeaters and I still had full saturation all through my house. Sold my repeaters and never looked back. Works beautifully. I also get 1.5 gigabit throughput, which is nice with my Google Fiber gigabit connection.

[Northwestcoug]

why not just set up some repeaters for about $450 less

Because, silly, 500 also buys me some slick sexy looking devices.

I used to use a system with repeaters like that. I was quite proud of how it worked and even helped a few CS folks rig up a similar system. Then I got an Apple Airport Extreme ($180) and I found that I could turn off all my repeaters and I still had full saturation all through my house. Sold my repeaters and never looked back. Works beautifully. I also get 1.5 gigabit throughput, which is nice with my Google Fiber gigabit connection.

I looked at the Apple airport extender, but then I realized I still had a crap router. I also looked into getting the extreme, but I wanted better coverage for our backyard. Since our modem is at the other end of the house, I thought it was likely I would need some extender for outside. I'm not sure if that would have been the case for me, but that addition made the price closer to what I ended up paying for the eero.

In the end, I was sold on a positive review, a funny intro video, smart advertising, and sleek hardware. And so far, I'm happy.

[Moliere]

I used to use a system with repeaters like that. I was quite proud of how it worked and even helped a few CS folks rig up a similar system. Then I got an Apple Airport Extreme ($180) and I found that I could turn off all my repeaters and I still had full saturation all through my house. Sold my repeaters and never looked back. Works beautifully. I also get 1.5 gigabit throughput, which is nice with my Google Fiber gigabit connection.

Same situation here...minus the google fiber

[ewth8tr]

why not just set up some repeaters for about $450 less

Eero is a mesh network, so no multiple SSID's and having to switch between them.

[Northwestcoug]

What ewth8tr said.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Eero is a mesh network, so no multiple SSID's and having to switch between them.

You can do this with most repeaters. When I was using apple express systems as extenders this is how I would do it. One network with one SSID.