Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Awesome! I just bought these last week as my Airport Extreme's were finally dying and couldn't support the load of today's needs with "smart: everything it seemed like. I, like a lot of people here it seems, was not thrilled with Amazon owning them, but to be able to get into the WiFi 6 market without having to spend over $600 was what attracted me to them (I got the non-pro versions, 3 Eero 6 routers for under $300 with their Memorial Day special) and the fact they are one of the very few to support HomeKit, it was really the only choice. I must say, I have been impressed with them. The speeds, the range, and the app most importantly, is all very well done. Easily create profiles to limit children's access and content, ability to see usage logs (just data consumption, not content) as well as it auto finding all your devices on your network, was awesome. So far, I'm very happy with them and was hoping this would be coming soon. Now with HomeKit support, these seem to be the best bang for buck out there right now. Hopefully Amazon won't destroy what seems to be a great product.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Caliber26
Not one mention yet of Ubiquiti Networks' AmpliFi HD mesh router here. I've personally had mine for several years now and they've been problem free. I'm not tied to Google or Amazon either which is a plus. I'm still using my Apple Time Capsule as a backup drive to my iMac which has been solid, too. Disabled the wifi on that in place of the AmpliFi HD. Give it a look-see in you're in the market.
 
Very cool. I bought three of these late last year, for some reason trusting a CEO I'd never heard of when he said they'd get around to HomeKit eventually. It's nice to see that trust wasn't misplaced. :)
 
Cool feature, but I would rather see PPPoE implemented. In the UK, many ISPs use PPPoE meaning we need to run Eero either in double NAT or bridge mode, neither are ideal.
 
Consumer routers are also really low margin. Apple tends to stay out of low margin product lines.

I think Apple released AirPort when there were no good user friendly all-in-one wireless routers available, but there needed to be something for Apple to fulfil it's wireless vision. In other words, they released it as a product necessary for selling other products, but not to be a revenue-generating line on it's own. But today, there are a whole ton at many different price points and most of them are good enough from a user friendliness and reliability standpoint.

You're correct, but Apple always sold its wifi routers for higher prices than the competition. I'm sure they had a nice margin on them. I remember paying at least $50-100 more for an Airport Extreme than other routers on the market that advertised an equivalent feature-set -- but the story at the time was that the extra $'s were worth it, to get the reliability and speed they offered.
 
  • Like
Reactions: xmach
Consumer routers are also really low margin. Apple tends to stay out of low margin product lines.

I think Apple released AirPort when there were no good user friendly all-in-one wireless routers available, but there needed to be something for Apple to fulfil it's wireless vision. In other words, they released it as a product necessary for selling other products, but not to be a revenue-generating line on it's own. But today, there are a whole ton at many different price points and most of them are good enough from a user friendliness and reliability standpoint.
I agree with the reason why they made the AirPort to begin with and why the discontinued it as well. It does seem that Apple just wants to integrate with 3rd party devices but I do see that one device that is a homekit hub, thread border router, wifi router, and network firewall would be a nice thing to have (to simplify user experience and drive homekit adoption and ease of use). I doubt Apple would ever let the homekit hub role to be anything but an Apple device. There might be enough benefits to integrate all these functions in one device (or rather distributed over a handful of devices in a home). If there is, it would likely have to be an Apple device.
 
  • Like
Reactions: peanuts_of_pathos
Question for you knowledge Guru's

I currently have AMPLIFI HD mesh system and works good for me but my LAN Speed of 1.2 Gbps does not travel well thru WiFi (meaning i only get like 250 on Wifi)

What would be the best option to fully take advantage of the LAN speed thru WiFi.

Thanks!
 
What would be the best option to fully take advantage of the LAN speed thru WiFi?
You could go with Wired or WiFi 6 dedicated backhaul, but it’s probably not worth the cost or trouble if your high-bandwidth devices are wired to the router. I went through this a year ago and am pretty happy with Asus WiFi 6 for cost. Wish I had kept the AmpliFi HD hardware for a dedicated IoT subnet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac
Love eero! Got a set to replace my Airport Extremes and Netgear Nighthawks and never looked back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac
Wait... Wait a minute... This is it. This is why they discontinued the HomePod but provided the recent massive feature updates. There's a new full-sized HomePod coming out that will act as a mesh WiFi6e router and a HomePod Express that will be the base router to plug into the modem with no speaker, U1 chip, etc.

Okay, okay, back to reality... Like Mr. PotatoHead once said, I can dream, can't I?

EDIT: Aaaaaand They've worked out that universal smart home protocol! Maybe, juuuust MAYBE we are going to see a new product like this optimized to be a universal home hub.
 
Last edited:
  • Love
Reactions: peanuts_of_pathos
Apple hasn't made routers for 5 years now. I loved the AirPorts but Apple wasn't the right one for wifi routers. You want someone that's going to stay on top of things and stay with the new features. Apple never did that. Theirs were usually behind the times.
I gotta disagree here their routers were awesome! Rarely did I have problems with my Apple router. I have this eero pro 6 and it’s good but not Apple good.
 
Actually, previous gen Eero have had Homekit support for almost a year now.
To my knowledge, these are the first and only WiFi 6 routers with Homekit Secure Router certification. I've enjoyed my previous gen eero Pro network with Homekit, and can now get that same Homekit experience with WiFi 6.
 
  • Like
Reactions: peanuts_of_pathos
Do any other wifi 6 routers have HomeKit support?

can the Eero 6 or Eero Pro 6 be used in “bridge mode”?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.