I’m a big fan of our Eero Mesh Wi-Fi 6 setup, even with the subscription
service that will probably eventually lead to replacing it with something that
doesn’t have an up sell like that. It’s been one of the best setups we’ve had,
handling both multiple story and single story houses like a champ.
The big gotcha that I’ve continually ran into is with 2.4 GHz devices.
There are certainly workarounds, like disabling 5 GHz temporarily while you
setup the 2.4 GHz. While a nice option, in my experience, it’s been less then
reliable.
Some stuff just won’t freakin’ connect. Other stuff will connect just fine, but
then start to randomly disconnect at the most inopportune times.
While this has definitely been a problem with our Eero network, I wouldn’t
necessarily say that it’s an Eero problem. This same situation has plagued me on
different routers that tout having dual-band capabilities.
My solution on those types of routers has been to assign different SSIDs to the
2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Unfortunately, this isn’t an option with the Eero
routers.
One of the more stubborn devices we’ve had in recent history has been our myQ
garage door opener. If you’ve never experience the joy of Amazon
delivering a package to the inside of your garage, instead of to your freakin’
neighbor’s porch, then you have no idea how great these devices are.
Things were working fine for nearly a year, then after an Eero upgrade, the myQ
hub decided that connecting to our network was a sometimes activity.
After numerous resets and attempts to get things connected again, I was finally
to the point that it was time to call it quits and go back to tracking down our
Amazon packages around town.
Then it dawned on me, I could just setup our old router to function as a 2.4 GHz
only access point.
Until I remembered, after looking through a few boxes, that I had gotten rid of
the router a while back because “it’s just collecting dust and doesn’t serve us
any purpose anymore”.
Begrudgingly, I found an inexpensive TP-Link 2.4 GHz-only router and
ordered it as a last ditch effort to get things up and running again.
Normally I stick to certain brands for technology devices, but we’re always
acquainted with TP-Link by way of some Kasa [indoor][indoor] and
[outdoor][outdoor] smart plugs.
So the router shows up, I get it setup (plugging it into one of my Eero
routers), and I connect the myQ hub to the new router (using a different SSID
than the main network). True to my theory, everything connected on the first
try, without any hassle at all. Fast forward a bit, and things are still
connected and have behaving as one would expect.
Do I love having multiple routers? Not necessarily.
While it sucks to have what I’d consider an unnecessary redundancy, it is nice
to have piece of mind that my low-end router is able to do the job for these 2.4
GHz devices, without incident.
Solid chance I’ll be moving different devices over to the new router as they
start to act up when connected to the Eero, and leave the mesh network for our
personal devices like laptops and cell phones.
