Since about 2005, I’ve been using an Apple AirPort Extreme for my home Wi-Fi router. For me, it was the best, most reliable, and low maintenance router on the market, even though it was far from the cheapest. Until recently, I was using Apple’s “new” 802.11ac AirPort Extreme and it has served me well in the 3+ years I’ve had it. It provided seemingly pretty good Wi-Fi coverage of my 4 bedroom house but there were a few areas where the signal just wasn’t reaching very well.
Ever since eero came on the market, the promise of uniform blanket Wi-Fi coverage really appealed to me but I couldn’t justify the cost. Over the holidays, eero had a promotion for $50 off the eero and two eero Beacons and I finally pulled the trigger. As advertised, the setup was silly easy and I gotta say, the uniform Wi-Fi coverage is the real deal.
Prior to setting it up, I decided to do some Wi-Fi speed tests in various places around my house using the AirPort Extreme. Then I did the same speed test after eero and the two eero Beacons were set up and in place.
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The results were staggering (see below). Or view the spreadsheet of the same data.
AirPort Extreme (Mbps)
- Upstairs Master Bedroom: 58.2 Mbps down, 36.8 up
- Upstairs Guest Bedroom: 5.2 down, 11.7 up
- Kitchen: 10.0 down, 25.8 up
- Family Room: 57.8 down, 37.0 up
- Dining Room: 15.7 down, 19.9 up
- Garage: 5.5 down, 12.7 up
- Basement: 9.9 down, 37.5 up
eero (Mbps)
- Upstairs Master Bedroom: 58.6 down, 36.6 up
- Upstairs Guest Bedroom: 58.4 down, 37.3 up
- Kitchen: 58.3 down, 37.2 up
- Family Room: 58.6 down, 36.8 up
- Dining Room: 58.0 down, 37.4 up
- Garage: 30.9 down, 7.28 up
- Basement: 54.9 down, 11.2 up
For the speed tests, I used Google’s speed test in mobile Safari on iPhone X¹.
I couldn’t be happier with my eero purchase². It was worth every penny and now I have significant Wi-Fi speed improvements in virtually every room in my house.
- I realize there are more scientific ways of testing Wi-Fi speed and coverage but this was a simple way to get the job done.
- I’m not affiliated with eero in any way.
