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So far in animation , I have n’t needed be a “ mesh cat . ” A well - chosen and cautiously lay Wi - Fi router has exercise alright in our modest abode , but one particular situation has resisted simple solutions until Eero put out a gadget in November seemingly made exactly for the determination .
This wo n’t be a exhaustive interrogation of the whole Eero ecosystem , but I wanted to let others who might have a alike situation have a go at it what did and did n’t work .
I have the privilege of having a cabin out in the country up here in the Pacific Northwest . While the cabin itself is little and undefended enough that even the ISP - provided modem - router combo has gotten the line of work done , there ’s also a b ( now with guest bedrooms , one of which is even insulate ) about 300 metrical unit away through clear light touch and branch . It ’s well outside the scope of even a serious multi - antenna router .
We ’ve pondered connecting the b to the Wi - Fi one way or another for years . Originally , it was ok to have inconsistent internet out there ( it ’s a cabin in the woods ! ) , but now the kid last out out there and want to watch shows before bed or meet iPad secret plan away from the adults . The electric cell coverage in the area has gotten right smart better , but you really require Wi - Fi for that material .
alas , the landscape and deficiency of business leader anywhere between the two buildings resisted fitting . Every solution we pondered was either a pain in the cervix or obviously overkill and beyond our technical power . We had actually just decided that the simplest way to do it was to bury a 300 - foot Ethernet overseas telegram , or else a conduit to power a bigger repeater , when theEero Outdoor 7came out .
The primary purpose of the Outdoor 7 was , as far as I could tell apart , to knock down your big yard with Wi - Fi so you could doomscroll in the hammock or treehouse or whatever . It ’s essentially a weather - sealed , directional thickening for your Eero web . But what get my eye in the announcement was that you could habituate two of them as a long - distance bridge . I immediately touch the troupe and sent them this diagram ( not remotely to surmount ) to explain what I hoped was potential :
The green one is the main in - house matter , while the blue ones are the outside unit . jolly just , ripe ?
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Little did I know their promo material had fundamentally the same affair but generate with slightly greater precision :
At any rate , they ship me a set to review .
Despite not being a mesh guy , I ’ve put up a few networks — as you could no doubt severalize from my technical diagram — but somehow never one from Eero . I can say now that this was the easiest of the crowd by a fair margin . I set up the firm first with a steady unit , then looked into the operating instructions for the Outdoor 7 .
Generally speak , the guide tell , you want it to be mounted as high up as you may reach on an exterior wall , with line of mass to the name and address node and no obstacle like George H.W. Bush and tree in the agency . have it . So anyway , I equilibrate it on a chunk of 8×8 I discover by the woodpile , leaning ever so more or less against the glass of the ( always shut ) back door . Also it looks directly out into some rubble and a fairly good - size spray of salal and a magnanimous Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree midway . Nailed it !
I did n’t do this out of unmingled laziness — well , not all . But the way the office is arrange , it really only would have been a couple feet up and to one side had I mounted it “ properly ” using an outdoor outlet and mount hardware . So I thought , why clutter up the exterior and get myself wet in the appendage ( it was rain ) if it can be “ elevated ” by this chip of wood and have only a pane of chicken feed between it and the outdoors where it belong ?
in reality , I did n’t know if this would work . For all I knew , the affair was just mainlining YouTube direct into the rock music . I had to go out to the b and put up its spouse first to discover out .
I at least had the sense to test the range beforehand , though . With the original ISP router , I got about 100 animal foot out in a straight shot before my phone failed over to cellular . After exchange the inside Eero unit , I got to around 150 foundation , the middle of the field . With the exterior unit on its little perch , I got more or less to the wall of the barn before it began dropping out . But inside the door was a total no - go .
A fortuitously placed release on the barn exterior allowed me to mount the 2nd Outdoor building block a niggling more as commend , several animal foot up and rough face the first ; I did n’t apply the mounting kit and just hung it on a couplet nail ( in case the localisation did n’t employment ) , so it ’ll probably shove off in the wind until I do it aright . But the enceinte thing was , even here , beyond dependable stove for my phone ’s Wi - Fi signal , I was able to scan the barcode on the bottom of the machine , sync over Bluetooth , and connect it to the house internet within a few minutes of plugging it in . No logins , no 192.168.1.1 , no nothing .
It was simple enough I was sure I ’d done it faulty somehow . But I went inside and indeed , the Outdoor unit — despite pointing the other direction — was spray insurance coverage inside the barn to a considerable extent , reaching all the bedrooms with 100 + megabits . There were a couple spotty zones , but nothing serious , so I may add up an inner unit to make it unshakable .
evidently this resolution was not cheap . The Eero Pro and two outside guys will run you north of a grand , though I could easy have gotten by with a non - Pro upcountry building block or even a last - gen one , which would have saved me a government note or two .
But regard the alternatives : Running a cable would have meant at least a duet hundred bucks to rent the trench - cutting equipment ( I ’m not doing 300 pes with a flat spade ) plus the mesh computer hardware , not to refer the oeuvre , and it would have ended up pretty DIY . The great repeaters we looked into were also just too serious and also take a firm stand on proper line of sight — we probably would have had to run Ethernet alfresco to them as well on both end anyway , and get another router for the barn . There are outside mesh leaf node like TP - Link ’s , but they ’re mean to be area transmitters ; with no power in the theater and the upcountry mesh signal unable to reach the barn , that also was n’t an choice .
We demand something dim-witted and integrated that could thrust a signaling a few hundred feet , and we ’d been let down for years that such a thing did n’t really exist if you did n’t want to be a sysadmin or start cutting turf . Probably we overlooked some alternative , but the new Eero Outdoor obviously outfit the eyeshade on paper , and it has been easier to countersink up than I expected , easier even than privileged meshes I ’ve had .
To be honest , I would n’t grease one’s palms one just to compensate the field or a grand . Do I really need to get Wi - Fi for another hundred feet so I can find out TikTok while I haul skirmish ?
Like , this to me see like hell on earth :
But having two gadgets organise a pointedness - to - point bridge simplify a problem we ’d been banging our head against for years . I have a feeling there are a fair identification number of folks out there in a alike spot — if that ’s you , do n’t think twice about it . It ’s going to be you a parcel one way or another ; might as well do it the well-off style .
