Using Circle with Eero

TahoeGator Nick, eero CEO here. To add a little more color, even if we had more than 2 Gigabit ports, the Circle would still cause major issues. The biggest problem here, is that Circle uses ARP poisoning as a way of enforcing the content policies you set. What that means in practice is every request gets re-routed through their little box. This creates a huge amount of overhead for sending every packet and significantly decreases the performance of your network.

Personally, I really like the Circle UX, but since it's not running natively on the network hardware you end up with the problems you've experienced. Give eero Plus a try, and if there are features from Circle that you miss after a week or two, let us know back on this thread. We're always adding new features to the eero Plus suite and would love your feedback.

weaves big thumbs up for responding directly to the issue.  Happy to see you monitoring the threads on a holiday weekend.  Not many CEOs would do that.  

weaves Hi. I am a long time eero user, right after kick starter and I have also been a Disney circle user as well. I have been experiencing issues with my network because of circle. weaves I agree with your statement. If you want to know my input I can tell you three major things that we want from eero plus. 

1. Time management 

Allow profiles to track total time used and the ability to pause based on time. For example, User has 2 hours total for the day. 

2.  Better filtering. 

Allow the the ability to filter more than just safe searches but maybe youtube or other apps. 

3.  Out of home? 

This is the biggest and most difficult one. Circle has circle Go. This allows an iPhone to still be filtered when on cellular. And it tracks total time. 

Bottom line weaves I really want to use the eero plus and ditch the Disney circle. But how??? 

I am frustrated because I spent so much money on 6 eeros  yet with circle my network doesn't work  I still need the functionality  

weaves 

Hi Nick & the eero Community, this is Lance, CEO of Circle, chiming in.

It might be helpful to note that the Circle device does not actually re-route every request (unmanaged devices, no download traffic touched). While the performance impact of adding the Circle device to a home network is dependent on the configuration, our testing does not support the claim that Circle “creates a huge amount of overhead.”  Additionally, when Circle’s software is integrated into a router, the software does not depend on ARP spoofing (http://www.netgear.com/landings/circle/).

Routers must be reliable and fast. Eero has demonstrated leadership in resetting expectations of what the Wi-Fi experience should be. My mission and focus of Circle’s product development is to provide all families with the tools to thrive in a digital world, as children connect at home, at their friend’s house, and through 4G.

Habits start young and impact a child’s path to adulthood. Every child has the need to be safe and find the best version of themselves. The child’s needs must inform the experiences that technology companies deliver. This challenge is the exclusive focus at Circle.

I am happy to work with Eero, as I do with many other companies, to ensure families have the best possible experience with their products.

lance_circle So, will you work with Eero to resolve the issues? My Circle is sitting in a bin right now because the Eero I paid a ton of money for has issues with it. Issues that are "on their list to fix" but have no timeline and no real idea of a solution. I need both Circle and Eero as I have an 11 year old. Your filtering is the best I've found, but I need it to work with Eero. It seems both companies are not interested in working this out and that is a loss for the consumer, me and others on here. Technology becomes more fractured by the day, instead of easier to use and more reliable.

lance_circle Great response - can we now please fix the problem?  I've disconnect my Circle as well because it stopped working.  I'm thinking seriously of going to Google, or another mesh system so that I can use Circle again. It's far better than the eero parental monitoring.

ericben I was looking at Velop today. I may Ebay this thing and switch. Especially since I had to swap units and reset Eero today because my connection kept dropping. 

weaves Sad day today.  :-( 

Hi Ben,

I have initiated a cancellation that takes place immediately, and refunded you for the most recent charge made.

Now that your Go subscription has stopped, you may wish to remove the Circle Go mobile device management profile from your device permanently. To do so, we have created a support article walking through the steps here.

Hopefully our compatibility with Eero will return soon, but I completely understand your need to find another solution until then.

Best,

Circle Support

lance_circle 

Hi Lance, 

Where you able to meet with Eero on Monday when you where in town?

As stated above, if I plug the Circle directly into my gateway Eero, Jeff C. from Eero stated it would work.  Is this the case?  If so I will go out and purchase Circle tomorrow.

With all my experience, reading reviews, purchasing products, and unfortunately returning some products.  The dream setup would be Eero and Circle working seamlessly.     

Most consumers that purchase Eero have families, and most families need to make the internet safe for their kids.  

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Jay

weaves It is now more than 6 months since we started having problems with Eero playing nicely with Circle.  We really like the Circle and feel that the security it offers us as parents of tweens, is fantastic.  It is also highly recommended by a few cyber safety experts that we have seen speak.  One of the features that we like is rewarding our kids with internet minutes when they have completed various chores.  We really like being able to do this individually. Or perhaps one of our kids goes above and beyond what is asked of them and we'd like to give them extra time as a little reward.  Circle allows that and it is a nice feature.

When the Eero and the Circle were both connected, it was slowing down our work computers, not just our kids' mobile devices.  It also affected our TV, which uses internet, not cable or satellite.  That was beyond frustrating. We just didn't have these problems before we started using the eero system, and then it started only after an Eero update that is continuously not being fixed. 

Jacob2877 I just bought a $500 Eero package and the extra$$ for Eero plus.  I have posted elsewhere my frustration with the skimpy parental controls.  Looking back at this forum, i am surprised at how little functionality has been added over the past 12 months.  Mine is probably going back.

weaves I did pay for the Eero plus and it doesn't even have option to block a specific site.  Also Eero Plus doesn't block mature content on sites like YouTube.  There has been request for this feature up for over a year now with no traction.  I paid $450 for the Eero device and on top of that $100 for Eero plus and it is missing basic functionality like site blacklist that I can get with a route for less than $50.  When exactly will we see this basic function?  After reading the feature request and many other posts it's seems like Eero and Eero plus was a bad choice.  I am lucky I am still within the return window.  I feel bad for people who have already made the investment.  Pretty sad that after spending $550 I still can't block a simple site but come to find out that if I want try and get the functionality from a third party there is a good chance an Eero update can make it useless. 

ken91 I am in the same boat.  I appreciate the Eero teams customer support and consumer experience.  But after 6 weeks of trying out the Eero pro system, I could not convince myself that it was worth $450 to smooth out a few dead spots and still use opendns. So I sent mine back last week. I may try google wifi to see how their parental control/blacklist functionality works.  Maybe I will try Eero again someday.  

weaves Here is what many parents are looking for and nobody but Circle is delivering.  We need the ability to whitelist and blacklist, and otherwise filter individual devices that connect to our home network. It is crazy to me that more companies are not offering this.  It is not an uncommon use case scenario for a parent to need to turn off "gaming" websites, "Netflix" or "anything except for school website" on their son's chrome book during homework hours. I was about to purchase an Eero system but my understanding is that I actually need the Circle to do that.  Now it looks like I can't even get circle to work with Eero....spending a long time in router purchase research mode and dissappointed with what I am finding. If you have any solutions for me please reach out to me.  

Hi TahoeGator -- the subscription pieces are because there's a lot of ongoing work to identifying problematic content and sites for parental controls. We are also working on a number of enhancements to improve the offering. We also have network security as a part of the service, which has a significant ongoing cost. All in all, we're just trying to deliver the best possible set of services (in addition to our hardware) to our customers as possible!

Thanks for your support and feedback. 

ericben They won't help you either. I'm ready to try Orbi or Google. Circle and Eero are only interested in pointing fingers at each other. I don't have time for that. Where I work, the phrase "working as designed" is literally banned. Finding solutions is what we are told is priority for our customers. This is not what I have seen as priority from Eero or Circle. Time to move on for me as soon as I decide which one.

skyfranks ericben  Did this ever get fixed? 

tranceme Nope - nothing worked. I can't plug the Circle directly into the eero main unit because I need the port for an ethernet hub for my house. I tried wiring it directly into other eero units, and it didn't work.

ksupersano The odd part to me is how the Netgear version of Circle is charging $4.99 per month for the premium features that are free if you buy the Circle device (currently on sale for $74). Circle Go is still an additional $4.99 per month. Eero should really partner with Circle and call it a day. Eero plus is too expensive for what it offers thus they are throwing in these freebies. I just want parental controls that work both at home and on the go.

Mark I got the same bouncing around that you did. eero support says it's a Circle issue, Circle support says it's an eero issue. Finally, I sent my circle back and they gave me a refund. I appreciate the customer service from Circle, but that's not the solution that I want. eero plus does not have the functionality of Circle, even if I wanted to be extorted for $100/year. I'm not sure what the solution to this is, but it's looking increasingly likely that the solution is to ditch eero.

Ben B let's not get carried away.  Circle with Disney uses ARP poisoning to do it's magic.  This is not a good thing and does and will break things.  Asking any product to work with any device that is arp poison flooding your network is a loosing proposition.  I for one really need strong parental controls but I got rid of my CwD.

Nnyan It may not be the most ideal way to do things, but the truth is that it works. It would be great if eero partnered with Circle to do the filtering straight from the gateway, as Netgear has done with them. 

Here's a good post on the effects of Circle on a network. 

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/circle-with-disney-reviewed.32464/page-2#post-369475

JTravers 

No doubt it's effective (although this type of solution can be flaky at times).  I thought the shared devices were handled poorly and device detection/naming stunk (FingBox is one of the best at this) but that is too common.  

I think Unglue isn't as easy to deploy but it's effective.  I wish they still had the hardware.

Nnyan I hadn't heard of Unglued before. Thanks for pointing it out. Do you know how it works? Is it as good at filtering and time limits as Circle?

Thanks!

Mark You should be able to use your Airport Extreme as your main router connected to your modem (assuming you have cable). First, unplug your eeros and Circle. Then use the Airport Utility app and turn off the wireless on it. You can then connect the eero you previously were using as the main gateway/router to the Airport Extreme. After it boots up, set it up for Bridge mode. (I think that's under Network Settings -- Advanced settings -- DHCP & NAT in the eero app). Once that eero is working for wifi, you can turn the other eeros on, as well (I'm not sure if it matters whether you turn the other eeros on before or after setting the "main" eero in Bridge mode). Finally, connect your Circle via ethernet to the Airport Extreme, and plug the Circle back in.

Basically, you want your Airport Extreme to be your router and the eeros to be wireless APs not involved in the router/gateway functions. And you want Circle to NOT be located behind the eeros (which would happen if you just connected it via wifi).

I'm hoping that works for you!

JTravers Just to follow-up with how my setup is working... I have a pfSense box acting as my router/gateway with its WAN port plugged into my cable modem. The pfSense box handles DHCP, DNS, routing, etc. Then I have the LAN port of the pfSense box plugged into an ethernet switch. My Circle is plugged into that ethernet switch, as well as cable runs to 2 of my hardwired eeros and a couple desktop computers. Then I have another gen 2 eero that is completely wireless. The eeros are in bridge mode, and the Circle was initially setup wirelessly (as they force you to do) and then plugged in via ethernet.

Everything seems to be working as expected

Hope that helps!

JTravers 

Thank you for posting your work around; although it is way over my head I am going to give this a shot. 

I have a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Wifi Cable Modem Router, and the 1st generation Eero. Do you think I can get this setup to work if I plug my Circle into the Nighthawk, turn the Wifi off on the nighthawk, and set my Eero's to bridge mode?

Or should I just plug the Circle into my gateway Eero's ethernet port?

Thanks in advance.     

jay mitchell No harm in trying to first just plug the Circle into your gateway eero's Ethernet port. But if that doesn't work, plugging into the Nighthawk while turning off it's wifi and putting the eeros in bridge mode should work. Your description of what to do should work. 

Mark  Velop are fast but feature limited.

skyfranks 

Nnyan What was your final solution? I just got the Velop running (and yes...it failed setup about 4 times) and will try plugging in circle later tonight 

skyfranks Have you tried running your eeros in bridge mode, or is that not an option? Circle is working perfectly fine with my eeros in bridge mode. 

How many Velops did you try vs. what type and how many eeros? I'm curious because I've gotten pretty decent speed from 3 2nd gen eeros and a beacon. 

Thanks!

Mark  you may see my other post but I have gone with Ubiquiti.  Im getting about the same speeds as the Eeros on most of my clients and somewhat slower on others.  Setup is NOT as user friendly and can be a PITA sometimes.  But you can get a USG and 3 UAP-AC-Lites for a nice chunk of change less the the Pro pack.  If I didn't have to run the Eeros in bridge mode the calculus would have been different but while cautious about Ubiquiti I'm very impressed so far.  It's not perfect and you can drown in how much insight and information you now get on your network but it is damn solid.  Enterprise lite it may be but this seriously kicks ass.

Plus I got to work with Google Cloud Product where I'm running the Ubiquiti Controller in the free tier.  Adds complication to the device adoption process but once it's up it just chugs along.  And it's nice to be able to manage my wifi and network remotely from anywhere.

raminf I agree. Eero Plus is a no-go without whitelist and blacklist capabilities.