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Using Circle with Eero

Is anyone using the Circle device with Eero to manage children's devices on a home network? I like Eero's ability to "turn off" devices, but Circle seems to allow you to set filters on a per-device basis. Just not sure how well Circle works in general -- and, in particular, if it works with Eero.

124 replies

    • raminf
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    So I bit the bullet and changed my network topology last weekend based on reports here so I could get the Circle working again. The cable modem now goes into my old Airport Extreme box. Wired directly into that is the eero (in bridge mode) and the Circle box. The eero's out port then goes into a gigabit ethernet switch which then goes to my wired devices. To make it work I had to backup the Circle settings, then do a full factory reset so I could 're-pair' it with the Airport Router and then restored the settings from backup.

    I'm going to run some time trials and see if it makes sense for the gigabit bridge to go directly into the Airport Extreme or leave it on the eero.

    Basically, as suggested here I patched in an Airport Extreme as the main router and had the Circle go into that instead of into the eero. So far things seem to be working. The devices the kids use to access the network all seem to be abiding by the filters.

    FWIW, I did try the eero-plus service. Found the parental filtering features lacking.

    My one concern is if this is slowing down the whole network because the Circle box doesn't have a gig ethernet port. I'm also signed up to get Sonic's fiber service later in the Summer. Once that goes in not sure how much of a bottleneck all this will this be.

    tl;dr: router/eero/circle combo seems to be working... so far.

      • Rcork
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      raminf I’m running a similar setup except I have my modem running into a pfsense router which is then connected to a 16 port active switch. The eero is connected to the switch and the circle into one of the ports on the eero. No issues anymore and performance is not an issue. I have a 300mbps connection and easily get 350mbps when testing my internet speed. 

      • nnyan
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Rcork there will be some impact just by the nature that it needs to analyze all traffic.  A typical user will likely not notice the impact and the 100Mbps won't matter for that. On a gigabit connection I did see a bottle neck (OPNSense, Sophos XG or Unifi USG) depending on workload.  

      • Rcork
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Nnyan Were you able to quantify the impact. I'm very curious as i plan to update to Cox's gigabit service in the near future. Right now with 300/30, i see zero/negligible impact to all outbound connections routed through the Circle.

      • raminf
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Rcork Thanks for the tip. Based on reports in these threads I assumed Circle and eero could not be on the same network segment. Will try direct-wiring the gig switch into the front router and having everything else go off it.

      Great to hear you're getting higher than 100Mbps performance with the setup and Circle isn't slowing things down. Gives me hope the gig fiber won't be throttled too much once it arrives.

    • wayned
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Has anything been solved on this thread yet? I'm having the same issues with the Eero's & Circle and if you are not in the USA you cannot use the Plus functionality (even though I have paid for it, does not work)

    Eero should integrate the Circle software and do a deal with Circle to take a percentage revenue share off each user, that way they don't have to develop their Plus solution which does not work.

    Eero could make far more money allowing open integration into their hardware and again taking a share of the revenue.

    weaves & lance_circle, as you can see from all the threads, you both seem to have very unhappy customers as you guys can't or don't want to find a solution, surely this must concern you.

    Integration, integration, integration, allowing others to integrate into your respective solutions will take both your great products to the next level.

    Now hopefully somebody will come back to us on this thread with a solution to fix the issue!   

    • Mark.2
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    The silence has been deafening. Solution: Gave the eero to my dad. Bought velop to use with circle. 

      • pvjones
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Mark It sucks because I really want to use Eero. There's a lot to love, but the inability to do even basic content-filtering stuff like whitelist and blacklist sites is a dealbreaker.

      The lack of a response here is an implicit indication that they can't or won't address this, but they don't want to directly say so and thus drive off customers. 

      • eero Community Manager
      • Jeff_C
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Official response
      • Reported - view

      pvjones   Mark —

      Thanks for taking the time to write in. At this point in time, we don't have any updates to share pertaining to this matter. We have provided some suggestions above for what hopefully provides the best experience of using Circle on an eero network. 

      At this point, we haven't been able to identify anything that would have changed on our end, and for that reason, we don't have a timeline to share for a fix. If you submit a ticket to support@eero.com , our team is always gathering additional cases so we can take a look to see what can be discovered.

      In the meantime, if the suggestion above doesn't help (connecting the Circle directly to your main eero via Ethernet), while not what we would wish for, we do understand if you wish to look elsewhere as we continue to troubleshoot this matter.

      As has been suggested here before, we are also open to you sharing any feedback with us in regards to what features you'd like to see offered through our eero Plus product.

      Thanks for your patience and understanding.

    • skimuw
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi Everyone. I think I just figured out my setup and both eero and Circle are working well together! I wanted to share in case it might help someone else. Here's my setup. The eero is plugged directly into my AT&T wireless router. I don't even use the wireless connection coming from this router. I setup the eero in Automatic mode (I didn't need it to be in bridge mode as some posts say, but might be different for you) and it has its own wifi network separate from the AT&T wifi router. Circle is plugged into the second ethernet port on the back of the eero. The LED on the eero might turn red. That's OK for now. Log onto your Circle and go to Devices. Any devices having to do with eero, change it to Unassigned. This means Circle wont mess with it directly. The LED on the eero should turn back white and eeros should start working automatically. Now all the devices that you want Circle to manage must log onto the eero wifi network. That's just fine for me because that was the point of getting eero in the first place. Any new device that logs onto the eero network will be detected by Circle and you can make the settings however you wish for that device. Circle will manage that device through eero, without managing the eero itself. You must keep the AT&T router password a secret from those you don't want logging onto that one because Circle will not detect those devices. This is easy for my family, as you just make the wifi network name something obscure and they wont mess with it. That seems to work in my case. Both devices are on the same network and working beautifully together. Hope this helps someone. Good luck! 

      • JTravers
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      skimuw Very good point! I know I immediately go into Circle and mark my eeros as unassigned whenever I add a new one to my mesh. But I totally neglected to mention that in any of my posts! Hopefully, this solves many people's problems with using Circle with eero. I'd love to hear whether people are still having issues after trying this. 

      • eero Community Manager
      • Jeff_C
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      skimuw JTravers —

      Thanks for sharing the tip with the community! We hope this helps those continuing to experience this issue.

      • jcasares
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      skimuw which version of Eero do you have? Circle's router list claims that Eero v1 has a serious incompatibility 

      https://support.meetcircle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001381571-Is-My-Router-Compatible-with-Circle-

      • skimuw
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      jcasares Sorry for the late reply! I believe I have a version 2. The serial number on the back starts with a "B". 

    • jcasares
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I have an Eero v1 and just bought a Circle ( meetcircle.com ) to control my kid's use of YouTube.

    I want to confirm that:


    1) Circle did NOT work, even after plugging directly to the master Eero. Adding any level of filtering blocked all sites.

    2) I was able to plug my old Asus router to the modem, disable wi-fi on the Asus, put Eeero on bridge mode, and connect both Eero and Circle to Asus. With this setup, Circle works as expected.

    Hope this helps, as there was some contradicting and old information about this.

    • zimmerman80
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I am using Eero v2, and just bought Circle.  It is plugged into a switch which directly connects to my router Eero (because I have a 90mbps connection and Circle's wifi isn't fast enough).  Eero devices are Unmanaged, and everything is working well with no trouble setting it up or filtering.  

    Circle seems to have finer grain control, and I like the fact there is a default circle when new devices are added.  And you can prevent VPN connections which would bypass the filtering, for those clever kids.  

      • lwdupont
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      zimmerman80 Good to know, thanks for the post. I'm going to give my Circle a try again, I like the finer grained controls.

    • Chi7
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Sorry, but everyone that’s trading their eero for velop, are we talking the 1st or 2nd generation eero?  

     

    Im testing both the velop and 2nd Gen Eero (both routers, no beacons) and still undecided but leaning towards the eero.   

      • skimuw
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Chi7 Mine is a 2nd gen eero, and it has been working great with the circle for about a year or so...

      • zimmerman80
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Chi7 2nd gen, and circle is connected via Ethernet. 

    • zimmerman80
    • 5 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Also, just yesterday, the Disney circle update removed ad blocking from the app.  I messaged support and they said they are sun setting the feature. 

    • Daemach
    • 3 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I am a network consultant and I'm considering buying the eero pro 6 3-pack, but we rely on Circle to keep our 6 kids safe.  I haven't seen a better solution yet.  Have the performance issues with eero + Circle been resolved?  I want to move to eero due to performance issues with a very old Asus router but we can't give up the Circle protection.

    • gekkoace
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Circle worked perfectly with my older generation Eeros. We upgraded to Eero 6, and now we’re having the same issues.

    My bet is there’s new security or routing rules that are blocking the Circle’s ARP packets from controlling devices correctly.

    I’m going to try putting a switch between my modem and the Eero, then plugging my circle and eero into the switch. I’m going to put my Eero into bridge mode and let my modem handle the DHCP. That’ll make the eero a little more dumb about what’s happening on the network, and hopefully allow Circle to work correctly.

    I’ll try to post again letting you know if it worked or not.

    • Rcork
    • 2 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Circle has been working fine for me but i've always run Eero in bridge mode. I have another router with the LAN port plugged into a switch. The gateway Eero is connected to the switch and then i have the Circle plugged into one of the gateway Eero's ethernet ports. None of my other Eero's are hardwired which i believe makes a difference.

    • Tubby_Bartles
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    I just bought the Eero 6+ and I can confirm that the issue still remains. I had to unplug the Circle for the managed devices to work. Even when traffic was allowed, the managed devices would have major speed and packet loss issues that made it impossible to do Minecraft or Discord voice. It took over 2 hours with Eero on the phone to diagnose that it was the Circle, but I've unplugged the circle and now everything works.

    But it's frustrating - not sure how to put parental controls on now. They tried to tell me Eero had parental controls, but it has no time limits on usage types (I can't say "Allow only 1 hour of games a day"), just the ability to set a schedule for them (e.g., "Don't allow it after 11 pm").

Content aside

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