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Eero iPhone Connectivity Issues

Hello, 

I have not yet purchased an Eero system yet; I am in the research stages deciding between Google Wifi, Orbi, Luma, Unify mesh, Amplifi, and Velop. 

I have seen many reviews and threads in forums in regards to Apple IOS devices failing to 'roam' between APs, or randomly dropping connections, or staying connected to the furthest AP rather than switching to the closest one. 

A couple years back I set up a $1000 Cisco Meraki AP for my home network. After countless issue with our iPhones and iPads not being able to connect, not seeing the SSIDs, and randomly dropping connections I switched back to my $100 Asus router, which has superior performance (for Apple devices) to the enterprise grade AP. I am looking for a modern WiFi solution to power all of our devices, including many Apple devices.

In any case, it seams Apple devices always have issues with WiFi, I am looking for a solid solution to this, I thought Eero was the winner until I started reading it also has the same issues with Apple. I have read that people have open cases with Eero regarding this, but it's still a known issue. 

At my office we have a ton of Enterprise Cisco APs, in which iPhones can seamlessly roam between without loosing a video call. Obviously at the price point of Eero we cannot expect enterprise grade features, but I am looking for some input if others are having this issue with their iPhones on Eero, and what support / development teams are doing to solve this issue? 

One other item of interest is outdoor WiFi coverage. With other mesh WiFi options on the market; outdoor weather resistant APs are offered. Does Eero have any intentions or future plans to offer the addition of outdoor APs to the mesh network? 

Thanks in advance. 

252 replies

    • pclaar
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Nope. I upgraded to iOS 11 GM and my Wifi locked up within 10 minutes. iPhone 7 Plus.

    Hey Eero, if you're having trouble recreating this problem at your office, send a tech to my house. I live in the Seattle area. I'll even buy beer.

      • miamojo
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      pclaar Yeah not a total resolution but something changed... I can stay connected for more than 2 minutes now but still toggling more

      than once an hour.

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

    Thanks for the updates,  miamojo and  pclaar

    We're continuing to look into this matter. As soon as we have any updates to pass along, we will absolutely do so.

    • mattv123
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Unfortunately I don't think iOS 11 is going to resolve the issue.  There are simply too many other enterprise network vendors that have "no problems" with iOS 10 and 11 (betas) and roaming behavior.  I believe the fix will need to come from Eero.

    My thinking is that unless Eero is able to conclusively prove a problem exists in iOS (with a massive heap of evidence), which is independent of eero's Wi-Fi/roaming implementation, Apple is going to tell them that there is nothing wrong with their code.  That said, it is entirely possible that Eero is doing stuff right/better than the others and as a result causing things to break in iOS (likely the case).  Unfortunately this becomes a prioritization challenge at Apple for a relatively small number of devices using new consumer Wi-Fi tech, compared to the millions and millions that are not using Wi-Fi roaming, or if they are, it is working fine at their place of work.

    This is hopefully where eero's relationships with people at Apple can pull some weight...

      • pclaar
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      mattv123 Appreciate your insight and contribution to this topic. I'd go a step further and suggest that this could sink eero as a company if they don't address this problem head on, and quickly. Here's hoping that eero realizes that and pours every available resource into solving this before this becomes common knowledge outside of this forum and reddit.

      With iOS11 in GM, it really doesn't matter if this is an iOS bug anymore. The bottom line is that eero and Apple products have compatibility issues, and eero is the company who will lose this battle.

      • Dinnid
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      pclaar I don’t know if it’ll sink them as a company but I do know that I’m gonna return mine.  I bought both gen1 and gen2 and don’t have time to sit around and send them bug reports and soft reset and switch all my devices to help them.  I barely have enough time to debug my own crappy code.  Maybe I should be happy, they are saving me 500 bucks. 

      • DavidCC
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      polar  I really hope eero sort out the iPhone issues because they are the best alternative to the Airport Extreme. This is the only reason that I have put off replacing my Airport Network. I am confident they will sort it out as this will have a negative effect on them as a company.

    • hcubell
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I am traveling now away from home and my Eero network and staying in a hotel with a wifi network. Wow,  No wifi connectivity issues with my iPad Pro. I had forgotten what is was like to have a rock solid connection. 

    • vmstan
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I've been fighting these drops ever since upgrading to the iOS 11 beta. It got better around beta 7 or 8 but still was a problem anytime I'd move around my house.

    I disabled wifi calling on my iPhone 7 (T-Mobile/Ting) yesterday when I got home from work, and it seems to have completely solved the issue for me, for now.

    • rtlee
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hey guys - I will try to keep this brief, as I have already spent WAY too much time on this issue.

    I have the SAME EXACT set of issues with roaming, switching to LTE while settings show I'm still connected to Wifi, disappearing wifi antenna icon, etc etc - with my 3 Eero gen1 units that all of you are reporting here. And the workaround such as turning wifi on/off temporarily resolves it, until the next time. We all have iPhone 7 phone and one iPhone 7 Plus. Running iOS 10.3.3. I have the issue with my cable modem bridge mode enabled and disabled.

    I've had these Eero units for about a year. They worked flawlessly for the first several months. Then after that I had issues like this, but I recall they went away after a firmware update. That was maybe around 6 months ago (guessing).

    Then about 2-3 months ago these problems started again. I can't say if it was after a specific Eero update or iPhone update, but I keep my iOS and Eero's updated as soon as updates are available.

    I have been working with a level 2 support engineer at Eero on this issues for well over a month. A lot of things to try and communication back and forth. However we seemingly are no closer to a resolution, at least not that I know of as of now.

    In addition to the typical things other may have tried, they tried turning off the new fast roaming feature in my Eeros. That did not help, so we put it back on. Also I recently tried replacing my cable modem. Same issue.

    I wonder if Eero has been able to reproduce the issue or if there really may be a fix coming soon as that on Reddit post eluded to.

    The issue is extremely frustrating to me as well as the family, and as others have expressed, it's no fun having family members complaining about all the issues going on for so long. Whatever it is I hope they fix it soon!!

    • CoolTechGuy
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I have eero 2nd gen pro all three are Ethernet connected and had experienced this issue for a few weeks.  iPhone 7 on iOS 10.3.3 and eero running on 3.3.0-350.  I would walk around the house from room to room and assuming the iPhone is hopping from one eero to another quickly.  WiFi calling would disappear and only the WiFi icon itself would remain, but trying to do anything internet would not work, unless I went to the iPhone WiFi settings screen and just staying on that screen would sometimes 'kickstart' the WiFi and WiFi calling would show up again, with active internet.  For grins I turned off WiFi calling, which I left off for about 5 minutes to ensure AT&T network received the 'change'.  Then I enabled WiFi calling again.  Had to resubmit 911 emergency address which still had the correct information.  Since I did these steps I have yet to experience the WiFi hanging up on my iPhone 7.  I will update here if it starts acting up again.

      • rtlee
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      CoolTechGuy I've had Wifi calling disabled for well over a year now, yet I have all the same issues you do. My guess is that by disabling it you temporarily reset things and it is clear for now but considering I have the issue with wifi calling off I don't think this is going to fix it for you unfortunately. Please keep us posted either way. 

      • CoolTechGuy
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      rtlee Well the resetting of AT&T WiFi calling feature didn't help.  And since I last tried that last week, I've updated my iPhone 7 (and all other iOS devices) to the iOS 11 public version (GA) last Tuesday and seems to have only gotten worse.  So bad in fact that I went back to exclusively using my UAP-AC-Pro (two of them).  All was good with those access points for about a day and then my password would be lost on all iOS devices.  It would say enter password and after entering it correctly it said wrong password.  I disconnected the UAP-AC-Pro access points and put back in place my three eero pro units (2nd gen).  Then I still got the enter password on my iPhone even though the SSID and password was still the same, same as the UAP.  Then it occurred to me, maybe this is all only iOS related and need to reset my Network Settings on my iPhone 7.  So I went to Settings | General | Reset and then did "Reset Network Settings".  I did this process this morning, so here is hoping the issue will go away with a network reset on the iPhone.  I'll post my results after a few days. 

      • rtlee
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      CoolTechGuy Thanks for those details. In my case doing a Reset Network Settings did not help at all.

      • CoolTechGuy
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      rtlee Ends up that doing the iPhone 7 Network Reset did not help.  I did want to mention that I use FiOS and so I have to use that modem.  I've been running eero with network dhcp & nat set to 'automatic' but switched to bridge mode.  Bridge mode is how I originally had eero set up and the disconnect didn't happen as often, but still did occasionally.  I'll report back in a day or two how this setup works.  I read where someone in this thread had deleted their eero network and re-created it.  It also had helped them some and I may do that too if bridge mode doesn't help.

      • CoolTechGuy
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Switching eero network to Bridge Mode did not help at all.  I may take down my three eero pro units and go back to my two Unify UAP-AC-Pro access points.  I had an issue with UAP but I think it was a setting I had tweaked needs un-done.  They had always been stable and reliable.  If they aren't, I'm considering Amplify HD or Orbi. 

    • travisbell
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Eero just contacted me to try a test build that they are hoping fixes these issues. They must feel pretty good about it and that it's close to being solved. 

    I'm currently walking around the house trying to make sure I'm switching AP's and seeing if I run I to problems. So far so good. 

    We're close guys!!

      • afx114
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      travisbell Can I volunteer to run this test build as well?

      • miamojo
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      travisbell Good news! I am awaiting the test build too and will report back once I’ve tried it out.

       

      Thank you, eero support, for working on this frustrating issue. Fingers crossed!

      • travisbell
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      afx114 It's up to Eero who they deploy this build to. I would guess that Eero grabbed a random sample of users from those who have reported the issue. The more people running some tests builds the better, especially given how hard this one was to reproduce according to Jeff.

    • rtlee
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Hey guys - just wanted to let you know that Eero pushed this update to me about a half hour ago. If it can go 24 hours without me or any family members having an issue then that would be very promising. I'll keep you posted. Kudos to the Eero team to recognizing the priority of this and getting something into the hands of early testers.

    • miamojo
    • 6 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I’m only 15 minutes into testing the new build but something notable so far: I’m seeing faster speeds over WiFi, as fast my hard-wired Ethernet connection. Staying connected, but sometimes I do see some improved stability after a re-start. Will report back later. The problem is constant with me- I have to toggle WiFi off every few minutes so I will know pretty quickly if there’s a difference.

      • lwdupont
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      miamojo That sounds pretty bad, glad they have a possible fix. I only seem to need to do it if I move around dramatically at home, definitely not as bad as every few minutes. 

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

    Hi everyone -

    Thanks again to all those who have reached out to support regarding this matter.

    Looks like the news has already made it here (sorry, been traveling today), but we are currently looking for testers who would be interested in trying a test build that we hope helps with issues related to what many have reported here.

    If you email support@eero.com with "Test Build" in the subject line, we can push a no-promises, might-not-work-perfectly version of eeroOS 3.4.0 with two big interop workarounds for the problems that some of you have been seeing.

    Thanks again everyone!

      • pclaar
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Jeff C. Sweet! Thanks Jeff.

      • CLalib
      • 6 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Hello Jeff C. 

      v3.4.0 is better in that it no longer seems to completely drop wifi connectivity, but it is not made any progress with the wifi calling issue (at least for me).

      I am in the situation where the cell signal is not strong enough to hold my calls and so I am constantly dropping business calls all day...a situation that I cannot allow to continue while your people are working on new versions.

      Last time this exact issue happened we ended up rolling back to a version that we know was flawless while your people worked on a fix. Right now tech support is not acknowledging that is a possibility. I really need your help to make that happen.Can you help me get back to v3.2.0 while this issue is being worked?

Content aside

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