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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

    • Armydoc214
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Why is this nestcam trying to connect to the AP at the other side of the house? The main wired AP is  way closer!  Not sure what’s happening here. Can’t watch a movie on my Apple TV without buffering either. Oh!  Then my son says,” Dad!  My Phone (6s iOS11) won’t connect to the internet!”

      • rtlee
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Armydoc214 I often see the same type of behavior, where there is a wired Eero much closer and more line of site. For instance I can be 25 feet with two drywall walls between me and Eero 1 and it connects to Eero 2 located two floors away, with both Eero's hard wired.

    • Sjustis
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Same issue here WiFi shows connected on an iPhone but its not connected and I have to toggle the WiFi on and off to fix it, very annoying 

    • scottavid
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Jumping in to simply state that although I've been lurking here for a while, I've been experiencing the same issues since purchasing my 3 eero system a couple months ago.

    • mattv123
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Update from my end: the eero team disabled FT on my network yesterday around 4pm PST (about 26 hours ago) and since then I have had a 0% failure rate.  Literally not a single drop.  So the problem is clearly with FT, or something related to whatever was turned off.

    rtlee  You said you have FT disabled on your network as well.  Did this resolve the issue for you as well?

      • miamojo
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      mattv123 What is FT? Not familiar with this term and is this something eero needs to do? I haven't received notice of a firmware update yet either and the problem is particularly bad tonight- needing to toggle every 2-3 minutes.

      • travisbell
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      miamojo FT is "fast transition". It's a part of the 802.11 spec that allows our devices to roam across access points with very little lag. There's actually 3 specs, you can read about them a bit on Apple's site: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202628

      • miamojo
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      travisbell Thanks! Ok so I get the concept of making handoff quicker but there’s obviously a problem. Doesn’t seem like something I can disable on my end. 

       

      Please eero, help! I was literally, and with a lot of sadness about to unplug and return tonight. I have been needing to toggle off my WiFi every 2-3 minutes when on an iOS device, which I use more than anything else. Thank you!

      • pclaar
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      mattv123 Well that's promising news! I'd be interested to know if the update tonight is related to turning off FT. Jeff C. ?

    • sam123
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I logged a support ticket a few days ago with this problem and requested the 3.4.0 test build firmware which I got pushed to me yesterday. Now, as of tonight, my iPhone 7 Plus (iOS 11.0) internet connections no longer seem to be hanging. 

    I have been walking through the house with streaming audio in the background, running speed tests with Wi-Fi Sweetspots and Ookla Speedest with excellent connection speeds and throughput everywhere. Looking at which eero BSSID I'm connected to with Net Analyzer I now see smooth handoffs between my 4 eeros as I walk from room to room, mostly switching between the 5GHz BSSID networks.

    I saw only one quick drop to LTE for a couple of seconds before reconnecting back to wifi when I was in a closet furthest between two eeros with most walls in between. Also, in one room with the relatively weakest signal strength, the phone switched to the closest eero's 2.4GHz BSSID and hung onto that eero at 2.4GHz throughout the house, slowing speed tests down, but still staying connected. At some point it got back on to 5GHz where it's stayed all night.

    So, looking really promising now. Seeing no issues on MacBook Air (El Cap) or MacBook Pro TouchBar (Sierra) either, when walking around both are switching at -75dBm to a closer AP.

    Thanks eero team for working the problem. :thumbsup:

      • sam123
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      sam123 Day 2 Update – TL;DR: Still good!

      The eeros are still on 3.4.0-442 build I got pushed last weekend, iPhone 7 Plus now on iOS 11.0.1. Walking around house streaming video and on Zoom video conference, no stops, no slowdowns. Looking on Net Analyzer while walking phone was mostly now switching between the 2.4GHz BSSIDs, then after staying put a bit jumped back to 5Ghz BSSID of the closest eero. Solid 120+ Mbps Speedtest performance on the phone matching nominal 120/12 Comcast plan. :thumbsup:

      • bdplatt
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      sam123 I was just able to move around the house while on a Zoom session as well! First time in ages, glad to see the improvement!

    • miamojo
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    So somehow the threading of responses led to me missing the official response from Jeff C. and asking unnecessary questions. The solution doesn’t come from a firmware update but via a cloud based eero setting so individual  users don’t need to do anything.

    I can confirm that for the last 5 hours, I’ve had no drops. That’s a huge change as my connection was dropping every few seconds. I hope this is it- have had previous brief moments of stability.

    Many thanks for the work on this update. 

    • pclaar
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Well, I had a typical lock-up this morning around 7:58am PDT. It's the same symptoms:

      1.  I move from one side of the house to the other.

      2. The Wifi indicator shows a weakened signal, even though I'm a few yards from an eero

      3. Indicator switches to LTE, then to full-strength WiFi.

      4. Internet connection dead. Toggling off/on restores connection

      • CEO & Co-founder
      • weaves
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      pclaar I believe our team reached out to you this morning and you should now have the latest update (as of after your post). Keep us updated. Thanks for your help

      • pclaar
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      weaves I haven't heard from anybody yet but will stand by. 👍

    • CoolTechGuy
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    For the most part things are better.  I've had only a couple of instances where the eero app would show that it couldn't connect to the internet, but resolved itself within half a minute.  But majority (90%) of the time it transitions from one eero node to another.  My three eero pro (2nd gen) are hardwired.  

     

    On another note, Apple just released an update to iOS 11...11.0.1.  They only state it fixes bugs.  So here's to the update helping with FT and battery life on iOS 11!!  

      • CEO & Co-founder
      • weaves
      • 7 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      CoolTechGuy please, please, please have the update fix battery life. Granted I'm on an iPhone 6s, but I've already charged my phone twice today.

    • Jason.1
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I didn't ever have the issues with my iPhones getting disconnected as others, but frequently had slow speeds on the 5 GHz band.  I'm not sure if it's the fact I've moved to the iPhone 8 or the changes, but the better speeds are much more consistent.  Two Questions:  What speed should I realistically get on my iPhone I'm currently seeing 180-200 megs down, and 150 up?  My connection is 1 Gig Symmetrical Fiber Circuit.  Interestingly the router's speed test on the WAN only registers 800/300 megs, but the ISP has certified that 1 Gig is being delivered.

    • miamojo
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I've been home for two hours, and have been on my iPhone 7+ on iOS 11 non-stop, while running around my house. Zero drops, which is remarkable, as I've needed to toggle off wifi every couple of minutes, even while totally stationary. I'm seeing smooth handoffs and am seeing consistent speeds too. 

    • petercw2
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    Whatever update was done seems to have made a noticeable improvement to the commonly discussed issue here - roaming with an iOS device - but now caused another problem.

    I have a set of devices with reserved IP addresses because they are part of a media room remote.  Since the update the remote's ability to communicate with some of the devices seems to stop/start for no reason.  My remote (iRule on an iPad) has a indictor that shows it's current connection to all of the devices and starting yesterday it was wholly unstable.  

    • CoolTechGuy
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    It seems to me the update to 3.4.0-442 has my iPhone holding on to a signal further away from eero, but for the most part it does transition to another eero.  While most of the time my iPhone is unaffected, there have been a handful of instances where having the eero app open and watching my iPhone change from one eero to another, there is a moment where the app says the internet is unavailable.  it does not happen every time, like I said most of the time it transitions fine, albeit it appears slow.  So ST?  (slow transition)   :-o

    • cleverdevil
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    I'm now on 3.4.0-442 and since the "configuration change" that was pushed to our networks, my problems have pretty much disappeared. I am now able to walk around my house while streaming video on my iPhone 7 running iOS 11, and the video continues to stream, transitioning from one Eero node to the next seamlessly, without any blips or hiccups.

    We'll see if this continues, but I'm cautiously optimistic that my best home Wi-Fi network ever is back is business. Thanks for all of your hard work, Eero, and thanks to Jeff C.  and weaves  for their participation in the community.

    🎉

    • pclaar
    • 7 yrs ago
    • Reported - view

    3.4.0-442 appears to have mitigated the issue. I have not done any hardcore testing yet, but I have not had a lock-up today. That alone is a significant improvement!

    Feeling optimistic!

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