Support for the Desktop

So, I'm apparently jumping on this thread late, and admittedly I didn't read through all of the replies herein, but I wanted to mention that we consumers are getting tired of hearing the generic canned response "We don't make desktop applications... security... router OEMs moving away... yaddy yadda".

I've been doing this a long time, and I'm calling bs here. The fact is that both Microsoft and Apple offer integrations into their Windows and Mac desktop stores which are as secure as their mobile counterparts makes these types of statements sound placating.

I'm a Software Engineer and as such would be happy to show you how; for a reasonably exorbitant salary of course. Regardless, when we customers ask for a desktop application surely you understand that we aren't necessarily asking that you build us a wobbly .NET Web app for bandwidth murdering encryption for taxing prefetches for data diving any more than we are asking for a poorly executed SDK-mapped, API-hooked, trending legacy, L7 installable. Surely you recognize that we are asking for a way to use your cloud-based (i.e. locally inaccessible) routers from somewhere other than our pocket rockets.

In 2018 there is no reason this won't work as seamlessly as it does on mobile counterparts. This is easy to accomplish and I would appreciate it if the Eero dev team would consider bringing on a few additional reqs to commit to an addition of this nature. I'm happy to play Scrum Master for a few poker planning sessions just for the giggles of getting the ball rolling. Surely you see that this would most likely serve you by increasing the chances that we consumers continue to invest in and remain using the Eero brand.

Some of us feel like we've already been sucker punched a couple of times with the exclusively cloud-minded and devastatingly locally challenged hardware purchases we unwittingly made by purchasing Eero. Please remember that we chose your company despite the surprisingly top-shelf price tag. What seemed like salt in these wounds was when you decided to gamble with the Monthly Recurring Revenue model by introducing paid subscriptions in order to deliver features and functionality included for free with your competitors who, consequently, are currently gobbling up market share by avoiding the "Bill-The-Customer-To-Death" approach.

Hopefully, you see that I'm trying to be humorous here and my sarcasm is merely looking for attention rather than trying to be outright rude. 

In any case, would you please volley the thinking on this one around again?  

Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,

One more increasingly disenfranchised Eero customer.

Another vote for this.  I WILL NOT recommend this to the dozens of houses in my family that I remotely manage and help with their networks, all of which sit behind Untangle firewalls until this is in place.  "Oh, hey we'll make this so easy an idiot can set it up but not easy for an idiot to articulate what's going on when things don't work" is a terrible way to get into the Prosumer space.  Simple is not good if it is simplistic and has no path to get under the covers when necessary.  Not everyone needs the advanced capabilities/management, but there are plenty of us who do. 

Apparently the fact that lots of customers want this is not considered a good enough reason.  Whatever happened to customer service?  In my case, the smart phone app does not work at all when the internet is down, even though I have a very vibrant LAN with lots of devices hard wired into it.  I need a way to talk to my eeros over hard wired lines.  My PC and the eeros are hard wired, so wifi is not needed for them to talk to each other.  But some sort of PC app is needed.

Moreover, because I am getting older, I find it hard to read the eero app on the smart phone.  On a PC I would have a much larger screen and could make fonts larger, etc.

Patiently waiting...

Just to add my 2¢ here, a basic web portal shouldn't be an issue to create. I understand the need for making things secure, but even a basic "status" and "refresh my DHCP" type of interface shouldn't be an issue. You've already got security concerns addressed with the mobile app, a web-based app should be no different. Don't trust the client at all, you can even support HTTPS and only support it via a hardwired connection if you feel that strongly about it.

My current situation requires a method of accessing the Eero settings on my desktop because my internet is currently down. I work from home so right now I'm tethered to my phone in order to continue working. That means if I need to try something new or change a setting on my router I need to disconnect from my phone, connect to the wireless network for Eero, and try again. When that fails, I have to change everything back around and search something else online. It's not exactly a great situation when I have a laptop I could easily be using to change settings instead.

It also looks like the mobile app doesn't function if the Eero can't connect to the internet, which is a pretty fatal flaw for those of us with real-world internet connections.

Not having at least a web browser interface makes Eero a non-starter for me. Having to depend on controlling and managing the device over the same media it supports is a recipe for disaster. If the WiFi router does something like shut down WiFi based on a schedule, how would you be able to access it to change that? If WiFi is not working for some reason, there is no facility to look into the Eero via a hard wired web browser to troubleshoot. If, as it seems, from some posts, that you can access the Eero from the internet, using your cell connectivity, that seems a significant security risk. I don't turn WAN management on on my routers. Seems that the only option if something isn't working right via the phone app, will be to power cycle the Eero, and hope that fixes it. If I'm wrong about options here, let me know, but no web interface, no Eero

This lack of responsiveness to the customer base has now led me to have three family members return these devices and instead purchase Netgear Orbi as soon as they called me for help.  I'm about to donate my 3 pack to a group home I volunteer time for and build an actual manageable solution.  This is unfortunate because the wireless service the 3 pack has provided over these months has been quite good.  Unfortunately, I don't judge a product by 'most of the time'.  I judge it by what happens when things go wrong.  Can I easily fix it?  Can I troubleshoot it like I can the gear I've worked with for more than 20 years and achieve a fast TTR?  Can I get to the system remotely to aid the family members who look to me for help when they have issues?  Not with this product.  While I hoped this company would hold to their claim of being customer focused, they have not.  They should openly and clearly put on all their literature and packaging 'managed via phone app only'.  At least then we would KNOW.  

I get it, a web or desktop interface doesn't earn money like your security 'services', but like all software vendors, you need to spend a certain percentage of your effort on technical debt and features your customers REQUEST not just your self-focused genius ideas, or you risk losing those customers when a compelling event prompts them to change -- even with your exorbitant price point making people reluctant to throw the dollars away.  Here's the simple truth -- you don't know better than your customers what they need.

The nonsense espoused in this forum about security being a primary driver for this tone-deafness and lack of customer responsiveness is actually quite scary.  Phone apps aren't by some declaration of God more secure than a browser based interface that is locked down to the local network.  Any services that can be accessed via the phone app are vulnerable to manipulation and violation just as a web server is.  This is an only slightly higher order of 'security by obscurity' that so many people recommend with the practice of hiding your SSID.  This false sense of security actually makes me more concerned about what the real security of the system is.

And for those of you who are misled by the claims other vendors are all going down this path so we should get used to being treated like small children who can only tap big colorful buttons on a phone, rest assured that is indeed misinformation.  The major vendors are respectful of their customer bases and see the need to simplify deployment but also provide appropriate management and troubleshooting capabilities.  Netgear and Linksys both, as well as Asus and others are providing apps AND management interfaces, not treating the operation of WiFi like it's all 'magic'.  

I too would like to manage the Eero which I just purchased using my desktop computer, not my phone. I'll look around for another thread... if this is the only one, Eero clearly doesn't care. 

Per @Jeff_C:

"This is one of our most requested features. While I don't believe a certain number is going to make it tilt one way or another at this point in time (based on the above), having a continued and present interest shown will only make a better case for this feature should we ever do consider adding it as a feature."

It's been eight months, Jeff. Engaging on the issue and then disappearing is arguably worse than just ignoring us outright.

I just received my Eero tonight, so hopefully it's not too late to return it.

Add another vote for desktop management capability.  Never would have purchased the product if the company had been more forthcoming in its product literature about the phone app limitation.

Alright, Eero techs--this request has been lying about for 2 years now, and you guys already HAVE the remote management interface for installers.  For the love of God, simply make that available to the rest of us.  I'd bet that 95% of everyone on this forum could be considered an "installer" to some degree, after all. 

I just cannot fathom why the company hasn't addressed this.  It's just silly.  The product works well, I'm happy with its performance, etc., etc., etc., but the lack of a web interface or a native app for Win/Mac is just flabbergasting.

I've been a software, security and network professional now for over 20 years and all these arguments are mostly full of holes.  If anyone steps back and looks at the business model and cost of company operations, you can see that they are putting their engineering dollars into the mesh itself and the hardware. Building UIs and staffing to maintain them costs money.

Anyway, I gave up trying to get any of the Mesh vendors to do what I want. Rather I put all my different meshes into bridge mode (I have 8 in the house under evaluation, thats what I do). 4 of them are bridged under a Ubiquity Router/Firewall system (and experimenting with UBIs APs) and the other 4 are under a Cisco 5525 ASA.

So far the best combo is the Ubiquity for those that are semi tech minded. For most of my customers, learning which end of the plug to put in the wall is the level we work for (hense the Eero, etc), but for those of us that actually want to do something with our networks, the Mesh devices are sorely lacking and will probably forever be as its not cost effective for them to be "everything" to the home consumer.

Hi Drew ( or any other Eero member), while you've made it clear this "isn't planned", what you haven't said is why that is? Clearly this must be a hot button topic inside Eero walls or such a requested feature would have been implemented by now. For me personally, I couldn't care less if there was a Desktop App as the iOS client is superb, but I am curious as to the company reasoning, nonetheless.

Interactive generic device support, not just a phone as an admin device. Phones work for event handling. Admin should not be limited to event handling as a processing technique. 

I understand the move to phones/tablets for admin control, but there are at least two problems for larger organizations:

  1. each and every device/router/switch seems to have their own app now. My phone is dozens for everything from light switches to security cameras to EERO now. It's a mess.

  2. Admins want to have a large screen with the things they are monitoring in various windows. A desktop app OR local only web server on the device would be far better in those environments. My dLink switch, Netgear Comcast Modem, etc. all can be accessed local from my web browser on Mac (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and password protected.

So, please add a desktop app for Windows (not active x, direct whatever crud, please) and Mac OS.

So with project Catalyst, sounds like there isn't an excuser macOS support anymore ;).

Another vote for this. Otherwise great product marred by a bizarre decision to not produce a web interface. I probably would not have purchased it had I known.

As Eero is , now, an Amazon company: Keep requesting the feature. Customer feedback matters. Working backwards, matters.

Consider this an unlike. 

The Eero attitude here is, to put it politely, stupid. My phone was out of order the other day, and so, in spite of a network problem, I could not do squat to address my issues. Either you need a desktop app, a Rest API, or I need another freaking network manager for my home network. Don't tell me about what everyone is saying they are going to do at the latest computer convention, and what the freaking major network vendors are doing with paid admins, just let me do what you sold me the gear for, which is, to manage my own home network .. intelligently, and with some efficiency thanks to your technical, if not customer relational, competence.

Thank you. No need to reply. Actions speak louder than words. I don't have time to debate stupid stuff. I just want to know whose hardware I am going to use to satisfy my needs. Yours, or someone else's? My time is worth more than the cost of f*ing with your equipment, or lack of needed features, and debating perspective of your market. I am, and maybe was, your market. You are, and maybe were, my vendor. Maybe I need a new supplier. I can't do this crap. I'm shopping for a vendor with a smarter view of where the future is.