400Assign a device to a specific eero
I was recently going through my connected device list and noticed I have some of my devices connected to an eero which isn't the closest one to it. Wouldn't it make more sense to bind a device to a specific eero? For example, my Ring doorbell is maybe 10 - 15 feet from the closest eero but it is connected to one upstairs and further away. Not sure if that would cause a QoS kind of issue but for stationary devices I don't see them moving from one eero to another (Nest products, Amazon Echo, Ring doorbell, etc.)
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Obligatory bump. I'd love to get the mothership's thoughts on this because I have no idea why some static (non-moving) devices would connect to the eero all the way on the other side of the house instead of the one closest to it.
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Whoa, I'm sorry tfederov ! I'm not sure how this request got past me.
I definitely understand the interest/need in such a feature, and I'll be more than happy to share this with our team.
With regards to what is happening, there is a chance that the static devices are connecting to the further eero after the system reboots. If those devices are within range of another eero, since they don't roam, they likely are latching to that eero as it may come online before the closer one. Since they are connected and won't be moving, they won't be looking to change.
One way to get around this is to reboot the client device. After coming back online, it should connect to the closer eero. I hope this helps!
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Jeff C.
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Jeff C. this didn't work for me. I've tried restarting client devices and even tried blocking and then unblocking the client devices to try to get them to choose the closest in range eero pro upon being allowed back onto the network. All four cameras on my boat dock are still trying to access my basement eero pro (where my NVR is plugged in) instead of my 4th eero pro pod purchased to place on the boat dock in waterproof housing . My iPhone sees the new eero just fine and hops from eero to eero based on where I go. I'm going to try wiping out the whole NVR and wireless camera setup and starting from new since the new eero isn't seeming to be noticed. It seems that the previous settings from the basement prior to adding the 4th pod appear to be static for the zmodo camera setup.
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Jeff C. is there a 3 year update?
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Jeff C. the problem is, during a reboot, such static devices will latch onto the first available device regardless of it's signal quality. eero knows what devices are static vs roaming. During a reboot, the system should pause reconnect attempts for all static wifi devices until all nodes are back up and\or reconnect based on connection\signal strength.
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Jeff C.
Yep, I figured that's how they connect so far away. For what it's worth though if you've ever had the "pleasure" to have to reset a Nest Protect (I need an 8' ladder to reboot one of them, for example) or a Ring doorbell it's easier to kill their power at the breaker than to do it from the device which unless you know what you're doing it might not happen (I'm thinking my parents. :-) ) Appreciate the reply back!
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Yep, totally! That's good experience feedback that I'll be happy to share 😉
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FWIW...completely agree with this feature request. I have a number of non-roaming devices that connect to a sub-optimal eero. While the network boot issue may be one reason, it is not the only reason. For example, an Echo DoT occasionally switches Eero for no reason. I notice this because when I see the device in the app it jumps out as having only one bar connectivity. I look at it and see it's connecting to my basement eero rather than the 2nd floor Eero that is 20 feet away on the same floor.
I would Definitely like to be be able to bind non-roaming devices to a given Eero!!
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Thanks for chiming in rwross 😬
That's great feedback! However, that is odd with it connecting to the less optimal eero after it has already connected to the 2nd floor one.
Is the Echo Dot directly above it? How is the connection strength of the 2nd floor eero to your network? Is there any chance it is dropping off from your network occasionally?
If you'd like, feel free to give us a call at 1-877-659-2347 or email us at support@eero.com . We're more than happy to take a look.
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Jeff C. Thanks for the response.
It's actually behavior I've noticed from time to time on other devices as well, but didn't want to muddy the waters with too many disparate examples.
I imagine you guys have some complex algorithms that are trying to optimize which Eero to connect to and whether to do so at 5Ghz or 2.4. To further complicate things, it probably considers how much bandwidth is going through a given Eero and whether it's better to switch to a distant one at 2.4 with 5 bars or stay with a closer one at 5Ghz with 3 bars...I've seen all that kind of switching behavior.
To your specific question, yes, the Dot is directly above the basement Eero. I'll try to sketch the topology of the 3 Eeros below:
If looking at the house from above:
BEDROOM
OFFICE BASEMENT
If looking at house from side:
BEDROOM
OFFICE
BASEMENT
Office and Basement Eero are hard wired back to the gateway. The bedroom Eero is completely wireless but has 5 bars back to the primary Eero.
Hope this helps...
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Just checking in. I've added quite a few more devices with more on the way (at 70+ now) and would like to try binding to specific devices rather than overloading one or two eeros. Maybe it's not an issue, not sure.
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tfederov —
Each eero can have up to 128 devices connected to it at any given time. So it shouldn't be an issue 😀
We don't have any updates to share at this time, but please feel free to give us a call at 1-877-659-2347 or email us at support@eero.com should you experience any issues so we can take a look.
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I am having the same issue. I have a long narrow house and my apple tv is at one end and my gateway eero is near the other end of the house with a beacon in between. I was expecting the beacon to pick up the connection. Instead the gateway is picking up the connection, but with only 3 bars signal strength. It would be nice if i could allow just the beacon to connect to the AppleTV.
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adamhamel every Roku in my house is ignoring the Eero 3-5 feet away and connecting to the gateway Eero on the other end of the house. Don’t think it was always that way, but it is consistent now.
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I added a beacon near my front door hoping it would pick up my Ring doorbell but it too is still connected to the furthest eero upstairs.
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tfederov —
Thanks for checking in! Since Ring doorbells don't roam, they won't try and switch eeros once they come online. If you are able to power cycle your doorbell, it should connect to the closest eero once it comes back online. If you are unable to do so, you can power cycle the eero that it has connected to. Please note that if this is your gateway (the eero connected to your modem), the Ring doorbell may connect to that one again since it appears to be in range.
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I think there may be some gap between what the engineers think should happen with non-roaming devices and what users are actually experiencing.
For example, I have a Sony TV that, depending on what other demands there there are on my network, will shift its connection from one eero to another.
The Sony software does not appear to enjoy that experience and routinely will drop its connection completely when that occurs.
For example, I could be streaming a movie on Netflix or my kids could be watching a video on YouTube, and the Sony television will simply report an error in the middle of the video indicating it lost its Internet connection.
To remedy the situation, I had to get a specific eero and place it next to the television with the television hard wired directly into that eero.
This is suboptimal for several reasons not the least of which it is not my first choice of a location for that eero and the televisions ethernet connection is not as fast as it's wireless connection.
In case you were wondering, I do have the IP address reserved and I have the TV set up with a static IP that matches that reservation.
Is there some fundamental reason why this feature would be difficult to implement?
Much thanks in advance! All the team members at eero have been delightful to work with. I just hope this is a feature that could be added in the near future.
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I have the same issue with my media room and home automation equipment. Could you modify the connected devices screen to make the connected eero selectable or add a check box to lock to eero when it is on the correct one? Just a thought for implementation.
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I am encountering the same issue with a Ring doorbell. Weak signal strength, and being assigned to further away/main eero. There is a beacon less than 10' away. It had connected to the beacon for roughly a week on one occasion, but has since re-connected to the further away eero with a weak signal and lower res video capture. Assigning a device to its closest eero would be a welcome feature.
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Absolutely want this feature. For static equipment, rebooting and hoping it connects to the right Eero doesn't make much sense. My upstairs Nest Protect (Smoke Detector) is currently connected to my Basement Eero, through 2 separate floors when there is literally a beacon 5 feet below it in the wall plug beneath it. This could be a potential safety issue if it doesn't get the notification due to distance/impediments.
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Looks like I was right. This would apply here as well then. Connections to the ideal eero are not possible with this hardware. Eero is a great product and mesh is an ideal concept when the proper configuration is feasible. Either separate the frequencies or update the software to configure devices to utilize fastest speed as opposed to best signal (QoS)
Just installed eero and if I can't separate the Frequencies, I'll likely bring it back. My issue is undoubtedly an eero issue. I don't think I'm roaming at all. I have two eeros wired (2nd floor south room/2nd floor North room) (2700sq ft home/square shaped) and one connected via wireless (1st floor center of home with open floor plan) and I'm constantly connected to the 2.4. This is an ideal placement configuration as I have no ceiling in my living room and it's mounted high up on the wall so it's basically in the center of two wired eeros (main router and 1 wired eero connected via cat6, about a 50ft homerun tested with a fluke networks nettool series II). I can only connect to the 5 if I'm standing right next to either of the two wired routers and it would require that I disconnect and reconnect to the corresponding network. The eero connected via wireless is giving me worse signal than my old tplink range extender which would cut my speed in half on the 5 and still give me 180-190 down. When connected to either wired eero's on the 5 I get 300 down.
If it kept me on the "fastest" network instead of the "best signal"; it would be an excellent product, but without proper roaming capabilities, this option is simply for those consumers that don't know or care what speed they're connected at as long as it works. Since I pay for 300D/30U, certain devices only utilizing 60D/30U is unacceptable.
If you feel I may have purchased a faulty product or if this behavior is not normal then please reply with a solution. I'm well within the grace period to exchange/return the product.
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+1 This feature would be amazing !!
Eero team: can can anyone comment if it's on the roadmap?
I'm having lots of trouble getting Sonos and Eero to work together. Sonos speakers will after time connect themselves to the wrong Eero (one that's far away) and this results in audio drops. After much back & forth with Sonos, their best advice is to use Sonos' own mesh network instead of Eero's (SonosNet) but to get this working properly they recommend plugging Sonos as far upstream as possible (as I have a few hard wired devices this means plugging into a router upstream of the gateway Eero, and putting Eero into Bridge mode, which disables a few features). I'd much rather use Eero's mesh (disable SonosNet) but lock specific speakers to a specific Eero that I know is nearby. I'm sure this is a common problem for devices around the home that don't move a lot, so the feature would be great. Fingers crossed.
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I just bought and installed 2 eero's plus 2 eero beacons. My basement Roku is bypassing a basement beacon for an upstairs eero that is also horizontally farther away (in addition to the obvious vertical distance). I rebooted the Roku and the situation continued as such. Further, when I went next to the Roku with my phone, my phone continued connected to the upstairs eero thus bypassing the basement beacon as well.
As a separate problem, my home computer so happens to be about half between two first floor devices. My Internet connectivity was dropped while working then I noticed that the computer switched from one device to the other.
This is also pretty frustrating for the price tag as the whole purpose of my purchase was to get this seamless pass-off from one device to the other throughout the home. At first blush, I'm not sure whether I improved or not from my previous powerline adapter solution.
Certainly, the feature being discussed here would be extremely helpful.
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DKMI Thanks for taking the time to comment, and welcome to the eero Community Forum! We absolutely appreciate your interest in this feature, and we'll continue to consider its implementation!
In the meantime, we'd be more than happy to help troubleshoot with you to determine why your devices seem to be choosing sub-optimal eero connections and help improve the smoothness, seamlessness and stability throughout the network. If you haven't yet, please give us a call at 877-659-2347 or shoot us an email to support@eero.com so we can work with you a little more closely to gather information and come to a resolution!
Thanks!
Drew, eero Community Team -
Drew is there a solution?
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I would like this feature also.. Especially for devices that don't like mesh.
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As another example of why this is necessary, I have four Roku Sticks in the house. Whenever the Eero’s reboot (they get a firmware update, I’m testing something for support, power outage, etc) all the Roku’s end up connected to the primary Eero, which is not the best choice for any of them.
it ends up meaning that every few weeks my family thinks the network sucks because tv does t quite work right. I start troubleshooting, realize the problem, and reboot all the sticks.....
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+1. I have the same problem with Ring doorbells that others have posted. There is a Beacon 8' away yet it connects to something much farther away. Smoke detectors, sprinkler controllers, thermostats, etc don't move around the house. So an ability to pin them to a specific eero would help ensure they are getting the best wifi possible.
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Let me chime in to support this request as well. I have 4 Reolink cameras and a Ring doorbell near the front of the house. I have 4 eeros and 1 beacon. Whenever the network restarts (e.g. because of eero update), all these devices connect to whichever eero boots up first - usually the one furthest away. I have 50+ connected devices in my home (about 10 traditional and 40+ IOT). It is impractical to reboot all of these clients every time the Eero network restarts (specially if it happens when I am not there). In the case of the Reolink cameras, usually the ftp server starts getting errors because of the weak signal.
One solution would be waiting for all Eeros to boot (potentially elongating boot time) and then synchronizing on starting the connection process, which would guarantee that the nearest Eero was up and running when the client attempted to connect.
But, as the OP requested, it would be ideal to be able to lock a client to an eero node.
With the ramp up of IOT, this problem will only get worse.
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I had really expected some update from Eero since I posted this 3 months ago. This has developed into a major annoyance now as my fleet of IOT devices has increased. I now have 8 video cameras to monitor the areas around my house and it is a royal pain in the a** each time the Eero mesh reboots - usually because Comcast modem has to be restarted or because Eero updates its software. Whenever this happens, I have to physically restart each camera for it to connect to the nearest of my 5 Eero nodes, instead of the first Eero node that restarted - invariably the one farthest from it!
If my 30-day return period hadn't expired, I would have returned my expensive Eero mesh, which has the benefit of whole house coverage, but with the disadvantage of not being able to force stationery device connection to specific nodes. My conclusion is that a mesh is wonderful if you are moving your device from room to room, but can be an annoyance for stationery IOT devices.
I suggested several ways that this problem could be addressed. It would be great if Eero could let us know if they are implementing any of them (or some other solution). Otherwise, my only option seems to be to buy additional APs and connect each of them to the ethernet port of each Eero node and have the cameras connect to the APs instead of the Eero nodes. This basically doubles my costs and disables the benefit of mesh networking.
A shame for a problem that can be solved with software.
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PhoenixRevived I raised concerns over a year ago. Nothing but generic pretyped replies. They’re making the $$$ so they couldn’t care less. I laugh every time I see new complaints being posted, knowing good and well you will get the obligatory “thanks for your concerns, I’ll be sure to take this information to my team for review” lololol
what a joke! Bet you they delete this comment too. Wouldn’t be the first time. They hate my honesty!
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PhoenixRevived agreed....I too would return if I could...not much of a mesh system if it doesn't use the mesh to it's fullest
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+1, for all of the same reasons already mentioned. I've also noticed my ethernet connected devices jumping around on my 3 eero (ethernet backhaul) setup... not sure how/why that happens! Loving the system so far :)
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Tazzman thanks for reaching out and for your feedback on this request!
As for your Ethernet-connected devices jumping around, have you contacted support yet? That shouldn't be the case, so we should definitely take a look. Feel free to give us a call at 1-877-659-2347 or email us at support@eero.com .
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Jeff,
This issue has been reported by dozens and dozens of people 10 months ago on this thread.
thanks
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I’m having the same problem!!!! I reall hope this will be fixed! I love eero!
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I've noticed something that might be a cause for incorrect assumptions in this thread, but also potentially a source of bugs within the Eero system. I'm writing because I know I have the issue in this thread, where devices connect to a sub-optimal Eero on network restart, then won't switch to a better Eero as it comes back online. Nonetheless, the below might be helpful or informative.
I use a wifi analyzer app for on my phone, which shows which Eero I'm connected to. The Eero app often shows my phone connected to a more distant Eero that would make for a poor choice, whereas my Wifi analyzer app seems to show the correct one that I'm actually connected to. My wifi signal strength (on the phone) and speed test agree with the analyzer app (good connection, fast speed, for a nearby Eero). It seems the Eero app is simply wrong or using old information. Interestingly, it shows that the connection to the distant Eero unit is poor, which would be correct, if it were actually connected to that one.
These errors seem to occur even after power-cycling, as I've found with my IP cameras when I power-cycle Eeros to attempt to get a better connection.
As I mentioned, none of this is to disagree with this feature request or deny that it would solve problems. I just want to highlight that you can't always trust what the Eero app is telling you. It also might be useful to the Eero team to know that the app doesn't always even know where devices are connected, so any attempt to manage connections by power-cycling or any other approach is compromised.
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mzman At least in my case, no such incorrect assumption exists.
I have 4 Reolink wifi cameras, spread around the outside of my house, that display the signal strength on the monitor, so I am not depending on Eero to tell me how strong the signal is or to which Eero node each one is connected - it is obvious that it is not the nearest one by the signal strength displayed.
When I restart the Eero network, the cameras glom onto the first Eero node that restarts. This is almost never the one that is closest to the respective camera. The only solution to this situation is to restart all of the cameras each time the Eero restarts so that they each make a new connection request and get the Eero nearest to each of them. This is a less-than-ideal solution as you can well imagine - as I have to get a ladder to go reset each camera.
The potential solutions I see are:
1. Assign fixed devices to specific Eero nodes (like Reservation).
2. Wait for *ALL* Eero nodes to restart before responding to *any* connection request. This would ensure that the nearest one would get the connection.
3. Periodically check if the client device is closer to a different Eero and reconnect to the closest one. I don't know if this is possible without client participation, and will probably have some undesired side effects with roaming clients.
#2 may be the easiest to implement (e.g. by hiding the SSID until ready), but has the potential of prolonging restart time - but it already takes over a minute, so the increment may not be noticeable.
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PhoenixRevived Good summary of solutions. Your #1 is the cleanest solution from my perspective, but I don't know what it takes to implement something like that, or its limitations. Your #2 seems dangerous unless there's a failsafe. If an Eero has a failure, it would presumably cause the whole network to cease functioning. There would need to be a "I've waited long enough" override.
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mzman Easily overcome with a timeout period.
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