1

Multiple Eeros with wired connections to the internet

Community,  In searching for what I was looking to do, I was unable to find any CLEAR discussions so I thought I would share what I learned here. 

I have a large house with many floors, built long ago (1900) and luckily added cat6 in the last go around of renovations.  Being an old house, meshing these eeros was a non-starter, I needed to use my wired lan for backhaul to my egress to the internet.  

Additionally, I have an existing network and advanced firewall which I wanted to keep, so this write up is assuming bridged mode, which disables a lot of advanced features with regards to policy and user controls. 

Step 1: Setup your first eero in a place that you plan to leave it, connect it with ethernet to your lan, set it in bridge mode and update the software to the most current.

Step 2: Plug in your next eero in the vicinity of the first.  In the app/network select add eero and follow the steps for placement and upgrade again to current.  Once this step is complete you have two eeros in the same "network" using wireless to extend from the first.  At this point, you can power down your second eero and move it to where you really want it, where you have a wired connection back to the house lan (and the other eero). Once this second eero is powered and booted, your app will show it as in network and online, using wired as it's connection. 

 

Step 3: Repeat until you are done. 

In my case I have 4 eeros and 1 beacon all performing very well but this would not be the case if I were trying to mesh without a wired lan. I also have other devices connected to my wired eeros and they are performing well via the switch/bridge in the eero's themselves.   Overall I am very impressed with this platform and look forward to playing more with it!

46replies Oldest first
  • Oldest first
  • Newest first
  • Active threads
  • Popular
  • Agree 100%  Love my EERO

    I have a very similar layout - slightly newer house, with less cat 6 :(

    Like
  • Thanks for the detailed write-up.  I have only two in my setup, but when I setup the second one, I plugged it directly to the ethernet backhaul in my house, and then added it. Would this cause any difference?

    Like
  • I don't believe it will make any difference at all, EERO seem to mesh happily regardless of how they are connected

    Like 1
  • Community, 

     

    I should have done an update to this thread sooner but I have been very busy, sorry. 

    One thing of note, it seems that the eeros are a lot happier if they are all wired to a unique switch or vlan  and then egress to the network via a main eero, that main unit having an ethernet link to both the northern switch (wan) and the eero switch or vlan (lan). By happier, it seems that devices can roam from eero to eero more fluidly, I assume doing this masks all wireless devices' arp entries behind the main eero. 

     

    To answer kash80's question, adding an eero to an existing "network" while being hardwired in is fine when the new eero can connect to the existing eero wirelessly. My assumption is that the app and the algo that eero use for placement does not look at the wired connection when adding an eero, only focusing on the wireless.  Once "added" to the network, the new eero will make use of the wired connection.  In my deployment, adding aa new eero to the network would not occur when the new eero was not able to connect wirelessly to the existing eero and the ethernet did not allow it to.  I would think the eero folks should add wired eero discovery as a network feature because for me, it never worked. I had to move the new eero closer to the existing network eeros, add it, update it and then unplug it and move it to where I wanted it with a wired connection.

     

    I hope this helps. 

     

    db

    Like 1
  • dbenson said:
    One thing of note, it seems that the eeros are a lot happier if they are all wired to a unique switch or vlan  and then egress to the network via a main eero, that main unit having an ethernet link to both the northern switch (wan) and the eero switch or vlan (lan). By happier, it seems that devices can roam from eero to eero more fluidly, I assume doing this masks all wireless devices' arp entries behind the main eero. 

     Hi,

    Sorry to re-open this thread, but it is quite relevant to me since I have a very similar setup to you.  5 Eero's hardwired in bridge mode.  I'm only in my first week with it, but it seems to work well.  The only issue is that some devices do not show up in the Eero app yet they are connected and functional.

    Can you explain more what you mean by the above quote?  My primary Eero (the gateway) is connected directly to my router.  The router has a 24-port switch connected to it, and 2 more Eero's are connected to that switch.  My other 2 Eero's are connected to 5 or 8-port switches that are then connected to the 24-port switch.

    Thanks,

    -Steve

    Like 1
      • cotedan87
      • Fan of tinkering with new hardware. Canadian dude.
      • cotedan87
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      shoek might be too simple a reply to you, but everything  should be connected to your main eero, which itself would be the only connection to the router. Everything should be downstream from the main eero. 

      Like
  • Hi - I just bought a new Eero Pro package with 3 eero's. I also have ethernet connections available in the house and I want to hardwire them. What I would like to know is that do we connect main eero unit to our cable modem and then connect rest of the units to the main unit?

    or do I need to place a switch coming out of the modem and then connect all 3 eero units to  the cable model through the switch? 

    I hope I am making sense here. Basically I need help with how to connect all 3 devices together (hard wired). Thanks in advance!

    Like
  • I have setup 6 homes with 3 eero pro in each.  The first eero is connected to the modem and then ethernet to a switch.  The switch is then wired to the house wiring which terminates in the home and connected to two more eero pro.  In the app I can see all three and the two remote eero have a network icon next to the location name.  However when I select one it goes into the details and show the Connection as wireless, not wired.  This is my 7th install.  All the other homes worked great.  Just plugged in the network during setup and everything was flawless.  I am beating my head against the wall trying to figure this one out.  The modems, switch, eero, wires are all new.  This was a total gut of 10 year old technology and update, just like the others I did.  Any help is appreciated.

    Like
  • I too am having the same problem. We have the eero pro with 3 eeros all wired through ethernet at our last home. The system worked fantastically. Now we just moved into our new home and I went to reinstall our eero system over ethernet and I can only get the main eero to connect via ethernet. The other two automatically default to wireless. I have reinstalled about 5 times and finally gave up and called support. After being on the hold for about 90 minutes the line went dead. Not sure if they are open during COVID. 

    Anyways, any help would to get the other two eeros connected over ethernet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    Like
      • flylow47
      • flylow47
      • 3 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Klem maybe try testing them with cables before putting them around your house?  maybe you've done that already.  i do see how the eero's first start as wireless but then change to wired after a few minutes.

       

      my house has older ethernet wiring, and i've found: 1) not all ports are active and there is no way to trace 2) my connections vary which i think is a function of the cabling quality and age. i get gigabit from 2 and fast ethernet from all the others.

      Like
  • I finally resolved my problem.  1 the switch was acting weird.  It would only allow internet traffic if I plugged the main eero into port 8.  I have used these switches MANY times and never had this issue and their not supposed to work that way.  2 the eero needed updated (that fixed the second eero pro).  3 I had to plug and unplug power to one eero several times.  4 last step I reset everything in the entire network. including all the eero devices and the 3rd eero finally saw the internet connection instead of wireless.  I also noticed the eero app does not update real time.  Such as it was not showing wired connection but I believe it was because when I pulled up the eero app on the ipad instead of the phone it showed wired connection.  So some of my trouble was the app not updating.

    This may be my last eero install.  Not because of the issues but because help was not available when I needed it.  I tried calling eero several times.  The final time I just let the phone sit on my desk in the support que waiting for my turn.  After 2-1/2 hours I finally hung up as I was leaving work for the day.  Completely unreasonable for such a great product.

    Like
  • May have some suggestions for you  sloppydogdrool from what I've learned anyhow.  I've found that the app has a bug where some devices show up wired when they're in fact wired. And the eero's always first start off showing up as wireless and then go to wired after comms have been established.

     

    Eero could do a much better job in explaining the pros and cons of a combined wired/wireless network.  I have 6 routers, over 90 devices, and am finally happy with the configuration as being 90% wired, with a wireless Eero only out in by backyard pavilion well away from the house. It seriously struggles if I add a beacon to the mix as well, because i think it causes the devices to be confused or slow down.

    Like
  • How can we tell the method they are connecting? When I go into the eero it says connected wireless.

    Like
  • If they're showing connected wireless, with the normal wireless symbol, then they are. On the home screen if they're not connected wirelessly, you'll see the <--> symbol in place of the ))), just like to "internet."

    Like
    • flylow47 Mine showed wired connection symbol but when selecting that router the next page in the app said the word wireless very clearly.

      Like
  • Yes, on the main screen it shows <--> for each of my 3 eero's.

    However, when I click into each of them it says "Connection Wireless". odd...

    Is there anyway to confirm how each of them are truly connected?

    Like
      • schmitzna
      • schmitzna
      • 3 yrs ago
      • 1
      • Reported - view

      Klem sloppydogdrool  The eero app used to be much better.  I recently deleted and re-added my network with 4 eero pros to change it back to bridge mode and it was much more difficult than when I set it up originally.  The first time I could connect the eeros via wired backhaul and they added to the network just fine.  Now you have to add the eeros in close proximity to the first one so it can establish a wireless connection.  Then you can move it to out of wireless range and it shows wired on the main screen and then full wireless signal strength on the individual eero page.  NO WAY they have full wireless signal strength where I put them -- the app is crap -- but they do have a solid, wired connection.  The reason I went back to bridge mode is that IPv6 and WPA3 on the eeros is garbage where my old Arris router works fine for IPv6.  I can no longer recommend anyone buy these.

      Like 1
  • Presumably you have a switch connected to your main access point, and there are ethernet cables running from the switch. Your switch should have lights for each active connection.  If they are on, then you're connected.

    You might also try removing the eero app and reinstalling it.  

    Like
  • I would suggest that it's mandatory to plug the first/gateway eero directly into your router and then all of the other wired connections should be plugged into a switch that is connected to the gateway eero. All of my eero devices are connected via cat53.

    Any other setup seems to create ip addresses on two different subnets which can be a nightmare. This is particularly true of iphones and ipads. I have struggled with this issue until I changed my configuration. 

    Like 1
    • vkratliff That is exactly how I had mine setup and my two that I placed around the house cost me hours of rebooting and fooling around but they finally started working on their own and have not had an issues since then.

      Like
  • I finally got through to support. And after an hour of rebooting everything it finally worked. Everything has been working great since. Seeing download speeds of 1g on average. I would recommend a hard reboot on each eero.

    Like
    • Klem  the hours on hold for tech support is exactly why I won’t recommend this hardware anymore to friends or clients.  The whole point of eero is ease of install and great signal thru the whole home office or wherever.  No outdoor devices is also a burden.  It’s a shame as I really wanted this product to be the easy solution for people.  

      Like
  • Great thread and has me thinking of this will fix my issue.. I have two eero pros and 3 pro beacons. My service is gig service and I’m pulling 100mbs at each location. 
    My house is networked with cat 6 or cat 5e and the jacks are Ethernet ready. If I bridge the system can I use both eero pros as a gateway and would that improve my speed? 

    Like
    • NWfresh360 I think one eero pro is a gateway.  The other erro pro plugs in the switch to be used as an access point.  It's my understanding the beacons are not able to carry 1gig. 

      Like
    • sloppydogdrool bummer. i believe they advertise them for alot more then 80-100mgbts...

      Like
  • I could not get this to work at all. 

    My house has drop wires from the access point - netgear r8000 - but only one eero picks up the wired signal from the router. 

    Like
    • halcylon I've installed the eero in a small self contained community and a few other places.  Probably 30 homes and a few businesses.  I've replaced ubiquit, netgear and other routers.  Not cheap models, commercial grade and top of the line other brand routers.  Far to much detail to go into but bottom line the eero performed the best and was easiest for the customer to deal with.  This comes from a couple years of screwing around with other brands.   I no longer mess around with anything but eero.  We had a resident with a nighthawk router and he had issues with streaming TV.  We swapped it out with eero and boom problem gone.  My point is, replace that netgear with an eero.  So it would be, modem to eero, eero to switch, switch to other eero.

      Now with all that said.  I no longer recommend eero to customers who want support.  eero support is non existent.  I had called support numerous times and just walked away from the phone while I worked and come back hours later and I am still on hold.  Yes I said HOURS.  Absolutely ridiculous for the price they charge.

      I had one eero that refused to go hardwired.  It finally did after HOURS of screwing with it.  Resetting, removing and reinstalling on the network.  However I've installed over 100 without issue.

      Now recently the one at my office has stopped going hard wired after a power outage.  It's plugged into the network and if I power cycle it a couple dozen times, sometimes it might go hard wired.  Since there is no support the only option is to return it as defective.  

      Good luck, I hope some of this information helps you!

      Like
      • flylow47
      • flylow47
      • 2 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      halcylon it is entirely possible the crimps are bad. i had to recrimp almost all of mine. and some i've not been able to get a signal out of at all.

       

      i have one beacon and get about 250mpbs from it. the others give me 800-850mbps in my 1gb connection (which tests out to 920ish usually).

      Like
  • So my setup:

     

    cable modem -> wired router -> switch


    from the switch are various Ethernet patches inside the walls of my home ending in Ethernet ports.

     

    I want to keep my wired router.  Can I setup 3 eero units each wired?  They would all be post switch.  I assume they would each be bridge mode.  

    Like
    • Jsirgo You have to have an eero upstream of the switch and other devices.

       

      Cable modem -> wired router (you don't have to have this, but sounds like you want it) -> eero -> switch -> other devices including eeros.

      Like
    • txgunlover I am sorry but that is not accurate.  You do not have to have an eero upstream.  You can have as many eero as you like wired in bridge mode.  My house is Modem > CISCO Router > Switch > 3 eero hard wired and all my other hard wired devices into that switch.  I have two homes running this way with the Cisco.  Another home the customer insisted on keeping his netgear first then 3 eero in bridge mode. 

      Now, lets discuss my experience with these setups.  The two homes with the Cisco wired routers are there to for security and to create a constant VPN.  Those two systems work great.  The power flickers or goes out or the internet goes out or any other hickup...Everything comes back online it's self.  The one customer with the netgear wireless router doesn't work well at all.  I don't know what his configuration is or what else he has going on but his performance is poor.  I don't recommend mixing wireless devices in a home environment.  When we use all eero, we don't get service calls.

      Like
      • Jsirgo
      • Jsirgo
      • 2 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      Sloppy so looks like cable modem -> wired router -> switch -> three bridge wired eeros will work!

      I still get just one Wi-Fi network?  No device drop off as I move to/from eeros?  Setup as OP suggested?  That is first eero wired bridge then others wireless first then power down then wire in?

      Like
    • Jsirgo hardwire all the eero.  They will plug into the switch.  Just power them up and set them up with the app one at a time.  Only thing I don't recall is how you force them into bridge mode.  You can do it in the app it's just been so long I don't recall.  Also the app has changed.  I'm sure you can google the directions.

      Like
    • Jsirgo you also asked about moving from device to device as one network.  Yes, they just have to have the same SSID which they should automatically do that.  However I will tell you from my experience with many wireless networks that handing off your device from one router to another doesn't always work well.  I have moved from one room to another with my laptop for example.  I can move from a room with maybe half signal into a room with a router in it but it will not switch automatically.  It shows the signal barely existent and speed is terrible from the router in the area I just moved from.  But for some reason it just won't switch to the better signal automatically.  I lack the technical knowledge to know why.  I've experienced this with many different networks and devices, even eero.

      Like
  • I have a hardwired Eeero Pro that's fed from a switch off my router. One of the hardwired legs off the switch feeds another (new Eero 6 Pro) in my basement- I added it with no issues and it shows up as hardwired. I just tried replacing my "main" hardwired Eero 6 in the living room (the one that's fed by the switch off of the router) and the system couldn't find it even though the internet was on and working correctly. Tried unplugging the modem, unplugging the new eero 6 pro a couple of times but it would never connect to the internet and the whole eero system was offline. I put the previous Eero Pro that was there orignally back on line and the whole system came back up again no problems. 

     

    Is ther a conflct with having two Eero 6 Pro hardwired on the same set up ? I want to use both so the one in the basement comfortably covers the entire basement and add the same Eero 6 pro on the main floor so it has further reach across the rest of the house, both being hardwired. 

     

    thanks 

    Like
  • Question related to your post and my previous question. If I add a wireless Eero 6 Pro to my system is its range going to be the same as if it were hard wired to the network? In other words as long as its on the network is it broadcasting at the same range and speed regardless of it being hardwired or not? 

    Like
    • speedthrills Range is not dependent on being hardwired.  Speed can be impacted, but not range.

      Like
    • txgunlover Thanks ! The question is can I have two hardwired Eero  Pro 6 on the same network? I have one hardwired currently but its not identified by the system as the "head unit", I tried replacing the "head unit" Eero 6 this morning with the Pro 6 and could not get it to be reconized by the system, the eero network went offline and wouldn't come back. I ended reverting and putting the original Feero 6 head unit back- hardwired as before and no issues, it came back online (with the new hard wired Eero 6 Pro working too. 

      Like
    • speedthrills Your saying eeor 6 and eero pro don't play nice on the same network?

       

      speedthrills Wired and wireless mixed.  Wireless seems to run VERY poorly.  For some reason devices always want to use the wireless eero even though it is farther away.  I'm not convinced mesh is good unless it is all you have.  I've also had issues with live streaming TV services.

      Like
    • sloppydogdrool I notice that I've had issues with Roon enabled devices for audio streaming sometimes dropping off the network or, oddly, being connected to a wireless Eero 6 rooms away while being located 6 feet away from an eero. I've ended up trying to hardwire as much of the system as I can using switches sometimes to run CAT 5 lines off of to TV's and devices etc. 

       

      I couldn't seem to get two Eero 6 Pro working - hard wired- at the same time though the older Eero 6 hard wired gets along fine with a single Eero 6 PRO hard wired? 

      Like
    • speedthrills The eero pro will work together hard wired.  The only issue I have had is there is one of my offices where I need the eero to be.  It REFUSES to go hardwired.  I even tried swapping around other eero which are working hard wired in other rooms.  So it has something to do with the networking in the room.  Now the wiring in that room could be the issues.  The erro wireless to a switch that wires to a wall plate that wires to another switch that wires to the switch in the panel that ties into the cable modem.  So it could be in your wiring like mine.  I mean process of elimination.  I put in other eeros that work hard wired in other offices and even took the original one that was not working and put it in another office and it goes hard wired there.  So that tell me it has to be the wiring in that office.

      Like
  • @sloppydogdrool - I just hooked up all three eeros (bridge) hardwired in the modem - router - switch setup.  It works just as you said it would.  So  try king flawlessly so far.

    Like
    • Jsirgo Great glad to hear it!  It's nice when things just work!  Overall the eero are the best in so far as grief free installation.  We get zero service calls on them.

      Like
  • I have 2 eero devices - first one is used as the gateway device and I want to have wired connection to the second one. My home has the Ethernet wires setup already.

     

    I am using gateway device’s other Ethernet plug to connect it to the room I want to have my second eero device but the problem is that second device only connects through wireless connection and not through wired. Do I need to buy a switch?

    Like
    • Hello shahp ,

      Flylow47 has the right of it. Network topology if very important for eeros and you only want one eero with direct access to the modem. Any extra eeros you have at the location will need to branch out from the Gateway eero similar to a tree and it's roots. The most likely cause of your second eero staying on wireless is due to both eeros being connecting at the same spot in the topology. Once you change the topology so it is something similar to what I've written below the eero should rotate back to a wired connect after a few minutes or a reboot.

      Modem -> eero (Gateway) -> Switch -> wires throughout house -> eero/devices

      Like
  • On your gateway, you should connect one of the ethernet ports to your modem, and the other to the second eero. You might test it using a cable first before you use your home's ports. Give the eero a few (maybe 5ish) minutes  to switch the connection from wireless to wired once the two are connected.

     

    If you want to connect more eeros then yes, you'd need a switch - my only advice there is get a good one. Switches can easily become the weakest link of the chain (I have a netgear nighthawk).

     

    For my house, I found a couple of things out when I used the built-in cat5e cabling 1) many of the connectors needed to be re-crimped 2) not all would work - even with re-crimping. The first clue was that the eero would only connect at 100mbps through the home wiring - which meant that not all 8 small wires in the cat5e cables were connected.  Thus I bought a crimp tool, connectors, and began a tedious process of cutting and re-crimping.  But now all are 1gbps connected. This was actually why I asked eero to indicate in the app the connection speed (which they did).

    Like
Like1 Follow
  • 1 Likes
  • 1 yr agoLast active
  • 46Replies
  • 17559Views
  • 22 Following

Need Help? We're here for you!

We're big on support, and we want to make sure you always have the best eero experience possible. Here are several resources you can use if you ever need our help!


Quick links

Community Guidelines

Help Center

Contact eero support

@eerosupport

eero.com