Getting the Home Office Up to Speed
The Eero promises you’ll never have to worry about slow WiFi again.
If 2016 proved one thing about the American workforce, it’s that the corner office is officially dead. Long live the corner office.
The majority of workers still go to a place of business, yes, but it’s no longer the absolute standard, and professionals across the board crave a schedule that allows more flexibility to contribute from home. A June 2016 report from the Society of Human Resource Management found that in the 20 years the organization has studied employee benefits, the desire for telecommuting has gone from 20% to 60%. And the most recent Bureau of Labor statistics find 38% of people in management, business, and finance (and 35% of professionals overall) do some or all their work from home. And it makes a difference. A survey from the HR association World at Work revealed that more than three-quarters of managers and staff polled globally said workplace flexibility increases employee engagement and satisfaction, and more than two-thirds noted an increase in employee motivation.
There was another sea change in 2016 that ensures working remotely is a permanent way of life. The first members of Gen Z — kids born starting in 1994 — joined the workforce (at a time when some 10,000 Baby Boomers retire a day). For them, and their Millennial predecessors, it’s a nearly even split between those who crave a corporate cubicle and those who want to plug-in from their living room or set up camp in a coworking space.
Flexibility is far more important than stability, so long as they have the connectivity that makes a mobile workforce possible. The entire freelance/home business lifestyle — from garage startups to kitchen-table operations — collapses under spotty WiFi. Is there anything more frustrating than trying to meet a deadline as the signal keeps falling out?
Have no dropout fear, the Eero is here.
Launched in February 2016, it’s the world’s first residential WiFi system. And CEO Nick Weaver is so confident in Eero’s streaming ability, he makes a solemn promise to entrepreneurs on the company website. “No more buffering. No more dead zones.”
Named after Eero Saarinen, the architect and industrial designer behind works as varied as the Tulip chair and St. Louis’ Gateway Arch, the device eliminates the single-router system. “Relying on one router to provide Internet throughout your home is like expecting a light bulb to illuminate your entire house. It’s simple physics. WiFi waves don’t travel through walls or objects easily,” says Nate Hardison, Eero’s co-founder and CTO.
“Nick approached me a few years after we graduated from Stanford. He’d spent the past decade playing IT admin for his friends and saw how challenging it was to set up routers and manage networks and how, too often, the WiFi simply didn’t work.”
“WiFi is as essential a utility as electricity, yet people are still hooking their routers up to Christmas tree timers to reboot them overnight. This is why we set out to build the best home system.”
A common complaint about mesh networks is that installation can be complicated. Eero’s is relatively hassle-free; all it takes is an app, attests Computerworld Contributing Editor JR Raphael. A freelancer, he recently moved into a larger home only to find his best-laid WiFi plans were a joke.
“My office resides in a basement, so I figured I’d put an Ethernet port there for reliably speedy Internet access, since the router was upstairs. As it turned out, there was no great way to get a hardwired connection to my ‘bunker,’ so WiFi was my only option. The first day I tried to get online, I discovered the signal was weak, bordering on unusable, so I ran out to pick up an Eero. Within minutes, I had fast, dependable Internet at my desk and everywhere else in the house.”
Basically, each unit covers 1,000 square feet and should be at least 40 feet apart for download speeds between 90 and 150 MBPS — yes, even in that formerly dead spot in your rec room. Reviewers at Gizmodo and Engadget have raved, the latter opening with “before we get to its blistering speeds, let’s start with just how cool this thing looks.” One of Eero’s selling points is that it’s both compact and elegant. The glossy white pods are about the size of a cheeseburger, but stylish enough to sit out in the open.
“Apple and Nest have taught consumers not to settle for ugly gadgets,” says Hardison. “Traditional routers resemble spaceships with the antennae and blinking lights. But this you don’t have to hide in the closet.”
The working world is changing. Strong WiFi is as vital to the modern economy as the assembly line was to the last century. “A network like Eero can certainly address one hurdle of working from home,” says Raphael. The corner office isn’t dead; it’s just in your basement. Long live the corner office.
The Startup Starter Kit 2.0
These days home offices run on game-changing services like Bench for accounting, SquareSpace for websites, and Moo for business cards. All launched in 2016, here are a few more to add to your toolbox:
AnywhereWorkday.com: The average American spends 42 hours a year stuck in traffic. Wouldn’t it be great to get those 2,520 minutes back? Site founder Ivan Chan spent years working in corporate communications when he realized he wanted more time for travel and family — Enter is concept for gig and career listings focused on flexible opportunities across industries. The ten-buck trial is a small price to pay for freedom.
Archipod: Perhaps the dream of a home office isn’t working because your home is where your heart — and all of your distractions — are. Earlier this year, this UK-based company teamed up with Maine’s Podzooks for US distribution of its roughly $30k spherical “shedquarters,” featuring curved plywood walls, reclaimed hardwood floors, porthole windows, and a gullwing door to make John DeLorean smile. An orb of one’s own — every entrepreneur’s dream.
Simple Habit: There’s one guarantee to running a home business — stress. Former banker and start-up guru Yunha Kim knows this first-hand, which is why she launched the 5-minute-a-day meditation app last spring. Designed by Harvard psychologists, the focused exercises reduce stress while improving memory, increasing creativity, and allowing you, the blissed-out industrialist, to get a good night’s sleep.
Oristand: Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite, started propping his laptop on a cardboard box following a back injury a few years back. Now it can be yours with the two-pound, $25 Oristand, a portable, cardboard perch. Science has found links between sitting all day and higher death rates so get fitter by going bipedal for parts of the day.
