WiFi is broken.
So we’re fixing it.
For something that all of us use every day, WiFi has a ton of problems. From dead spots and buffering to crazy passwords and pulling the plug whenever there’s a problem, it’s an infuriating experience.
One of my good friends can’t get online from his kitchen. Another set up two networks to cover her home — but printing works on only one. My old coworker talks about the “special chair” he sits in so that he can stream House of Cards.
WiFi has become a core utility — we rely on it to work from anywhere, read the day’s news, listen to music, and watch our favorite movies and TV shows. And for a growing number of us, WiFi even connects our light bulbs, security cameras, and thermostats. But WiFi hasn’t kept up. While WiFi products keep touting faster speeds, the software that runs them is shockingly similar to what we had in the 90s.
Home networking gear has been a long-time frustration for me. I’ve always been the IT admin for family, friends, and really anyone with my phone number. A few years back, I wired my parents’ house with four access points and hooked them all up to a surge protector with a big red button. Now, if something goes wrong, my phone doesn’t ring (quite as often) — they just hit the button, hoping the reboot solves the problem.
Today, we’re excited to introduce eero, the world’s first home WiFi system.
We re-imagined everything from the ground up and built eero to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi.
We started by acknowledging that it’s just not possible to cover an entire home with a single router. It’s not how WiFi radio waves work — the farther they have to travel and the more obstructions they encounter, the less reliable your connection becomes. But putting a router in every room isn’t possible either; getting all the cryptic settings right takes a networking degree and a lot of luck.
eero solves this with a single piece of hardware that’s meant to be placed in multiple locations throughout your home. A set of three will cover the typical house — but you can add as many as you need.
Setup is super simple and takes under a minute. You plug the first into your existing cable or DSL modem. And the others just need to be plugged into power outlets around your home. All of your eeros automatically connect to each other to create an intelligent mesh network that blankets your entire home, whatever its shape or size. If you ever move, you can take your eero system with you — and easily expand it to cover a larger home.
But we didn’t stop there. eero has features you’ve never before seen with WiFi:
Simplicity
It’s not just setup that’s super simple, managing your eero network is, too. For the first time, your home WiFi isn’t going to be a black box. You’ll always know exactly what’s going on: which devices are using your network, how much bandwidth those devices are using, and how your Internet service is performing.
And if there’s ever a problem with your eero system, it will fix itself, automatically rebooting when necessary. You won’t have to pull the plug and count to ten.
One-tap guest access
One-tap guest access allows you to easily and securely share your network with visitors. You can quickly send guests your network’s login info straight from your phone via text message. Better still, if your guests have the eero app, you can securely add them to your network with the touch of a button — they don’t even have to enter a password. No more fumbling around in the kitchen drawer for that crazy WiFi password.
Sleek design
We wanted to build a beautiful product for our homes, which requires a major focus on design. We worked with Fred Bould (whose studio has worked closely with GoPro, Nest, and Roku) on eero’s sleek, white form, which goes with any home and doesn’t need to be hidden in the closet.
Advanced security
eero alerts you whenever a new device joins your network, so you can easily keep tabs on your network. The software also auto-updates, meaning your network will always have the latest and greatest security. You won’t hear about a vulnerability and have to rush to download a security patch. We’ll take care of everything for you.
Check out our website for other features.
We want your WiFi to work 100% of the time — but we also think that it’s time WiFi did more. This is just the beginning.
We’re excited to make eero available for pre-order. You can pre-order a single eero for $125, discounted from $199 regularly. A system or 3-pack is $299, discounted from $499. We’ll ship orders this summer and we’ll always be 100% transparent with our early-adopters — and keep you in the loop every step of the way.
WiFi just caught up.
eero wouldn’t be here today without all the help we’ve gotten from our family, friends, investors, and advisors. A big thank you to Rob Hayes and everyone else at First Round Capital for everything along the way. Our other investors — such as Stanford University / StartX, Menlo Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures (Jerry Yang), Homebrew Ventures (Hunter Walk and Satya Patel), Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, and Trae Vassallo — had faith early and have been invaluable.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm who developed the AirPort and iPod while at Apple, has lent his deep experience in building the best consumer electronics products. In addition to the industrial design of the eero device, Fred Bould and his team have influenced eero’s branding and communications.
