eero 6 and eero Pro 6 Review and Speed Tests
Originally Posted: January 18th, 2021
Last Edited: April 19th, 2022
This review covers the eero 6 and eero Pro 6 from 2020. For updated comparison changes, speed test results, and coverage of the eero 6+ and Pro 6E, see my eero 6+ and Pro 6E review.
eero 6 and eero Pro 6 Review and Speed Tests
On One Hand,
The eero 6 and eero Pro 6 are great. They are easy to use mesh Wi-Fi systems which deliver Wi-Fi 6 speeds through attractive hardware and a well-designed mobile app. Setup is simple, and the network will improve itself over time from software updates and a constantly running optimization process. If you want Wi-Fi that just works, eero is a good option.
On The Other Hand,
The eero 6 and eero Pro 6 are a disappointment. Some basic features are locked behind a subscription. The early firmware was buggy, and Wi-Fi 6 performance sometimes doesn’t live up to expectations. Most of the same limitations from the previous models remain. None of the new models support Wi-Fi 6E, and the Pro models are expensive.
The Truth is Somewhere in the Middle.
eero Generation 3: What's New?
Before we dig into the two sides of the story, let's cover the new hardware and what's different about them.
The biggest new feature is the use of Wi-Fi 6 rather than Wi-Fi 5. Wi-Fi 6 radios are more efficient, easier on your batteries, and are better at handling multiple devices and crowded channels. Single client speed should improve slightly, but multi-device throughput is where you’ll see the biggest gains. Another big benefit of Wi-Fi 6 is better mesh backhaul. The new radios are faster due to slightly higher link rates, OFDMA, and most dramatically, additional spatial streams on the eero Pro 6.
The 2nd generation eero products were Wi-Fi 5 devices, capable of 400 Mbps over 2.4 GHz, and 876 Mbps over 5 GHz. The basic eero was dual-band, but the 2nd generation eero Pro added a 2nd 5 GHz radio, making it a tri-band device. All of the 2nd generation eero radios — even the 3rd radio in the Pro — are 2x2, meaning they support 2 spatial streams. You can think of a spatial stream as a Wi-Fi highway lane. The more spatial streams you have, the more traffic you can support at one time. Most Wi-Fi client devices like phones and laptops only support 2 streams, but wireless backhaul and are able leverage the additional capacity.
With the Pro 6, eero is offering a 4 spatial stream device for the first time. The 5.8 GHz radio on the eero Pro 6 is 4x4, with support for 2400 Mbps. The 5.2 GHz radio is still 2x2, but is now capable of 1200 Mbps thanks to the improvements in Wi-Fi 6. The 2.4 GHz radio is also 2x2, but now tops out at 576 Mbps. There are other internal upgrades as well. Compared to the 2nd Generation eero, the CPU is approximately ten times as fast. There's twice as much RAM, and it's faster.
Some things didn't change. The eero 6 and eero Pro 6 are well designed and the hardware itself is higher quality than budget mesh kits like the Deco X60. The antenna design is largely the same, and they still provide very good range. Setup and the eero app experience are largely the same. Unfortunately you still have to pay for eero Secure, which adds parental controls, content filtering, ad blocking, and more activity monitoring options.
With so many things the same, it’s worth looking at the differences between the two new Wi-Fi 6 models. For more, see my eero comparison charts and review of eero 6+ and eero Pro 6E.
Comparison of all eero and Ring models, as of April 2022.
eero 6 vs. eero Pro 6
The biggest difference between the regular eero and the eero Pro 6 is the number and quality of the Wi-Fi radios. The Eero 6 is a dual-band AX1800 device, and the eero Pro 6 is a tri-band AX4200 device. The additional 4x4 5 GHz radio is the biggest difference between the two. Eero claims 500 additional square footage of coverage and 100 Mbps more speed on the eero Pro 6, but that is more of a guideline than a guarantee. Eero recommends the basic eero 6 for "up to 900 Mbps" and the Pro 6 for "up to 1 Gbps", but more on that later.
Besides that, they are largely the same. They both have a built-in Smart Home Hub, with Bluetooth 5.0, Zigbee, and Alexa support. They both have two gigabit Ethernet ports, and are powered via USB-C. They both rely on the eero app for management.
eero 6 Extender
The regular eero 6 comes in two flavors: with two Ethernet ports, and without. The version with Ethernet ports is the eero 6. The version without is called the eero 6 Extender. The 2-piece eero 6 kit I’m reviewing has one of each, meaning only one unit was able to leverage wired connections or act as the gateway. Besides that big asterisk, the eero 6 and the eero 6 Extender are functionally the same.
The Eero 6 Extender (left) lacks the Ethernet ports found on the Eero 6 (right).
There aren't dedicated satellites or routers in an eero system, there are just nodes and other nodes. The eero 6 Extender won’t be able to act as your main gateway due to it’s lack of Ethernet, but all eero units are compatible. They can all be added to any existing eero network. I’m a little disappointed that the 3-piece $279 eero 6 kit uses two Extenders, since the lack of Ethernet ports limits both your ability to use wired backhaul, and your ability to conserve airtime by wiring up your most bandwidth-heavy devices. If you’re planning on using Ethernet, the $349 "3 Routers" kit makes more sense.
Wi-Fi 6 Speed Test Expectations
Wi-Fi is a complicated technology, and it's hard to discuss Wi-Fi performance with the right level of depth. Getting it right requires covering some aspects of how Wi-Fi works, but it's easy to get too in the weeds. It's also easy to gloss over the underlying complexity, show some speed test results, and call it a day. In my opinion, explanations without underlying understanding aren't worth much. Bear with me as a I go over a few Wi-Fi fundamentals.
An Eero 6 Kit, which includes one Eero 6 and one Eero 6 Extender.
The biggest benefit of Wi-Fi 6 over Wi-Fi 5 is more efficient spectrum utilization, lower required power for battery devices, and better interference and congestion management. Note that I didn't say higher speeds. There are a couple higher, close-range data rates, but they aren’t often used in practice. Even under ideal conditions, Wi-Fi 6’s higher data rates aren't going to provide the same dramatic speed boost that going from Wi-Fi 4 to Wi-Fi 5 did. In ideal conditions near your AP, speeds are usually around 10-15% better.
Additional spatial streams, like the 4 found in the eero Pro 6, are more likely to make a big impact. The bad news is those 4 spatial streams are usually only fully utilized for wireless backhaul between eero Pro 6 nodes, or for improving beamforming. The smartphone or laptop you’re reading this on likely only supports 2 or possibly 3 spatial streams. More spatial streams improves multi-client performance, but they probably won’t give you higher numbers on your speed test.
Another common misconception about Wi-Fi deals with the advertised theoretical maximum speeds, like the 2400 Mbps on the 4x4 radio of the eero Pro 6. You will never see that speed in practice, because there is always overhead when you use a radio. It is impossible to push that much data due to inter-frame gaps, burst length limits, and other devices using the channel. In most cases, getting around 50-70% of your data rate is what you should expect.
Speed tests are not the beginning and end of measuring Wi-Fi performance. Public speed test servers often struggle to fill a gigabit Internet connection, or max out a Wi-Fi 6 radio. They also often have more bandwidth available on the upload side rather than the download side. That’s why you’ll often see higher upload speeds than download speeds — the speed test server is limiting you, not your local network. Often, Wi-Fi 6 networks are capable of delivering data faster than websites can send it. To achieve those high-end numbers, a local testing tool like iPerf is often a more accurate and repeatable measurement.
Eero themselves claim to pursue stability rather than pure speed with their devices, and I’d argue that is a more important aspect than raw speed. I’d take a slower stable connection over a faster unstable one. When browsing the web, multi-device throughput and latency is often more important than speed. These aspects are hard to capture quantitatively, but Jim Salter at ArsTechnica did a good job when he reviewed the previous Wi-Fi 5 kit. The summary is that eero handles real-world uses well. Even if the numbers on the speed test are a little lower than you want, the stability of the network is arguably more important. Stability and latency make a big difference in real world performance, and most reviewers miss that.
eero’s Auto-Magic Wi-Fi
There are a lot of automatic and intelligent things that happen behind the scenes to improve performance. Eero's secret sauce is that it is a multi-channel mesh. It uses path diversity to increase the overall carrying capacity by using all available methods. For example, when two nodes are connected via Ethernet, backhaul traffic isn't wired instead of wireless — it's both at the same time. This path diversity helps provide a Wi-Fi network that is both stable and fast, without you having to mess with settings.
The Eero Pro 6. All Eero Pro 6 models have Ethernet ports.
Eero’s auto-magic also shows up in little details which aren’t clear to most users. During setup, the placement test will fail if there isn’t a 5 GHz connection between the two. After setup, there's a signal strength indication in the app. The Wi-Fi symbol next to the node will show four bars if it has at least 100 Mbps of backhaul capability spread across its various mesh links. If you don’t see 4 bars, you may want to adjust the placement of your nodes.
When handling traffic, backhaul decisions are made on a frame-by-frame basis. It's not uncommon for one client's traffic to use one radio and another client's traffic to use a different one. Download traffic can take a different path than upload traffic. This helps conserve airtime, and deliver good mesh performance.
Eero also supports enabling options like band steering, which can encourage devices to join the faster 5 GHz band. It does this by responding to probe requests on 5 GHz first, so your device will connect to 5 GHz before the slower 2.4 GHz band. With band steering turned on, the eero will attempt to move any associated devices to 5 GHz. If steering fails, it'll let the client connect to 2.4 GHz. Not all devices play nice with this feature, which is why it's off by default. You can enable it in the app under the eero Labs section.
Another auto-magic aspect is how both 2nd generation and 3rd generation eeros can selectively ignore sources of RF interference. This allows the radios to tune out sources of interference, like other Wi-Fi networks. Interference comes from other places too, like speakers, Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens, and even USB 3, HDMI or DisplayPort cables. Dealing with this interference can take a significant amount of CPU time, but provides a better wireless experience. It’s another feature of eero devices that are always working in the background without you worrying about it.
Firmware History
When they were first released, the early firmware versions had a few bugs which negatively affected performance. If you search through the eero subreddit, you’ll see a lot of people complaining about high-end speeds. The 6.0.1, 6.0.2, and 6.0.3 releases made some minor tweaks to improve stability and fix some cosmetic issues, like inaccuracies in client statistics. The big improvements came in version 6.1.0 and 6.1.1.
With firmware versions prior to 6.1.0, a lot of users were seeing low results from common public speed test servers. According to an eero developer in this Reddit post:
Firmware version 6.1.0 fixed many of the Wi-Fi side physical layer problems. This speed test issue appears to be latency, packet scheduling and aggregation related.
This was due to the traffic pattern and TCP options that these servers use, interacting badly with the aggregation and transmit scheduling in 802.11ax radios. Some FTTH networks pass these traffic patterns through in a way that DOCSIS networks do not. Notably, not all FTTH networks are seeing this problem.
In my testing with gigabit Verizon FiOS, those issues were resolved by the 6.1.0 and 6.1.1 firmware versions, but some people still report slow speeds. There’s more improvements coming, like Smart Queue Management, but for now, it appears the largest issues have been fixed. Eeros use software defined radios, which means that real and significant improvements can come via software updates. The largest issues seem to be fixed for most users, and the situation should improve as more software updates roll out.
eero Wi-Fi 6 Speeds
eero 6 Speed Test Results
TL;DR: Compared to the previous Wi-Fi 5 kit, you should expect around a 10 to 20% jump in speeds.
I’m going to start off with the dual-band eero 6. I tested with Ethernet, one wireless hop (eero -> client), and two wireless hops (eero -> eero -> Client). I tested with iPerf and public speed test servers, and I tested with a 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 iPhone 12 Mini, and my 3x3 Wi-Fi 5 MacBook Pro. These kind of single-client tests aren’t the best way to measure performance, but it’s often what people focus on and they’re easily repeatable.
For most of my tests, my two nodes were one floor away from each other, giving them the strong 5 GHz connection which is required for the fastest speeds. Distance and placement make a big difference for performance, and it’s always a trade off between range and speed. I chose to favor speed for these tests, to try to get the best performance possible.
When connected over Ethernet, the eero 6 had no issues fully utilizing my gigabit connection. When connected wirelessly to the main gateway, I saw speeds ranging from 500-700 Mbps depending on how close I was. When using wireless backhaul, performance over 5 GHz dipped further, ranging from 250-350 Mbps depending on the test. 2.4 GHz performance was also good, topping out around 200 Mbps thanks to it’s tendency to favor 40 MHz channels when possible. This is slightly above what I would expect from any 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 device, even though it may be disappointing to a casual observer.
Eero advertises the eero 6 for Internet speeds up to 900 Mbps, and it isn’t always capable of hitting that number. The Wi-Fi 6 model gets closer to that claim, but it’s only possible under the most ideal of scenarios. The basic eero 6 is most limited when it comes to mesh backhaul performance, but it’s slightly above average for a typical dual-band Wi-Fi 6 kit.
Real world performance does improve over the Wi-Fi 5 kit, but some people are going to be disappointed that it doesn’t live up to eero’s claims. I still think these performance numbers are in line with what you should expect, and in other areas which are hard to capture with a number, the eero 6 delivers. Overall Wi-Fi quality is high, but if you want to maximize your fast Internet connection with the eero 6, use Ethernet.
eero Pro 6 Speed Test Results
TL;DR: Compared to the eero 6 you can expect more range and higher speeds, but gigabit still requires Ethernet.
The eero Pro 6 is the more interesting device, since it’s a tri-band AP with a 4x4 radio. The 2x2 5 GHz radio has filters that only allow it to operate in the low band, the 4x4 has filters that only allow it to operate in the high band. The 4x4 radio also has a higher signal strength because of the extra antennas and more powerful beamforming.
Both 5 GHz radios operate at 80 MHz, but individual transmissions may be 20, 40 or 80 depending on what a client supports and what other devices are doing. Most wireless clients only support 2 streams, but the additional streams help the eero Pro 6 deliver fast speeds to multiple devices at once, and have faster wireless backhaul between nodes.
Over Ethernet, performance was the same as the eero 6. Ethernet will always have an advantage, since Ethernet doesn't use a shared medium like Wi-Fi does. When wirelessly connected to the gateway, I saw speeds ranging from 700-800 Mbps, a slight improvement over the base eero 6. Wireless backhaul performance saw the biggest gains, since this is where the additional radio and extra spatial streams come into play. Wireless backhaul from an eero Pro 6 to another eero Pro 6 hovered between 500-600 Mbps in my tests.
The wireless backhaul performance is impressive, and in line or better than other tri-band Wi-Fi 6 kits I’ve tested. The main limit for this test was my iPhone which supports 2 spatial streams, or my MacBook Pro which supports 3 Wi-Fi 5 streams. My other Wi-Fi 6 clients had no issues negotiating the full 1200 Mbps link rate for a 2x2 device, and performance was typically 50-70% of that data rate. Again, this comes down to overhead found in all Wi-Fi devices, and is expected.
Most tests I performed on the eero Pro 6 were limited by things other than the connection between my device and the eero. Like I mentioned before, public speed test servers often struggle to fill a gigabit Internet connection, and often have more bandwidth available on the upload side rather than the download side. That’s why you’ll often see higher upload speeds than download speeds — the speed test server is limiting you, not your local network.
To achieve those high-end numbers, a tool like iPerf is often a more accurate and repeatable test. With that in mind, the eero Pro 6 is truly a high-end device. It’s capable of delivering you data faster than most websites are. It also offers higher mesh backhaul performance than the basic eero 6. If you have a larger home or an Internet connection over 400 Mbps, a tri-band kit like the eero Pro 6 is worth looking at.
For more detail on the eero 6 and eero Pro 6 speed, see my eero vs. Deco vs. Velop comparison.
Other Things: Thread, HomeKit, Ziggbee
The eero Pro 6 has Thread and Zigbee radios, so you can use it as a hub for smart home devices, which are then managed through the Alexa app. Zigbee is a common protocol for a lot of smart home products, and Thread is basically IPv6-over-Zigbee. These features will prevent you from needing a Thread or Zigbee bridge, but I wasn’t able to test these features since I don’t have any Zigbee or Thread products.
Eero 6 (left) vs Eero Pro 6 (right), with some Ubiquiti devices looking on jealously.
Apple still hasn't officially approved the eero 6 or eero Pro 6 for HomeKit, although that should happen soon. From what I have read, the ball is Apple’s court.
Wi-Fi 6E : Not Anytime soon
A lot of people seem to be disappointed that these don’t support Wi-Fi 6E, but I think that disappointment is misplaced. Wi-Fi 6E chipsets are still rare, expensive, and early in their development cycles. It takes a lot of smart people and a lot of time to get these things right. Even several years into Wi-Fi 6’s existence, some current Wi-Fi 6 devices aren’t fully baked, like the eero 6 and Pro 6 were at launch. Adding a new band will require significant engineering time and testing, and it’s going to be a while until consumer grade networking equipment supports it. Wi-Fi 6E client devices aren’t common yet, and probably won’t be for some time.
Still, many people argue that 6 GHz backhaul is worth holding out for. I wouldn’t be so sure. The 6 GHz band opens up additional spectrum for backhaul, but supporting it removes the possibility of having two 5 GHz radios, which are currently more useful. Dropping 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz isn’t possible because of all the devices that support it. A quad band system would be very expensive to build, even more so than the eero Pro 6 is now. It would require a huge number of antennas and front-end modules to support them. We’ll likely only see 6 GHz support on tri-band devices, and they won't be cheap.
Wi-Fi 6E isn't the magic bullet that a lot of people are expecting it to be, but it could be worth waiting for if you’re happy with your current network.
Recommendations Are Hard
In my testing, the eero 6 is a solid mesh Wi-Fi kit. It delivers good performance from it’s 2x2 dual-band radios. The setup and app experience are largely the same, and that’s either going to be a negative or a positive depending on who you are.
I keep coming back to my previous conclusion that eero networks are great if you don’t want to worry about your Wi-Fi. The Eero 6 is a slight increase in price over the Wi-Fi 5 kit, but it’s also a slight increase in performance. If you want those higher speeds or the built-in Thread or Zigbee support, the eero 6 is a good buy. If you don’t, the cheaper Wi-Fi 5 version is still a good option.
On the other hand, if you have an Internet connection over 300 Mbps and want to squeeze out the most from it, the eero Pro 6 provides additional performance. It won’t be faster in every scenario, but the gains are there. What it doesn’t have is any additional “pro” features. The app limitations remain, and the lack of settings and features will leave a lot of networking nerds disappointed. For better or worse, the eero Pro 6 still relies on auto-magic. If you want those extra speeds and better wireless backhaul, the eero Pro 6 delivers. If you want a more “pro” network with more settings and features, consider a brand like Ubiquiti.
The eero 6 is easy to recommend for most people, but expensive tri-band kits like the eero Pro 6 are harder to recommend. The hardest part about recommending the pro model over the eero 6 is the price difference. The 3 piece eero 6 kit is normally $279 or $349, but the eero Pro 6 kit is normally $599. You have to decide if the additional speed is worth twice the cost. I’m inclined to think most people will be happier with the basic eero 6, but those with more space to cover and faster Internet connections will be able to use the extra capabilities of the eero Pro 6.
