Amazon's eero mesh wi-fi service is going to get a bit more robust this year as the company rolls support for it out to a number of Echo devices and debuts a new backup network feature that will kick in if your Internet goes down.
These are game-changing features for the service that cement the Eero Pro 6's spot on our list of the best mesh routers you can buy. Here's what we know so far about the new features coming to eero, which were announced at the Amazon event alongside a new eero PoE 6 ($299) router and eero PoE 6 Gateway ($649).
Eero Built-In coming to Echo devices
The big news for Echo device owners (and who among us doesn’t have at least one sitting in a closet somewhere) is that Amazon is adding support for eero’s mesh wi-fi tech to 4th and 5th generation Echo Dots (both with and without Clocks) as well as the 4th gen Amazon Echo.
When your Echo gets the feature Amazon claims it will be capable of adding up to 1,000 square feet of coverage to your network and supporting speeds up to 100 MBps, which sounds good on paper.
The feature is slated to arrive on 5th Gen Echo Dots and 4th Gen Echos on October 20th. Amazon says 4th Gen Echo Dot owners can expect it to arrive “in the coming months” but did not provide a specific date. When it does, you can enable it through your eero app.
Eero Internet Backup kicks in when your Internet drops
Also, Amazon announced that select ISP customers and eero Plus (formerly known as eero Secure+) subscribers will also get a new feature in the months ahead called eero Internet Backup.
In short, it does what it says on the tin by letting you designate up to 8 wi-fi networks (or mobile hotspots) as backups, making it easy to switch to one if your primary network loses Internet access. When the problem is fixed, eero Plus automatically switches back.
Outlook
With these upgrades Amazon just made eero a lot more appealing to those of us who own Echos. While it’s a little frustrating that the new Internet Backup tool isn’t available to all eero users, it sounds like more of a “nice to have” than a must-have feature for the service.
