Owners of both an Eero network system and an Echo smart speaker could find their network strength boosted, as the speaker adds a helping hand.
It’s always nice to get something for nothing, especially when that freebie comes as an upgrade to something you already own. For owners of Amazon Echo smart speakers and the Amazon Eero wireless mesh systems, that “something” could be improved wireless range and reception, thanks to an update rolling out to the Echo speakers.
The addition sees recent Echo speakers switching on a feature called “Eero Built-in”, which will leverage the wireless networking of those speakers and fold it into an existing Eero mesh network, boosting the range by as much as 92 squares metres, while supporting speeds of up to 100Mbps.
It means Eero’s recent WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 mesh systems can benefit from improved wireless range if you have a recent Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Dot with Clock being used in your home, effectively turning each Echo speaker into a mesh node to boost the range.
Typically, mesh networks come with several mesh nodes in the box, but you might find you only have one or two dependent on how much you’ve spent. This addition will make it possible to prop-up and improve the wireless range of an Eero mesh network by using the speakers you may already own, or even possibly one or two you might be considering following this release.
Interestingly, the feature will work on the smaller Amazon Echo speakers, but not the larger ones, with both the Echo Show 10 and recent Echo Studio update missing out on the feature, even though the Echo Pop gets the tech.
They won’t likely operate at the same level of a proper Eero mesh node — one Eero Pro 6E node supports up to 185 square metres and gigabit speeds — but they will provide a way to make those Amazon speakers more useful than just playing music and asking Alexa to sing a song or two.
