Amazon eero Max 7 review

Wi-Fi 7 has its benefits, of course, but at $600 for a unit that covers over 200 square meters each, you still need to be absolutely sure that the impressive Amazon Eero Max 7 is the router for you. It’s also a mesh system, so there’s a good chance you’ll want to spread two or three units across your country property, and the costs will soon raise. Add to that the monthly fee for a multi-gigabit fiber-optic connection to take full advantage of all that wireless wonder, and your network connection can suddenly become as costly as any other part of your PC gaming experience.

Mesh systems rely on more than one router or node distributed throughout the property. They all broadcast the same SSIDs and communicate with each other via Ethernet if your home is wired for it, or via a high-bandwidth wireless network, different from the regular networks you’ll operate for streaming and your purchased Wi-Fi kettle. Fi on a whim. It can certainly be more convenient if you have a good connection. However, placing mesh nodes, especially if you’re trying to eliminate Wi-Fi dead spots caused by architectural quirks or distance, is an art form in itself.

The thing about Eero Max 7 is that it will probably be enough. There’s definitely a operate for mesh if you’re connecting an office environment, a house split across several floors, a thick-walled basement, or a farm, but Wi-Fi 7 itself, with its extra speed and ability to cut through interference, is pretty good on its own. That said, put it on a grid system and you almost have something that can be heard wherever.

The Eero Max 7 node comes in the form of a sleek and shiny white rectangle that wouldn’t be out of place as an Ikea wall lamp or an Apple iMac-era Anglepoise product. The Eero logo is silver and has a single-color LED indicating the status of the router. It’s a minimalist, elegant look that you won’t mind displaying.

There are no noticeable antennas or blinking lights, it’s just completely hushed and cautious – which is exactly what you want if you’re planning to place several of them around your huge property. However, it is quite immense, which seems to be a common feature of all Wi-Fi 7 routers. If space is an issue, Eero has much smaller Wi-Fi 6 mesh nodes available.

The back is more compelling, although there’s still a lot of plain white plastic with vents on the top and bottom. That’s where the Ethernet ports are, and Ethernet ports are compelling as hell, especially when they’re as rapid as these. Eero has opted for some future-proofing here (although in the case of Wi-Fi 7 we wonder how many cables these sockets will actually see, beyond the one that connects to the Internet for home operate) with a pair of 2.5Gb ports next to two more connections 10 Gb. That’s a lot of networking work, and you need to make sure all the cables and hubs you operate have the same speed to get the most out of it.

But you don’t buy a Wi-Fi 7 router just to operate Ethernet cables, and the Wi-Fi options available here are versatile. Setup is straightforward, but it assumes you have enough technical knowledge to find and download the app on your phone yourself – there’s no printed manual in the box or a QR code on the device itself.

Once connected, there aren’t many detailed controls on offer, which is generally fine because you can just leave it and get on with booting and transferring data on your own. Max 7 comes with a trial subscription to the Eero Plus security suite, which adds VPN, MalwareBytes protection, content filters, ad blocking, and improved support to the package. However, it costs $100 a year and provides many things you can do yourself. Still, with Eero’s commitment to simplicity and a hands-off approach to router management, I can see it gaining popularity.

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Of course, wireless speeds are promised to be spectacular. Max 7 can theoretically handle up to 574 Mb/s in the 2.4 GHz band, up to 8677 Mb/s in the 5 GHz band and up to 11529 Mb/s in the 6 GHz band. This adds up to just over 20,000 Mbps if we take off our shoes and socks and add them together. While this is obviously something you’ll never achieve in real life, it’s still a nice, substantial number.

This, of course, assumes ideal conditions and the absence of inconvenient walls, but although even the 2.4 GHz band, which of the three usually has the longer range due to better penetration of solid objects, can overtake the average Internet connection, this does not happen They offer the same (claimed ) high speeds as Netgear Nighthawk RS700S.

In our tests, which involve transferring gigabytes of data over various distances over Wi-Fi and checking transfer speeds with fingers and toes, the Eero Max 7 performed well, delivering an average transfer speed over Wi-Fi 7 of around 570 Mbit/s, regardless depending on whether it was in the same room or had a floor and several walls in the way. However, this speed fluctuated and in one test it was as much as 624 Mbit, and in another only 499 Mbit. The fastest speed was lower than the Netgear RS700S, but the slowest speed was better. This is the online equivalent of drawing results.

Such is its commitment to simplicity that the Max 7 combines all its SSIDs into one and does not allow them to be separated, relying on the devices to negotiate the best possible connection. However, there is a guest network, so you can separate some users this way.

The Max 7 doesn’t have much more than a USB-C power connector and a WPS button, but what’s conspicuous by its absence is the ubiquitous USB port, which allows you to set up straightforward file sharing via a flash drive (or USB difficult drive) drive allowing you to back up to multiple devices) or share a USB printer by simply plugging it in. This is a feature that probably won’t be used very often, especially since networked storage and Wi-Fi printers are common these days, but having had USB ports on routers since the days before Wi-Fi 4, it feels wrong not to see them.

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Being an Amazon device – the well-known online grocer is the parent company of Eero – the Max 7 offers ample IoT support. It can be paired with your Echo and includes the necessary radios to control Zigbee and Matter devices, eliminating the need for an additional hub.

The question that arises with these high-speed, high-capacity routers, however, is who are they intended for? These kinds of network speeds, especially over wired connections, are only really useful if you’re transferring a lot of data to and from the server. Perhaps one day when we’re all streaming in 8K and AI edge servers are running in our homes, things will be different, but a PC gamer willing to share a sub-gigabit internet connection between their hardware, phone, laptop, and tablet will have the same results with a much cheaper router and can also get a USB port.

With its speed, capacity, future-proofing, and the ability to add additional nodes if your home suddenly grows larger, the Eero Max 7 is one of the best Wi-Fi routers you can buy today, but you have to pay for the privilege.