Eero PoE Gateway review

Eero PoE Gateway: Introduction

The Eero PoE Gateway was quietly announced, alongside its PoE 6 brethren, back at Amazon’s launch event in September 2022.

It slipped somewhat under the radar as the news that Echo Dots can act as Wi-Fi access points stole most of the headlines at that event, and Amazon kept the PoE devices somewhat on the down low for launch in the weeks that followed, only officially launching them in the US – and that’s still the case now.

Design with prosumer market in mind, and with new builds, apartment complexes and small businesses as its target markets, the idea behind the Eero PoE Gateway is to replicate what we’ve seen from networking solutions from the likes of Control 4’s Pakedge and Ubiquiti’s Unifi.

However, this being an Eero product, it’s also designed to just seamlessly work as other Eero devices do. Sure, Amazon is hoping that custom installers work with builders and individuals to professionally setup Eero networks using the PoE Gateway and PoE 6 access points, but it’s also important that if a regular consumer buys one, then they will be able to set it up just as easily as they would a regular Eero router.

The clue is in the name, the PoE Gateway is not only designed to power the PoE 6 access points in your home, and also other PoE devices such as security cameras, video doorbells and alarm systems, but also act as your Eero Gateway; effectively acting as the router (and managed network switch) of a home network setup.

At $650 it’s pretty pricey but, as stated, it’s a device squarely aimed at the prosumer market, with two 10Gb Ethernet ports on board, alongside eight 2.5Gb ports that support PoE.

The likes of Control4 and Crestron have PoE power systems at the core of their platforms and you’d pay a lot more than $650 for them.

Read on for my full review to find out more about the Eero PoE Gateway.

Design and components

The Eero PoE Gateway unit is reassuringly bulky and solid. Unlike the regular, slick looking, Eero routers and satellites such as the Eero 6+, it’s not designed to be ‘on show’ around your house, but for a device that’s meant to live hidden in a cupboard or a rack, it’s not exactly ugly either.

Measuring 250 x 134 x 45mm and weighing 1.1kg, it boasts a nice matte black effect with the word ‘eero’ nicely imprinted on the top.

The ports are on the front of the device, so it’s rack-friendly; the back simply features a USB-C port for the power cable, a reset button and a Kensington Security Slot.

As mentioned, power enters the Gateway via USB-C but before that is a pretty chunky power block, so make sure you take that into consideration when working out where you’re going to house the unit.

Back to the Ethernet ports and you’ve got 10 in total, a pair of 10GbE ports and eight 2.5GbE PoE ports.

Getting technical here, the 10GbE duo are WAN/LAN auto-sensing 10GBASE-T ports; the rest are auto-sensing 2.5GBASE-T PoE++ ports.

Eero tells us that there’s enough power to host up to seven PoE++ devices simultaneously, and you can keep track of how much power is being drained over Ethernet within the Eero app.

Inside the Gateway is are cooling fans that are constantly on.

These create a little hum not too dissimilar to a cable set box. It’s not loud enough that it’d bother you, especially if you keep the Gateway in a cupboard or a rack as it’s intended to be.

This review is for the PoE Gateway but it’d be weird to not mention the Eero PoE 6 access points that were launched at the same time and are designed to work in harmony.

Powered via Ethernet when connected to the Gateway the Eero PoE 6 APs use a simple slide-in round bracket for wall or ceiling mounting. On the back these have one 1GbE port and a 2.5GbE one too.

Interestingly, with a price-tag ($299.99) that puts it on a par with the Eero 6E Pro router, the tech onboard the PoE 6 is more in line with the, slightly-lesser, Eero 6+ system.

That means you won’t get tri-band Wi-Fi 6E, just dual-band 1.6Gbps speeds over Wi-Fi.

What you will get, with the PoE 6, is an access point that doesn’t require any other wired input other than an Ethernet cable. As long as the other end is ported in a PoE-out Ethernet port it’ll fire up and, obviously, that’s exactly what those 2.5GbE ports on the Gateway can do.

Eero Poe Gateway setup

Set up for the Eero PoE Gateway is identical to setting up a ‘normal’ Eero Gateway. By ‘normal’ I mean one of the Wi-Fi enabled Eero routers, from the original right up to the latest, super-fast, Eero Max 7.

When you use a ‘normal’ Eero device as a Gateway it simultaneously acts as the router for your system and also performs the usual duties of a Wi-Fi access point.

The Eero PoE Gateway doesn’t have Wi-Fi at all, so is only capable of the router capabilities. But that’s a good thing. It means that you have one, dedicated, Eero device that is in charge of receiving your ISPs input and managing all of the devices on your network.

Because it doesn’t have Wi-Fi you will, of course, have to have at least one wireless Eero device wired to it in order to create an Eero Wi-Fi network. When you set up the Gateway, you’ll create an SSID and password for the network, but you won’t be able to attach any Wi-Fi devices to this until that first wireless AP is in place.

Obviously, the most natural AP for the Gateway is the PoE 6, as it just requires an Ethernet cable to get it fired up.

However, the Gateway is compatible will all of the Eero nodes, both old and new. And once one is wired in, you can then create a Wi-Fi mesh just as you would any other Eero network.

The Gateway, and newer Eero devices, are smart enough to switch between wired and wireless backhaul and you should have no issues mixing and matching various Eero models and using a mix of wired and wireless connections. I’ll dive deeper into my specific setup in the next section, which highlights just how well this works.

Back to the initial setup and you can either create a brand new Eero network or choose to use it as a new gateway on an existing Eero network. Either way, you’ll need to create an Eero account – which can just be an extension of your Amazon account if you wish.

I actually tested both methods; creating a brand new Eero network with three PoE 6 APs wired-up in our Florida test-lab, and replacing an Eero Max 7 as the gateway on my home network back in the UK.

The former was obviously the most straightforward setup and I had the whole system up and running (with a Spectrum modem) within 10 minutes (after factory resetting the Spectrum modem first).

For my UK network, I used Eero’s ‘replace a Gateway’ option. This minimises downtime for your network and allows you to keep all your same settings in place.

Because you’re effectively killing your router during this method, the Eero app also warns you to switch to cellular for the process, as your Eero nodes will all temporarily stop working.

Using this method, I had the Gateway up and running inside 5 minutes and my whole network was back online within 10 minutes. Seamless.

Because those 10GbE ports are auto-sensing, it doesn’t matter what one you use to connect your ISP to, it will know to use the other as a regular LAN port as soon as it detects your ISP on the other.

You can actually opt for a dual-WAN setup if you pay for Eero Plus.

Performance, features and in-use

For my home network in the UK, I had an Eero Max 7, as mentioned, as a Gateway with another Max 7 hard-wired to that, via an unmanaged network switch in a cupboard under the stairs, in the loft bedroom.

Additionally, I had a pair of Eero Pro 6Es hard-wired to that switch; one in an office at the end of my garden and one in the middle floor. I’m lucky that, when we bought our house it needed totally renovating, so I was able to bury a lot of Cat-6 cables all over the house.

I also have a couple more, wireless, Eero 6+ devices to help with blackspots in my kitchen and garden.

However, my previous system – a Pakedge Control4 one – had a managed switch and, despite the cupboard under my stairs looking like a massive confusing mess – as pictured below – worked well.

My Eero system, in comparison, worked ‘ok’. My unmanaged switch, which also has plenty of other things wired up to it, was causing all sorts of problems.

Problems that the Eero PoE Gateway have solved. My system is now pretty much faultless and I’m seeing the fastest speeds, both wired and wireless, I’ve ever had. The cupboard is still a mess. But it’s a slightly less confusing mess that, crucially, works much better.

Previously, when using Virgin’s Gig1 service, from the theoretical max speed of 1,130Mbps I was getting around 600-700Mbps when standing near a wired Eero. This is now up at constantly over 850Mbps with, in theory, exactly the same wiring an AP positioning in place.

I don’t have any drop outs or network stutters any longer either, so I’m pretty sure the Gateway has all my wired devices, both Eero and 3rd-party, running in an efficient manner with no bottlenecks or mistaken backhaul routes. Getting rid of network switches if you can, is always advisable.

The Eero app is a great overview of what’s connected to and going on in your Eero network and is also where you’ll go to check your network status, reboot devices, create profiles, change settings and so on.

However, and this is always the biggest gripe with Eero, you’ll need to pay to go beyond basic web functionality – Eero Plus is $99.99 / £99.99 annually.

For free, you’ll be able to create user profiles and assign devices to each person, scheduling when they can and can’t access the internet.

Eero Plus adds ad-blocking, web filtering, app blocking and subscriptions and three bits of extra software: Malware Bytes, 1Password and VPN powered by Guardian.

You also get a clever internet backup feature, where you can designate a second Wi-Fi network for the Eero system to connect to, should your Wi-Fi go down.

There’s also no web interface, which has always annoyed me.

I’ve mentioned a few times how the Eero PoE Gateway lacks Wi-Fi but it’s not totally a non-wireless device. It does have Bluetooth, Zigbee and Thread radios, and can also act as a Matter controller.

Final thoughs

The Eero PoE Gateway is a fantastic multi-Gigabit PoE++ router, that will – almost without you knowing it – assure that you have the very best Eero network possible set up in your house, especially if you have Ethernet cables and sockets already in place.

Yes, solutions like Ubiquiti’s Unifi offer more features for a smaller price but the beauty of the Eero Gateway is its simplicity and its compatibility with the full range of Eero wireless devices.

Plus, thanks to those two 10GbE ports, plus 8 more 2.5GbE ones, you can be sure it’s future proofing your Eero system for years to come.

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Home Wi-Fi devices play a key part in controlling, a smart home ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular smart controller compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

Read our guide to how we test to learn more.

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