Horrible Router Eero Pro 6E

13oots2 · 15 Apr 2025 at 21:49

Have been with Zen Internet for many years, not the cheapest of providers, but have always been very happy with the service. My 1gbit down contract was up, so decided to go for their new 1.6gbit service, I was told that my fabulous Fritz Box 7530 would have to be replaced with an Eero Pro 6E, reading up a little I wasn't too enamoured this the new router, then again you have to move with the times.

Openreach came out and fitted the new OTN and told me it could take a few hours to activate the new line speed, ran a few speed tests and still appeared to be on 1gbit. Phoned Zen the next day and after a few line tests, was told I had needed to swap the ports around to get the full speed and would only get full speed over a wired connection, the setup instructions clearly stated that either port could be used for connecting the Internet. Ran a few more tests and was still coming up with 1gbit download, tech support and I came to the conclusion that either my Ethernet cable to the PC, or my 2.5gbit LAN card were at fault, this was all Friday 11th April.

Spent all weekend trying various settings and running the diagnostic tool for my Realtek network Card and trying various settings with the software showing a 1gbit link. Today is Tuesday and I got around to trying with the Ethernet cable from the computer to the marked 2.5gbit port and the Internet to the other, the diagnostic software was now showing a 2.5gig link. I only found one mention of it in a search, there are only 2 ports on the Pro 6E, one is 2.5 the other 1gig.

Phoned Zen and was absolutely fuming, spent 15 minutes trying to explain the problem, eventually he realised what it was, before he tried to put me through to sales he checked my contract. It seems 1.6gbit is only possible with wireless, the only way I could achieve the full line speed was to upgrade to the Eero Max7 for £10 a month extra, it seems that Zen are happy to supply the full speed wired for extra money and provide half the service with equipment not fully up to the job.

TechMinerUK · 16 Apr 2025 at 15:28

That's quite poor as the Eero 6E only having one 2.5 port means you get 2.5 uplink but will never actually be able to use it for wired networking (Which when most devices can't do 2.5 over WiFi) makes it pointless.

Out of curiosity, did they charge you for the upgrade to the Eero as I would push for some money back, for the rest of it this is one of the reasons why I always supply my own router and networking equipment so I can make sure it does what I need as even the better manufacturers I always find when they are supplied with ISP packages tend to be lackluster at best and outright tosh at the worst

Caged · 16 Apr 2025 at 15:48

This is how it's presented during the online order process, which I think makes it pretty clear

This doesn't excuse the knowledge displayed by the support team or whatever you were told during the upgrade process, though.

Armageus · 16 Apr 2025 at 15:56

TechMinerUK said:
That's quite poor as the Eero 6E only having one 2.5 port means you get 2.5 uplink but will never actually be able to use it for wired networking (Which when most devices can't do 2.5 over WiFi) makes it pointless.

It doesn't make it pointless, given that you can still use saturate 1.6Gb through a combination of wired and wireless.

I apparently seem to be in the minority here, but the whole point of "fatter" internet connections is to allow more devices to share the bandwidth

robj20 · 16 Apr 2025 at 15:56

Just buy your own router.

TechMinerUK · 16 Apr 2025 at 16:19

Armageus said:
It doesn't make it pointless, given that you can still use saturate 1.6Gb through a combination of wired and wireless.

I apparently seem to be in the minority here, but the whole point of "fatter" internet connections is to allow more devices to share the bandwidth

Fair, the post from @Caged does provide a bit more context as that is fairly clear but personally whilst I get that it allows more devices to share the bandwidth I think it's reasonable to expect whatever is been handed out to allow a single connection to saturate it (The router should have at least two 2.5 ports imho so you can use a switch or whatever)

Reminds me of back in the day with gigabit connections where the ISP router was 100 Mbit/s wired albeit not as egregious but when you are selling speeds such as 1.6 Gbit/s most people buying are going to want to get that one speed test for clout to show what they've got at least once

no_1_dave · 16 Apr 2025 at 17:05

Armageus said:
I apparently seem to be in the minority here, but the whole point of "fatter" internet connections is to allow more devices to share the bandwidth

Nope... It's so you can grin from ear to ear when downloading large new releases on Steam at 200+ MB/s while other people are complaining there was no pre-load and it'll take them 2 days

Meddling-Monk · 16 Apr 2025 at 17:16

Armageus said:
It doesn't make it pointless, given that you can still use saturate 1.6Gb through a combination of wired and wireless.

I'll be 100% honest, I had completely forgotten that you can go via both at the same time. As most since a long time ago have gone to the split of Wireless and Wired and kept them separate. So I wouldn't find it surprising OP and the support OP had this fly over their heads as a possible solution (as it requires a wireless connection also of course). Although as listed by someone else before me, support really should have caught on to that from the get go rather than OP tinkering throughout the weekend and days before and after before they discovered the issue.

13oots2 · 17 Apr 2025 at 00:54

It is also going to take 7-10 days to ship the Eero 7, this has been a mess-up since day 1. Zen were told Openreach would need to push my intercom, not the trade button, engineer turned up on the 2nd and couldn't get in. It was then rebooked for the 12th and engineer fitted OTN, new bill started on the 12th, so that is one in my good books.

welshboy · 17 Apr 2025 at 15:47

I'm on the zen 1.6gb aswell. swopped it out for unifi cloud gateway and then run 2.5gb poe switches everywhere else.

demonix · 18 Apr 2025 at 15:58

robj20 said:
Just buy your own router.

^That TBH since zen is one of the few ISPs where you can use your own hardware without issues since they do supply the login credentials you need without hassle.

beachBOYken · 20 Apr 2025 at 08:40

The eero mesh system is actually very good it’s just limited in some areas, I think the newest 7 series have more ports as well.
Also the isp supplied ones are a little different software wise I believe.

I purchased eero pro 6, 3 years ago and they have been flawless.

I’m with Aquiss now and you need to have your own network gear, much prefer it like that, simple.

13oots2 · 22 Apr 2025 at 09:45

The saga continues, was told last Wednesday that new router would take 7-10 days and I would get call back Thursday. Called Zen again this morning and when the system was looked at router was on hold "waiting for first payment", I have been billed since 12th and payment has gone out of my account. Am now waiting for a call back having been assured my router will be here by DPD tomorrow and to discuss compensation, in my books 10 days is over £20 just for the days I haven't received what I paid for.

dholdi · 1 May 2025 at 23:14

Made a right pigs ear of that so will try again

dholdi · 1 May 2025 at 23:24

Caged said:
This is how it's presented during the online order process, which I think makes it pretty clear

This doesn't excuse the knowledge displayed by the support team or whatever you were told during the upgrade process, though.

They appear to have changed how its presented during the online process now.

I'm not sure how that works as I can only see 2 ports, one 2.5g which presumably is the wan and one 1g.
Unless the wan port is hidden elsewhere ?

ChrisD. · 1 May 2025 at 23:32

Caged said:
This doesn't excuse the knowledge displayed by the support team or whatever you were told during the upgrade process, though.

Not entirely surprising though, given the way Zen have been going in recent times.

demonix said:
^That TBH since zen is one of the few ISPs where you can use your own hardware without issues since they do supply the login credentials you need without hassle.

That's not true, there are far fewer ISPs which make it difficult compared to ones you just get the details from your portal.

13oots2 · 2 May 2025 at 08:45

dholdi said:
They appear to have changed how its presented during the online process now.

I'm not sure how that works as I can only see 2 ports, one 2.5g which presumably is the wan and one 1g.
Unless the wan port is hidden elsewhere ?

That is still incorrectly advertised the Eero Pro 6E can only do 1Gbps, you have to pay £10 a month extra for the Eero 7, they still can't get it right.

dholdi · 2 May 2025 at 23:22

13oots2 said:
That is still incorrectly advertised the Eero Pro 6E can only do 1Gbps, you have to pay £10 a month extra for the Eero 7, they still can't get it right.

I thought as much, just wasnt sure if there wasnt another port somewhere.
I'm toying with the idea of signing up for this Zen service, selling the eero on and using something like the GLinet Flint 2.
We arent massive wifi users, a couple of phones, laptops, alexas, doorbell and some lamps is about it.
Anything else like gaming pc, console, server, tv's and sky boxes are all hardwired.

Meddling-Monk · 3 May 2025 at 00:17

Careful, I haven't looked at the terms with Zen, but ISP's have started a few years back to have their equipment be "on loan" to you. Meaning once your contract is up or when you leave, they expect it back or you get charged for it. Which might end up being more than what you sold it for in some cases. So check to make sure that's not the case before you attempt that.

demonix · 4 May 2025 at 17:08

ChrisD. said:
That's not true, there are far fewer ISPs which make it difficult compared to ones you just get the details from your portal.

Then list them (except those that require that you have your own equipment or have options to not supply you with a router)

13oots2 said:
That is still incorrectly advertised the Eero Pro 6E can only do 1Gbps, you have to pay £10 a month extra for the Eero 7, they still can't get it right.

Then you missed the obvious LAN ports: 1x1Gbps listing at the bottom since the 2.5Gbps port is used as the WAN and even then, they would have to state the maximum speeds to stop the "I'm not getting the speeds I'm paying for" complaints when they've clearly stated that you can only get a maximum of over 1Gbps over a wired connection.

dholdi said:
Anything else like gaming pc, console, server, tv's and sky boxes are all hardwired.

And almost all of those are limited to either 1Gbps or 100Mbps maximum anyway.