Must I disable my router WiFi to use Eero?

August 4, 2019 5:18 PM

I have AT&T Fiber Internet (yay, finally!), and today I installed the Eero mesh network system to improve the coverage in my plaster/brick house.

Success! It appears that I now have full strength service throughout the house. I can stream Hulu in every room!

HOWEVER ... when I look at the list of available networks, I can see the Eero network that I set up, but I also still see the network that the AT&T modem/router combo is providing -- the one that the guy set up for me when he did the initial installation.

Is it a problem to leave the AT&T network "in existence" and just log into the Eero network instead? Is the AT&T one somehow draining power/connectivity/resource from the Eero one, even if nothing is connected to it?

What is the best practice in this situation? TIA!

posted by mccxxiii to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Yes, so you have an Eero device plugged into the old modem, right? But the old modem is still putting out a wireless signal, which you can turn off if you don't want that anymore. As odinsdream says, you can do that if you log into the old modem. You can usually do this via its local address. Modem/wireless router devices have an option to disable the wireless and just act as a modem only. The user manual (if you have it) will tell you how, but 192.168.1.1 is a pretty common address for these things to use, so maybe try that and see if you get a login page.

Agreed that it probably doesn't matter to leave it on.
posted by pipeski at 5:31 PM on August 4, 2019

I would argue that "best practices" is probably to disable the Wifi on your AT&T router, since every wireless access point is a possible place for someone to break into your home network. However, the reality is that, as long as you have a strong WiFi password, this is probably likely to be an exceptionally low risk thing. I'd probably turn the wifi off, but if you didn't want to bother, I don't really blame you.
posted by Betelgeuse at 5:46 PM on August 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

You might have issues with a double NAT which could impact things like online games or file sharing.
posted by supercres at 5:52 PM on August 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I’ve had a similar set up for more than a year, I’ve never bothered to shut off the default router, I’ve had no problems. You can do it if you want, but it won’t affect anything.
posted by jzb at 7:18 PM on August 4, 2019

Actually, is the Eero system a router or just access points? If it's a router, one of the things that you should do is make sure that there is only one router actually routing (and assigning DHCP addresses). If you have two different routers, it can lead to network badness.

The way to address this is to ensure that only one of your routers is routing. Either the AT&T router or the Eero router (if it is a router) should be in "bridge mode" or "access point mode" or whatever it's called for your router's model.
posted by Betelgeuse at 8:07 PM on August 4, 2019

Here’s an article on Eero and double NAT specifically. The Eero can serve in bridge mode and not issue IP addresses.
posted by supercres at 8:17 PM on August 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

The best practice is turn off the AT&T wifi if you can. It's not urgent, but that wifi is taking over some of the wireless spectrum for itself which means the Eero can't use it as efficiently. You should be able to log into your own router and turn it off. If you can't, see if the device has removable antennas. If so take them off; that'll greatly limit how much noise the AT&T wifi is putting out.
posted by Nelson at 8:52 AM on August 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

> that wifi is taking over some of the wireless spectrum for itself which means the Eero can't use it as efficiently.

What he said. If nothing else, turning off unused WiFi signals is kinder to your neighbors who are sharing the available spectrum. And it also saves you (a tiny bit of) electricity usage.
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:57 PM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]