Amazon-owned company Eero have today announced that they’re rolling out an OTA update for both the Eero 6 and the Eero Pro 6 that will finally give this range of WiFi 6 routers HomeKit compatibility, in the form of HomeKit Secure Router (HSR) capabilities. These updates will be available and installed via the company’s own Eero app and should be rolling out to all users in the next few days.
This is the logical follow up to the company updating their previous Eero router products, the Eero and Eero Pro, which have full HSR functionality. The Eero 6 range, as you may have gathered by their name, can utilize the faster WiFi 6 standard (802.11ax). You can read more about WiFi 6 via this Wikipedia article.
Home Secure Routers allow for more robust control and monitoring of devices in your home, to ensure that communication between these devices and the outside world is controlled on your terms, with three main options permitted with HSR inside the Home app;
- Restrict to Home: Most secure. Your accessory can interact only with HomeKit through your Apple devices. The accessory won’t connect to the Internet or any local devices so any third-party services, like firmware updates, might be blocked.
- Automatic: Default security. Your accessory can communicate with HomeKit and connections recommended by its manufacturer.
- No Restriction: Least secure. This setting bypasses the secure router and allows your accessory to interact with any device in your network or Internet-based service.
The Eero 6 range are available on Amazon.com, with a single Eero Pro 6 router priced at US$229, and US$129 for the Eero 6, or US$199 for the Eero 6 router plus extender.