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Hero shot of the new Eero model. It's basically a nightlight-less Beacon with an Ethernet jack. [credit: Amazon / the Verge ]
Amazon's presentation of the new Eero focused largely on ease of setup and use, as it fits into the new "Certified for Humans" program. This program forces devices to pass muster with a review board of "typical consumers," with IT professionals and hardware enthusiasts specifically prohibited. There was also some discussion of Eero's integration into the Alexa smart home ecosystem, with Alexa skills allowing you to direct Eero to enable or disable Wi-Fi access for specific devices at will—think "Alexa, pause the Playstation Wi-Fi" or similar. This is currently only supported for Eero, but there's an API that will allow other devices to support the skill as well, with functionality expected in Asus and TP-Link routers later this year and Linksys to come on board in 2020.
This new Eero is a new model, not an entirely new generation. Functionally, it's equivalent to an Eero Beacon with an Ethernet jack, and without the nightlight. The body is designed to sit on a shelf or desk, and more closely resembles an Eero Pro, but the radio chipset is the same 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) chipset used in the Beacon.
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