How does that compare to this? Sounds like this allows you to use your existing router. And it’s $49. Understood that it is only 4G, but that is adequate for my purposes.
I could do do that, but that assumes I switch over all the devices I intend to access to his SSID before leaving. Is there a way I could treat a connection to his WiFi as a WAN connection?
You know, as typing this, I seem to recall that eero has backup over cellular capabilities. Off to investigate that.
That's exactly what "travel routers" do. They were made to allow travellers to connect all their devices to a hotel's internet, even when only a single connection was permitted.
They have an access point that all your devices have been configured to connect to. You would do this once before you left on the trip.
When you get in the hotel, you select the hotels SSID and enter the Wi-Fi password. All your devices will automatically connect to the travel router, because it is a memorized device, and they will have access to the hotel Internet.
In your situation, you would connect the travel router to your neighbours Wi-Fi.
You would then add the travel routers SSID and password to all your devices, and select "connect automatically". When you turn off the travel router all your devices will return to your existing home AP.
When you walk out the door, you turn off your home AP and all devices will switch to the travel router, and have internet access via the neighbors Wi-Fi.
Maybe I didn't phrase my question correctly. A travel router works as you describe (I have one), but to my knowledge doesn't allow you to treat it as a WAN connection. That is, I'd have to configure all my wi-fi devices (that I intend to use while away) to have multiple SSIDs and trust they will automatically failover. That's a big ask. Further, I have wired devices (e.g., Hubitat, my PC, etc.) that I want to have internet service as well. A practical solution here needs to be transparent to my devices.
I'm looking into this exact capability that I didn't even know my eero 6 could do. So even though it doesn't have multiple WAN connections, it can connect to wi-fi (a hotspot or a neighbor) and carry on.
I have eero pro 6e(s). I use the internet backup with our phones (AT&T). Just used it the other day during an hour outage. Have considered getting a hotspot but just can't justify it for the amount and length of outages we have. You can pick which devices use the backup. I have 4 devices I keep connected HE, main TV and couple of iPads (alarm has it's own cellular backup). It takes it a few minutes to switch over but once it does it works pretty well.
Excellent. Good to hear from someone who has hands on using that eero capability. In our case, I'd want it to work while we are away and we would have our phones with us, and no spare to use as a hotspot.
Does that capability require the eero subscription? I found info that said it is free to all "for a limited time" and that was 2024.
Is failover to it automatically? Everything I read says it automatically switches back to the primary WAN when the outage is over, but not specifically failover when the outage starts.
That is a good question. I have a subscription so not sure. But if you don't and the option to use it is there than I would say it should. You could try and test it with your phone to make sure. Set the phone up as a backup and disconnect the WAN (when no one else is in the house to yell 'THE INTERNET IS DOWN")
Yes, once you have the device setup as backup in the eero app and of course the device setup to allow others to join the hotspot. It will connect automatically. I am trying to recall if it switched back automatically or if I dropped the backup. That could be part of your test as well. Let me know either way, cause now I am curious. If you can't test I will try it when my wife is busy doing anything that doesn't require internet.
At present, there is a free 2-month trial, after which it auto-renews at $9.99/month, or $99.99/year. That gets you all the eero+ features, which I've been able to do without so far, but will at least do the trial.
A long time ago, when I owned a place in Florida, my neighbor and I shared WiFi. I used a netgear router with dd-wrt as a wireless ethernet bridge to be the WAN connection for my main Linksys router. This basically meant I was double-NATing, but it worked for my needs.
So with the right hardware, it is possible to create something like a travel router that acts as a WAN source.
About 9 months ago, I started using the TP-Link ER-605 ($50-60) along with a T-Mobile home internet as backup. (the primary ISP in the neighborhood is flaky especially when you have a very important meeting coming up!) The auto switchover takes up to 40 seconds, but it does the job. In your case, you could click the "disconnect" button for WAN (primary ISP) and connect button for WAN1 (backup internet ISP) before you leave.
Good to know about more options. The T-Mobile home internet backup looks to be precisely what I need, but unfortunately, they aren't take any more subscribers in my area right now. I'm on a wait list.
Since I discovered that my eero 6 can failover to a hotspot, I'm testing out using an old iPhone with U.S. Mobile service as a hotspot. I don't like that I would have to pay $99/year for that feature on my eero, but the first two months are free, so just doing a proof of concept.
The ER-605 can also be configured to use a USB cellular connection as the backup instead of an ethernet connection. It's something I am going to try because I also have a spare phone with unlimited data.
Put the ER-605 in between the ISP modem and the Eero. And then connect your phone to the USB port on the ER-605.
I hate TP-Link products with a passion, but the load balancing / failover feature was so overwhelmingly needed. It's probably not the greatest device available, but it had a more palatable price point and decent reviews for this particular feature. Not glowing. Decent.
