eero Max 7 - Push Your Home Network to its Limits

If you're anything like me, you've found yourself on a never-ending quest for better Wi-Fi.

It's not just about speed - although speedy downloads and uploads are great. More and more, it's about creating a home network to which everything stays connected, reliably. 

I currently have 59 devices connected to my Wi-Fi, with another 29 that are either switched off or are away from home right now.

Not all of those gadgets need the fastest, most powerful connection. They just need a router that recognises them and can help them access the net if and when required, every time.

Not too much to ask.

And yet... even in 2025, all too often our smart speakers ignore us, we can't seem to turn that one smart light on or off and the movie is still buffering before it starts. WHY???

Well, as I've discussed before, there are many reasons your Wi-Fi may be under-performing; What type of plan are you on? How many devices are connecting to your router? Where have you placed your router or routers? You might even be using the wrong kind of cables - after all, they have maximum speeds too.

So when I unpacked eero's top-of-the line mesh Wi-Fi system, I decided to give it every advantage...

On paper, it's easy to understand why the eero Max 7 system blows its other stablemates out of the water. The more entry-level eero 7 devices are great - but they're only dual-band which means when used as a mesh system, some of their bandwidth is taken up with the routers talking to each other. Meanwhile, the eero Pro 7 units are tri-band, so they have dedicated backhaul. But even the Pro 7s are no match for the still larger eero Max 7 devices.

Each eero Max 7 has twice the number of auto-sensing ethernet ports; 2 x 2.5GbE and 2 x 10GbE - that means an incredible potential for wired connectivity if you're on a HyperFibre plan like I am. Not only that, but the larger, more powerful units can cover a massive area - up to 700 square metres, so pretty much my whole section, not just my house.

And finally, Amazon claims you can connect at least 250 devices simultaneously. Which should be plenty. Well, until the robots take over completely, I guess.

Just because the Max 7 is faster and more powerful, it doesn't mean setup is any more complicated. Quite the opposite in fact. Because I was upgrading an existing eero system, the eero app gives you the opportunity to simply swap devices out, maintaining your network SSID (password) and even the location in your home. You can then choose to use the old eero device as another mesh extender.

The eero app might just be the most user-friendly of its kind. You can see every connected device at a glance, including their connection strength and which router they're connected to. You can rename them, pause them, even block them in seconds.

But here's where I was really impressed. The problem with my fibre connection - and I bet this is true for many of you out there - is it comes into my house at about the worst place possible, through the garage wall. This was conveniently close to the road for the installers, but that corner of the house couldn't be further away from where I need the internet most; upstairs and diagonally opposite, in the living room.

Luckily, I do have limited data cabling installed so in the past I've always just plugged in my ISP's default router, down in the garage, then run my actual home network via a hardline from there, feeding into my primary router upstairs.

This time I decided to eliminate any potential chokepoints by using one of my three eero Max 7s at the point of origin, plugged directly into the ONT box. I know in theory, it's virtually impossible to push decent Wi-Fi from a lower storey up to a higher one but I crossed my fingers and hoped I had a way around that.

Following the step by step instructions in the eero app, I fired up the first unit in the garage and... it didn't work. No internet at all. There was a brief moment of panic, then I realised there was probably some unique protocol required for the primary router to connect with my ISP. As it happened, that's exactly what the eero app then asked me for. A very quick Google search provided me with the correct VLAN tag, which I entered and I was away and laughing.

I've never experienced blazingly fast Wi-Fi in the garage like this - as you'll see in the video below, I could now connect at well over 2 Gbps. I could also plug in cables for other rooms in the house via the three remaining LAN ports. Time to take it to the rest of the house. Next stop, downstairs family room.

Here, I set up my next eero Max 7 unit as a Wi-Fi only mesh extender, replacing an older model. This took all of about 60 seconds, again resulting in very satisfying speeds.

Now for the real test. One last Max 7 device, in the upstairs living room.

I knew connecting over Wi-Fi through the floor and several walls was a bad plan so I plugged into my hard-wired access point instead, just to see what would happen. Amazingly, the upstairs Max7 talked to the garage one with no issues and no input required from me. This was a relief because I needed to run a lot of gear off that upstairs unit - a television, an Apple TV streaming box, an Xbox, a bunch of smart lights and just everybody's phones, tablets and computers.

Because my house is wired with Cat5e ethernet cable, I was hoping I could get close to the 1 Gbps it's rated for. When I tested the speed and got the result you'll see in the video below, I was gobsmacked. It was definitely safe to uncross my fingers.

If you're upgrading from Wi-Fi 6e, 6 or even 5, I really recommend you go whole hog and give the eero Max 7 a try - especially if you're coming from an older eero system, because you can probably use your existing units to strengthen your mesh network even further. Remember, many late-model Amazon Echo smart speakers now have built-in mesh Wi-Fi too, so you might be closer than you think to the bullet-proof, no dark-spot network you've always dreamed of.

Although the eero Max 7 units are bigger, they're still fairly blank and featureless, so should fit in with your decor without too much difficulty and yes, best of all, (for me anyway) you can turn off the status LED using the app.

I've decided I'm no longer cutting corners when it comes to my Wi-Fi. I even bought a whole new set of Cat7 ethernet cables to connect my other devices to the eero Max 7 units, just to be sure. I now have the most reliable, wide-ranging and above all, fastest home network I've ever had. An exciting new benchmark has been set.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Amazon eero Max 7 tri-band Wi-Fi mesh system.