Yesterday in a surprise announcement eero announced over Twitter they were being acquired by Amazon.
eero
Founded in 2014 by Amos Schallich, Nate Hardison and Nick Weaver, eero is a unique company that focused on mesh routers and is partly responsible for popularizing the category. Mesh routers previously had been limited to enterprise systems that were very expensive and difficult to implement. The company had focused on creating easy to use systems that provided excellent coverage, and were easily expandable. Products released by eero generally had good reviews for day to day tasks but then were later challenged by the introduction of Google WiFi, Netgear’s Orbi, and Amplifi which all offered mesh networks at lower prices.
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Amazon
Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has rapidly been expanding its smart home device portfolio, with Echo branded devices as well as Alexa integration into many different devices. The expansion into wireless networking makes sense as now they can control the communication protocol between devices including the point to point access. Below is part of Amazon’s press release regarding the acquisition:
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“We are incredibly impressed with the eero team and how quickly they invented a WiFi solution that makes connected devices just work,” said Dave Limp, SVP of Amazon Devices and Services. “We have a shared vision that the smart home experience can get even easier, and we’re committed to continue innovating on behalf of customers.”
“From the beginning, eero’s mission has been to make the technology in homes just work,” said Nick Weaver, Co-Founder and CEO of eero. “We started with WiFi because it’s the foundation of the modern home. Every customer deserves reliable and secure WiFi in every room. By joining the Amazon family, we’re excited to learn from and work closely with a team that is defining the future of the home, accelerate our mission, and bring eero systems to more customers around the globe.”
eero uses multiple access points that work together as a system to blanket a home in high-performing, reliable, and simple home WiFi. Customers can customize an eero system to meet the needs of their home—regardless of shape or size—eliminating dead zones, ensuring perfect streaming video in every room, and delivering the bandwidth all connected devices need.
Source
The purchase price of the company was not disclosed, and because eero is private, we likely won’t see much more information until it starts to pass through regulatory approval. The purchase seems to fit Amazon’s strategy of smart home devices; however, this could come at the cost of users surrendering more privacy to a single corporation. We’ve noted our privacy concerns previously about Facebook’s relationship with Instagram and WhatsApp, and it should be noted that Google does have their wifi system Google WiFi along with Google Home and a plethora of services that users provide data to them for comparison. In a statement made over Twitter and to The Verge, eero said they have no plans to change their privacy policy after the acquisition which currently does not track user data. It’s hard to imagine eero operating the same way after the acquisition for the better or worse for their users.
