There’s really no in-between when it comes to choosing how dedicated you want to be as a smart homeowner. Either you don’t want many smart home devices and you just might have a security system or a video doorbell or you go fully in and make your home run on automations. Okay, there might be somewhere in the middle, but if you have a few smart home devices, you’re pretty committed.
Setting up a smart home takes some researching and understanding of your home in general. Just like when you’re putting in your internet, you need to choose the right provider, router, and more. That’s the same as smart home devices because you need to choose the right manufacturer, the right platform, and the right place in your home. If you’re smart about it, you can have smart home devices providing more functions than just what they are intended to do. For certain Amazon Alexa smart home users, they can get more out of their Amazon Echo devices than they might realize.
Amazon Echo are some of the most trusted smart speakers on the market
These have been around a while and aren’t showing signs of leaving
Amazon Echo devices have become synonymous with smart homes, as they are some of the most premier smart speakers out there. They can communicate with other speakers, run home automations, keep grocery lists, play music, and so much more.
As someone who owns multiple Amazon Echo speakers, I’ve been using them for nearly a decade. I have an Echo Spot, Echo Show 8, and an Echo Show 5, which was an upgrade over the original Echo Dot. They help run my smart home, as I use them for so many things each day. It starts by asking Alexa what the weather is like that day in the morning and ends with asking her to shut out the lights at night.
If you’re curious about Echo devices, there’s probably one that will suit your needs. You can go with a smart home hub like an Echo Show 21 or even a bit smaller like an Echo Show 15. The Echo Dot, Spot, or smaller Shows can serve just as good a purpose and do much of the same. While you aren’t able to watch a movie on an Echo Spot, you can still turn on lights, have it run automations, and connect with other people.
If you have a specific kind of Echo device, you can also help your Wi-Fi run more efficiently. While many Echo devices can serve multiple purposes, not all of them can be Wi-Fi extenders.
Certain Echo devices double as Wi-Fi extenders
There is a specific caveat to this
For those of you who have bought fully into the Amazon Alexa smart home, you may have even decided to have Amazon run your internet as well. If you have a lot of dead zones in your home with walls that are hard for Wi-Fi to penetrate, it’s entirely possible that you’ve checked out an eero mesh system.
eero is a popular choice for mesh routers and systems, as the setup can be placed around your home to boost your signal. Of course, it’s not a perfect system and there can be areas of your home that still need a boost.
That’s where your Echo devices can come into play. If you have the right Echo device, your Wi-Fi can be enhanced when you turn on the setting.
This feature doesn’t work on non-eero routers and it won’t cost you anything to turn this feature on if you do have an eero router and a compatible Echo device.
The list of Echo devices that are compatible includes:
- Echo (4th Gen)
- Echo Dot (4th and 5th Gen)
- Echo Dot with Clock (4th and 5th Gen)
- Echo Spot
- Echo Pop
- Echo Studio
- Echo Dot Max
How to enable Wi-Fi extension on your Echo
You have to go through the eero app
If you have a compatible Echo device hooked up to your eero Wi-Fi, you can open up the eero app and select that device. Once in the device in the app, you can toggle on the eero Built-in feature. It states in the app that this will enable you to extend Wi-Fi.
It then tells you to plug in the device to extend the Wi-Fi. If your device is already plugged in, you just have to wait a few seconds and then the devices that are connected. In the beginning, it should say zero. But as you hook up more devices to your Wi-Fi, the number of devices that are hooked up to the Wi-Fi extender from the Echo will populate.
An Echo device can support up to 10 devices at once while being used as a Wi-Fi extender. Speeds are capped at 100 Mbps. Each Echo device adds 1,000 sq. ft. of mesh coverage to your network.
You can use up to four Echo devices at Wi-Fi extenders on your eero mesh network at one time. Only devices using a 5 GHz band can use the Echo devices as Wi-Fi extenders, so this isn’t open to 2.4 or 6 GHz connected devices.
Use your Wi-Fi extenders wisely with Echo devices
If you’re looking to extend your eero network’s capabilities, consider using your Amazon Echo devices as Wi-Fi extenders. You don’t need to buy extra extenders, as you might already have what you need to boost your network. This is just another way to get more out of your Amazon Alexa smart home.