Eero promises not to brick routers if you don’t pay a subscription

Eero is responsible for introducing two major trends to Wi-Fi routers: mesh networking and subscriptions. But after Plume — another mesh router startup — said earlier this week that it’s going to start requiring a subscription just to buy a router and keep it fully functional, Eero has said it doesn’t plan to follow suit. “We’ve never had plans ever at Eero to do that,” Eero CEO Nick Weaver said on a phone call. “We’ve never had plans and certainly don’t have any future aspirations for requiring a subscription with the core product we sell.”

Though Eero does offer a premium subscription plan, it includes services above and beyond the basic functions of a router. For $99 / year, Eero adds content filtering, malicious site blocking, and...

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