Following its success with the previous eero mesh wifi since under Amazon umbrella, Amazon releases other series of Amazon eero 6 mesh wifi router based on wifi-6 technology. How do you compare eero 6 routers with Netgear Nighthawk MK63 mesh wifi 6 router?
Amazon Eero 6 routers
Like its eero mesh that works at ax1200, Amazon does not produce mesh wifi products that work on high-bandwidth network segments like Orbi rbk852 ax6000 or the latest Linksys atlas max 6e axe11000, but wifi mesh products that work at ax1800 as in the eero 6 and the eero 6 pro model @ax4200.
The market share in the ax1800 network segment is very large, because this is the lowest network segment in wifi6 technology and of course the most affordable price for those who want to experience wifi 6 technology products or want to replace their aging router devices that are still based on legacy wifi5.
Amazon eero 6 routers and extender
With amazon eero 6 ax1800 you have two options to create mesh wifi-6 network, option one with 3 units of eero 6 routers and option two is one eero 6 router plus two or more eero 6 extenders. With three units of eero 6 routers to create whole home network, you have 6x gigabit Ethernet ports and you option to configure wired Ethernet backhaul instead of wifi backhaul. The eero extender units don’t come with Ethernet port, so you create mesh wifi with wifi backhaul
With wired backhaul, you can configure using daisy chain backhaul method. You cannot configure the wired backhaul by using star backhaul topology because the router only comes with two Ethernet ports. Except you add separate unmanaged Ethernet switch so all the other satellite nodes and the router connect to the switch to form star topology.
Built-in Zigbee Smart Home hub
The good thing with eero 6, and also the previous Amazon eero products are that they come with built-in Zigbee Smart Home hub to allow all types of smart home Zigbee devices to connect to the network seamlessly. In addition of Zigbee smart home hub, eero 6 also comes with built-in Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0 (BLE 5.0).
These built-in Zigbee smarthome hub and BLE 5.0 features are the advantages that are not featured by its competitors including deco x20 and the netgear nighthawk mk62 ax1800 (or mk63 for 3-packs).
Amazon Eero 6 vs Nighthawk mk63
In addition to the Orbi series which work on high network segments ranging from ax4200 to ax6000, netgear also released two series of nighthawk mesh wifi 6 kits including netgear nighthawk mk63 (we will compare with eero 6 here) which works @ ax1800 network segment and mk83 which works on ax3600.
Generally, this Nighthawk series is sold at a more affordable price than the Orbi series because it is for the needs of a standard wifi 6 network with lower total bandwidth. Besides that, only the nighthawk router is equipped with two Ethernet ports, while the nighthawk satellite /extender nodes come with only one Ethernet port.
Take a look at table 1 below to show you spec comparison between amazon eero 6 and netgear nighthawk mk63.
Wifi
All the two products here are designed based on ax1800 wifi-6 technology; three units of eero 6 mesh routers delivers high speed wifi-6 network covering up to 5,000 sq ft of your multi-story building. You can also run UTP network cable for wired backhaul and let the other two radio bands are used for connected devices.
However, there is actually some bandwidth that is reserved as backhaul that will be used when the wired backhaul is interrupted, so when the wired connection is interrupted the backhaul will fall back to wifi backhaul.
If you compare with nighthawk mk63, you cannot configure mk63 with wired Ethernet backhaul because each nighthawk extender only has one Ethernet port. With 3 packs (mk63 kit), you can configure the three nodes using wired Ethernet backhaul by adding separate unmanaged switch and all the three nodes connect to the switch to form star backhaul topology. Amazon eero 6 can create wired backhaul by configure the three units eero router in daisy chain topology. Or you can add an unmanaged switch and connect all the three nodes to the switch to form wired backhaul star topology.
Smart home
The main different between the two kits is the built-in Zigbee for eero 6 for easy integration with all zigbee smart home compliant devices including Amazon Echo Plus and Echo Show, Samsung SmartThings, Belkin WeMo, Hive Active Heating and accessories, Philips Hue, Yale smart locks, Honeywell thermostats, Bosch Security System etc.
Processor
Both products are embedded with quad core processors, but the memory capacity is different. Note that the eero 6 is embedded with 512MB of RAM memory and 4GB of flash memory, very large when compared to the Nighthawk mk63 which is only equipped with 128MB flash memory.
Flash memory is used to store information that is not erased when the power is off, and can be reprogrammed electrically. All firmware, configuration and additional processing program information is stored in flash memory. Eero’s large flash capacity shows how complex the firmware and configuration programs are needed for complex network tasks.
Comparison table
Read more spec comparison details between eero 6 and netgear nighthawk mk63 on the following table 1 below.
Table 1 eero 6 vs Nighthawk mk63
| Mesh wifi model | Amazon Eero 6 mesh routers (3-pack) | Netgear Nighthawk MK63 (3-pack) |
| Wifi technology | Simultaneous dual band ax1800 wifi-6 technology with 2×2 MU-MIMO | Simultaneous dual band ax1800 wifi-6 |
| Wifi speeds theoretically | Up to 600Mbps @2.4GHz Up to 1,200Mbps @5GHz | Up to 600Mbps @2.4GHz Up to 1,200Mbps @5GHz |
| Backhaul | Wifi and optional wired Ethernet backhaul | Shared wifi |
| Coverage | Up to 5,000 sq ft /3-pack | 4,500 sq ft /3-pack |
| Ethernet Ports | Eero 6 router comes with two Gigabit Ethernet WAN/LAN port Eero 6 extender: N/A | Router: 1xGIgabit WAN and 1xGigabit LAN; satellite: 1xGigabit LAN |
| USB port | N/A | N/A |
| Smart features | Built-in Zigbee smart home hub Bluetooth Low Energy 5.0 Works with Alexa | Works with Alexa |
| Processor | 1.2GHz quad core processor with 512MB RAM and 4GB Flash memory | Powerful Qual-Code 1.5GHz processor with 128MB Flash and 256MB RAM |
| Security | Supports WPA2 / WPA3 | WPA2 |
| Devices connection | Up to 25 devices | Up to 25 devices |
| Price (Feb 2021) | $199.99 (3x eero routers) | $169.99 |
To support your smart home devices, amazon eero 6 is ideal gear for covering your home with ax1800 wifi-6 solid network and is ready with Zigbee smarthome hub. Click the link below to see current price and shop the product in Amazon (#ads).
Related products
Other affordable mesh products you may consider is the one that comes with POE support, consider Deco X50-POE AX3000 mesh wifi 6, for simplicity in deploying on the ceiling or on the wall with UTP network cable for both data and power connectivity. And add smart speakers for smart home, consider Echo Dot 4 / 5 with built-in Alexa.