Can we get the data from Fitbit on the number of calories burned every day by people getting up off the couch or up out of bed to go downstairs to restart their wireless router because their internet is crawling? That number has got to be in the millions right? Just think about how many Frappuccinos that can add up to! Up until recently that caloric number in my house had to equal out to at least an extra scoop of mint chocolate chip at night, at least that is what I told myself on the trips to the freezer. What makes that even worse is that living with slow WiFi had become totally acceptable! Death, taxes and slow internet as the saying famously goes right?

Buffering, router restarting, giving up on trying to load a funny gif, dropped facetime calls with family out of state, we have all become accustomed to waiting or giving up altogether. Things were so bad that we had to choose between keeping our baby monitor on or watching the next buffering episode of Orange Is The New Black smoothly. “Hun, do you have her on?” was a phrase I’d yell from our home office nightly because the internet signal coming from one room away was so bad that I felt like I was 15 again trying to load a picture of Pamela Anderson (hey, it was 1998) on my computer line by line by line before my parents came in.

A little over five months ago I had had enough of this weak signal, so I broke down and bought a brand new router on Amazon and had it overnighted to my house. I made sure it had good reviews and cost me a lot of money because that is the sensible thing one does right? We also changed our ISP in hopes that they would be better, faster and our lives would become easier. Things seemed okay at first but then quickly went back to being that same crappy internet acceptance lifestyle that we had become accustomed to. Looking back things were never better with the new router, it was just a brief psychological lift that we had been experiencing from having something new and shiny to look at. When we switched ISPs we opted for a plan that boasted 150mbps, our last speed test with the old company and router topped out a 4mbps. F-O-U-R. At this point, it didn’t take Benedict Cumberbatch to figure that our house was part of the problem.

One of the great things about working at Relevant Dad is that we spend a lot of out time finding new products that families might enjoy. On a post-it note full of products I had come across one way or another, I had written down eero and underlined it twice and noted next to it “better wifi” and then I had underlined that twice too, which told me through my keen deductive reasoning that eero was something I probably better check out. Call it fate or luck but the same day that I had a realization that my house was not built for a good wifi signal I took another look at eero.com. “Finally, WiFi That Works” were the words that greeted me as the page loaded. Okay, you have my interest eero. Now what. WFB, work from backyard the page proclaimed. Amusing, as if that is even possible! However, I like this idea that WiFi is a system not originating from one point in your house but from three. Multiple access points working together? Well, that sounded like the very thing my house required. If my life were like an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia this would be the point where the theme music begins to play and the title cards would read “The gang gets better internet.”

When my eero WiFi system came I knew from the moment I opened that package that it was going to change our time at home online for the better. Just the attention to detail that went into the packaging was impressive. You know that old adage, “dress for the job you want”? Well, eero comes dressed ready to impress at the MET gala. Each eero access point comes with supremely spooled power cords and slimline outlet plugs. I can’t emphasize enough how impressed I was at the packaging display, it was almost too pretty to disrupt but the lust for working WiFi conquers all. Give me my funny GIFs new wireless router overlords, please!

The setup from top to bottom took me less than 20 minutes, it literally was plug and play. From the comfort of the eero App I selected my personal preferences for the system and worked my way from the home base access point to one in our bedroom and then another in the office. Each step of the way the app guided me through my options. Once the system was up and running I took it for a test drive. Two iPad, two iPhones, one Apple TV, a baby monitor and a PC all were connected and working the network. My speed test topped out at 134 Mbps. I cried. You have to remember that just a week before it was 4 Mbps. What makes eero stand apart from the rest of the field is it’s mesh system that blankets your home with reliable WiFi. Our house works with three access points but the cool thing is we can add more if we want to and it will work even better. Inconceivable! It’s 2016 people, your furnace or central air are no longer the most important systems in your home. Without fast WiFi securely blanketing your abode your family will be left behind. So listen to my cautionary tale, don’t be fooled into buying a better cable package, or a new router with that one extra antenna, run, run, run to eero.com and fix your bad wifi forever.

It has been about two months of using our new eero system and we have had no complaints. The only time that it has powered off was when some guy took a joyride into a telephone pole a few streets over and we lost power for 3 hours. The system has even gotten faster due in part to some sort of magic on eero’s part. Software and security updates to the system to make it safe and efficient happen automatically so we don’t have to worry about a thing. When we have guests over it’s super easy to allow them access to our network through the App. No more yelling “19865356 lower case y k 6785 capitol TXY 1345″ from the notebook you have your network id written down in. Oh, and no more sharing your embarrassing password that you have had since signing up for AOL instant messenger in the late 90’s. It gets better, eero has even introduced parental controls that allow family time to stay family time with no distractions. FINALLY, WiFi that works! Sing it in high everyone! The only gripe that I have and it’s a big one is that all those extra calories I used to burn getting up off the couch to re-start the old solitary router are catching up on my waistline. #NoMoreFrappachinos