Amazon to Acquire Home Wi-Fi Company Eero -- 2nd Update
12 Febbraio 2019 - 2:57AM
Dow Jones News
By Maria Armental
Amazon.com Inc. on Monday disclosed its latest bet to control
the so-called smart home, adding to its fold a company that offers
a Wi-Fi system that ditches the traditional router.
Seattle-based Amazon and fellow tech giants Alphabet Inc.'s
Google and others have been racing to use voice assistants to
control everyday devices to promote their services -- and glean
valuable consumer data.
By buying Eero -- a company that promises no Wi-Fi dead zones by
deploying a customizable armada of small wireless routers around
the house -- Amazon will go head-to-head against Google's
OnHub.
Financial terms weren't disclosed, but Eero was valued at $251
million in a 2016 private financing round, according to an estimate
by Sand Hill Econometrics. The San Francisco startup raised almost
$100 million in venture capital from investors including Index
Ventures, Initialized Capital and Menlo Ventures.
Like OnHub and Luma, in which Amazon had invested earlier, Eero
offers what is known as mesh Wi-Fi networks, with access points
installed around the house or an office that allow devices to
connect with the closest wireless access-point without changing
networks.
The Eero device plugs into a modem. Users can then customize the
system, adding additional devices that plug into outlets, based on
the size -- and shape -- of the house.
"From the beginning, eero's mission has been to make the
technology in homes just work," Nick Weaver, Eero's chief executive
and one of its founders, said in a statement. "We started with WiFi
because it's the foundation of the modern home."
Mr. Weaver, who worked at Menlo Ventures before Eero was founded
in 2014, said working with Amazon could help Eero bring more
systems to customers around the world.
Amazon said Eero's products and services have garnered favorable
ratings with customers on the Amazon website.
"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, who oversees the company's Alexa business as
senior vice president of Amazon devices.
Amazon has been investing heavily in its Alexa virtual assistant
and the Echo devices it powers. Speaking at The Wall Street
Journal's WSJ Tech D.Live conference in November, Mr. Limp said the
company had more than doubled the number of workers dedicated to
Alexa and Echo devices since fall 2017.
Asked on Twitter about privacy and security, given Amazon's
disclosure last year that one of its Echo home speakers had
mistakenly recorded and shared a private conversation without
permission, Eero said that it "does not track customers' internet
activity and this policy will not change with the acquisition." The
company added that its devices don't have microphones.
Amazon has no plans to change Eero's policies at this time, a
company representative said.
Eero collects certain personal information during setup,
including customers' names and email addresses and its devices and
app collect data when in operation, such as the assigned IP
addresses of devices connected to the network, network status,
temperature, and CPU and memory usage.
--Stephen Nakrosis and Alexander Davis contributed to this
article.
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 11, 2019 20:42 ET (01:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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