Mexico City Smart Home: Wi-Fi and Cement Don’t Mix (Premium)

Last month, I discussed my plans to bring an Eero 6E Pro mesh Wi-Fi router, two Echo Dot speakers, and a Blink Outdoor 4 camera to Mexico City. We're here now, and I've wasted more time than I should have trying to set it all up. My success rate thus far is modest.

The goal here is to get the Blink camera mounted on our balcony so we can enjoy the view when we're away. Getting there requires a few extra pieces, however.

The Wi-Fi on the router our Internet provider here gave us doesn't reach out to that corner of the balcony, so we needed to extend that somehow, either with a literal Wi-Fi extender, with a better, possibly mesh-based system, or at least with a better, more modern Wi-Fi router.

The Blink camera utilizes a sync module that requires power, connects to the same Wi-Fi network as the camera, and can optionally connect to USB-based storage to save recordings without requiring a subscription. (The subscription is cheap, so I went that route instead.)

What I ultimately settled on was a single-node Eero 6E Pro mesh Wi-Fi router and two Amazon Echo Dot speakers (because they can function as inexpensive Eero Wi-Fi extenders using something called eero Built-in). I didn't configure the Eero in the U.S. before flying here, but I did experiment with the Echo Dots on my home (three-node) eero network. But I couldn't get them to work as extenders there because the coverage is too good. (This is an automatic thing, you can't just force it on.)

No problem, I figured. The apartment here in Mexico City is small, about 750 square feet, but it has thick concrete walls that kill the Wi-Fi signal quickly. So I figured I could just place the Dots in the far corners of each bedroom here, near the outside walls where our balcony is, and the eero Built-in functionality would do its thing.

Technology has a way of getting between me and my plans, of course.

I flew to Mexico City with a single bag. It contained only a handful of clothing items because all we need is already here in the apartment: Three cheap Amazon polo shirts to replace the older shirts I'd left here and the t-shirt, shorts, and socks I had worn the previous day, plus a small toiletry bag. But my bag was full: It contained the Eero, the speakers, the camera, a camera mount and some other doodads, all their associated power adapters and cables, a couple of power cables and extenders, and a few other tech items. It sailed through security somehow: I was positive I'd be forced to pull it all out for TSA, but they barely looked at it.

We arrived in Mexico City around noon yesterday (Tuesday), took a 30-minute Uber ride to the apartment, unpacked, got some fans running–it's been hotter than usual here in Mexico City for a few months now, oddly–and headed out for lunch. After that, I did some light work and napped, more tired than I felt I should have been. But I had slept poorly the night before, and travel and time zone changes are tough.

This morning, finally...