I'll admit it: for me, setting up networks is kind of a sport. I enjoy getting everything to work just right. But I'm weird that way--for most people, it's kind of a hassle. That's where new networking startup Eero comes in. It wants to solve the most common Wi-Fi network issues that folks run into these days: dead spots, not enough range, complicated setup, and so on.

Wi-Fi routers are a dime a dozen these days, but Eero's actually trying to make networks smarter and easier to use. For example, you can set up your initial Eero router via an app on your smartphone that communicates with the router via Bluetooth, and the app makes it easy to send login information to your guests via text message.

But the difficulty of setting up a network is nowhere more apparent than if you've found that a room in your house is just too far away--or has too many walls in the way--to get a good signal. You could invest in a range extender, but most of them aren't very good, and setting them up--or using a second router as an extender, if it even offers such a feature–-is often a pain.