I don't really agree with the negativity here; sure it probably doesn't do as much as ubiquiti gear or dd-wrt or whatever, and it may cost more, but I think for the average person these are far outweighed by the "throw another box at it" simplicity.
That said, a current-gen AirPort Express or Extreme covers many of the points here.
- You can set it up in seconds from your phone, if you have an iPhone. (Otherwise, you're stuck with OS X, Windows, or the Windows utility on WINE, though there are some okay open-source config utils).
- It's going to be pretty much rock solid. They're very good about reacquiring network access, and the firmware is about the cleanest I've ever seen on a router from a technical perspective (the iCloud services are a bit weird, but those are optional).
- You really only need one of them to serve single-level homes /apartments where they'll be punching through less than 5-6 walls.
- It won't auto-update, but some might consider this a feature.
- If you plug a second AirPort in, it asks if you want to extend the first network.
That aside, the bandwidth reduction from a multihop mesh would likely make the Eero unsuitable for my needs (I tend to saturate AC, so I just throw more wired access points at the coverage problem to keep my bandwidth up).
I tried setting up a linksys router as a bridge, but it was a little bit tricky and required me to reset it once or twice before I got it setup.
A few days later I purchased an airport express for the airplay feature to connect it to my radio. I installed it at one location in my home and it was drop-dead simple to set it up as a bridge to the existing network.
1. Give it a static IP on your local network (so you can find the web interface after step 2).
2. Disable DHCP on the router.
3. Plug your network into a LAN port on the router, instead of the WAN port.
Your router is now a dumb switch and access point. This works with most routers. While it can still technically route traffic to its WAN port, there's nothing plugged in there and it won't assume gateway status with no DHCP server.
Even if you're a technical person, your time might be more valuable than futzing around with a router.
A lot of people are willing to pay a premium for something that just works.
Anyway, yeah these sound neat. I hope more than anything, though, that they have secure firmware. One of the biggest problems faced by the average home is vulnerable router firmware, leaving millions of routers open to exploit for various nefarious purposes.
If it all works as advertised, this would be great. But there is no reason to believe these ambitious marketing claims before there is actual product on the shelves.