Amazon has announced that it will acquire Eero, one of the biggest players in the networking hardware space known for its easy-to-set-up mesh Wi-Fi solutions. 

Bay Area-based Eero, named after Finnish industrial designer Eero Saarinen , has been in operation since early 2015.  It has already shipped several products.  Neither Amazon nor Eero revealed how much money the tech giant paid in the acquisition, but Eero had raised $90 million in venture capital since its founding. 

In case there was any doubt that the acquisition is part of a larger smart home strategy, a quote in Amazon's press release from SVP of Amazon Devices and Services Dave Limp named that as a reason right off the bat:

We are incredibly impressed with the Eero team and how quickly they invented a WiFi solution that makes connected devices just work.  We have a shared vision that the smart home experience can get even easier, and we’re committed to continue innovating on behalf of customers. 

As is always the case with releases like this, there's also a quote from the chief of Eero, Nick Weaver:

From the beginning, Eero’s mission has been to make the technology in homes just work.  We started with WiFi because it’s the foundation of the modern home.  Every customer deserves reliable and secure WiFi in every room.  By joining the Amazon family, we’re excited to learn from and work closely with a team that is defining the future of the home, accelerate our mission, and bring Eero systems to more customers around the globe. 

Eero's products have a 4.6-star product rating on Amazon's store, and the devices already support Alexa voice controls.  Amazon has been pushing a feature called Wi-Fi Simple Set-Up , which is intended to make setting up home networks easier.  While techies will often opt to set networks up themselves , many users end up paying some service to do it for them.  Like many contemporary mesh Wi-Fi offerings, Eero's products are relatively easy to get going. 

Eero's products could fill a gap in Amazon's product strategy and help users more easily set up their Fire TV, Echo, and Ring devices—as long as those users don't mind living fully in Amazon's ecosystem.  Amazon hasn't said much about what it plans to do with Eero yet, but you can bet that the products will be used to make Amazon's total dominance of the home more likely.