I anyone here using a Plume mesh network in their homes

[AudioDoctor]

and is willing to share their thoughts on it?  Is it as easy as it looks? Does it work reliably for things we would use it for, such as streaming hi-res music?  Thoughts on the customer support and service the subscription offers?

 

https://www.plume.com

[loop7]

I'm using Google Wifi which solved a lot of issues. It was expensive and limited in advanced configurations but I'm primarily interested in coverage, security and throughput. It is creepy knowing Google is capturing all the data.

[Jeremy Anderson]

I’ve had Plume for the last six months or so and it’s been fantastic. I have 3 SuperPods and excellent coverage around the house.

 

I can actually say that coverage has improved over time as the network tuned itself, because for the first few days I thought, “reception is still kinda iffy down here in the bonus room, I might need a fourth pod”... but since then we’ve had full signal down there and all the occasional hiccups and dropouts our Fire TV was experiencing in that room have vanished.

 

The app on the phone is slick, and I can watch my phone seamlessly hop from pod to pod as I move around the house. You can set guest passwords and see which devices are using which password, lock down devices, etc., with a few taps. You can grant a device visibility to the entire local network and the internet, or just the internet, or just to the devices with the same password and the internet.

 

The last one is useful for containing IoT devices that inter-operate to their own virtual network segment and internet access without giving them visibility of all the other traffic happing on your network.

 

It also keeps a pulse in your internet / WAN speed, showing you a chart over time so you can know if your ISP is fulfilling their bargain. You can retest on-demand for troubleshooting. And through the app you can test the device in your hand’s connection as well. (Though that’s hardly a unique offering).

 

Its been pretty much painless since we got it. It did take the mesh offline for 5-10 minutes a couple of times shortly after we got it (I think it gets a quick tune after ~24 hours and a big tuneup after ~1 or 2 weeks?) when it was applying some firmware updates from their machine learning / cloud backend, and it did so without any advance notice or post-explanation... it would have nice if it would say “Hey, got a patch here. Should I apply it now or wait until 3am?”... apart from that it’s been steady as a rock and our WiFi experience has been effortless.

 

The only oddity about having a mesh is that older WiFi devices see 3 access points, not one... and there’s no good way to tell them apart.  I’ve not had a problem just selecting any one of them at random. Still works.

 

Plume with confidence  

[AudioDoctor]

Thanks, that's good to hear.

[mrkoven]

There are countless options for mesh network.. Plume, Google, Orbi, Eero, Velop, etc... though FWIW design/usability aside, from my research Plume was near the bottom in speed tests.. I ended up w/ Orbi and happy w/ it.. it is blazing fast and reliable w/ my Gigabit connection