Anyone familiar with Plume mesh networking?

Hardware
1

I’m considering a mesh network set up for our home. I have a router and repeater which works ok most of the time but has weird lacunae.

A friend of mine who is reasonably technically sophisticated (and an Apple guy) has a Plume set up which he really likes. It does not get as much play as Eero on this message board (or any that I could find).

https://www.plume.com/

There are a few things that interest me about this:

  1. You can buy a lifetime subscription to the service if you like it. Although expensive ($200) this eliminates the monthly fee and you come out ahead long term.
  2. If you are a subscriber you can buy any updated hardware at a steep discount, and each piece of hardware has a five year warranty.
  3. Xfinity seems to believe in their tech as they are setting Plume hardware. https://www.xfinity.com/learn/internet-service/wifi/xfi-pod-3pack
  4. A “real world” test shows that it works better than some of the other popular options
    https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/06/exclusive-plumes-new-superpod-hardware-is-here-and-its-fast/

Just wondering if others have any experience with this system (or other mesh networking options).

2

As far as I’m concerned, the Mac networking experts are Dave and John over at the Mac Geek Gab podcast (macobserver.com.) Dave tests the latest networking systems as they come out. He’s mentioned Plume a number of times but I don’t recall his assessment (I won’t be in the market until my AirPort Time Capsule threatens to enter assisted living). This week he said he’s been testing Synology’s mesh system and likes it so far. They are big on Synology products. Whatever you learn, I hope you’ll share it here.

1 Like
3

Great tip, @Tvillemw . I checked out their guide here:

And listened to the podcast where they discussed it:

They were pretty enthusiastic. The pricing is a lot better than Eero-- you can essentially get a full system for home and lifetime software support for the same cost as an Eero with two beacons (not including their monthly support). I pulled the trigger today and will provide my admittedly nontechnical feedback once I get it set up.

1 Like
4

As far as I’m concerned there is no such thing as Mac networking experts. Macs use the exact same networking technology as any other modern OS. There are networking experts though (e.g. https://www.smallnetbuilder.com).