Plume Pods, Smarter Home Wi-Fi With No Installation

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Plume promise internet access to the nooks and crannies of your house without the need for additional routers or frustrating configurations no matter how many walls you have as long as there is an power outlet close to your trouble areas. Presumably, Plume is a shortened version of plumage which suggests many feathers, each Plume Pod is designed to be a single feather capable of accomplishing a lot by itself.

Plume Pods discounted for pre-order today, set for fall delivery

With more and more devices around the house requiring strong Wi-Fi the move towards mesh networks was only a matter of time. From the soon to be released Google Home, refrigerators, smart TVs, every child’s tablet, etc. we are more and more slaves to our Wi-Fi connections then we ever have been. That smart TV purchased two years ago isn’t going into the trash when it’s replaced in the living room but it may see itself replacing the “dumb” TV in the kids room downstairs with the latter finding its way to the trash heap or, hopefully, a charity. Problem with that smart TV in the basement sometimes is the fact that you get a poor signal down there.

That’s what companies like Luma, Ubiquiti’s soon to be released Amplifi and Eero are working on among other companies to fix. Now, a new player has emerged and its calling itself Plume and offering Plume Pods to provide a router-less mesh to give you a signal where and when you need it.

The pods, pucks or whatever you wish to call them work in concert wish each other and, in theory, are constantly adjusting the signal in your house to give you the best WiFi signal.

One plugs into your Cable or DSL modem and becomes the “boss” while the others are simply plugged into wall outlets. Each puck/pod comes with a gigabit Ethernet port, supports AC1200 speeds, and costs $39 for a pre-order or $49 when they are promised to release in the fall.

“A single router can no longer meet the Wi-Fi demands of most homes today. While the latest generation of multi-router systems improve signal strength, they can choke the overall system capacity and speeds. These unnecessarily expensive products are based on decades-old technology that compounds the issue of a central router and cannot handle the complex variables and loads affecting a Wi-Fi network in a modern connected home,” said Plume CEO and co-founder Fahri Diner in a statement this week.

Now, if your internet goes down at the source there is nothing that Plume can do

It amazes me how many people still don’t have the Wi-Fi that I would expect them to have. I seem to have fewer troubles with mine in Guatemala than the average Time Warner customer paying $4000 rent and $150 to Time Warner each month in New York. And there is nothing that these devices can do about that.

“We approached the problem from a unique angle. Rather than introducing more routers, we decided to deconstruct the traditional router by leveraging inexpensive and scalable compute power from the cloud. The intent was to give people more Wi-Fi, in more places, on more devices, more of the time—all at a more affordable price point,” the company continued.

By using the cloud, Plume hopes to be smarter in its approach to sharing bandwidth in the house. It prioritizes connections while leaning from your daily habits over time.

“By actively monitoring the home network, as well as the devices connected to it, Plume detects interference and continuously makes decisions to improve signal, speed, and resiliency. For example, the system monitors the UHD TV box in the living room and boosts Wi-Fi capacity there so the 4K stream never loses resolution. Plume also directs mobile devices to seamlessly roam as they move around the home,” reads Plume’s box that has yet to house the device for shipping.

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