Improved Coverage
With a single router, the Wi-Fi performance at different places in the home will vary based on the placement of the router since there is only one way for the signal to get from the router to a given client.
Wireless signals degrade with distance, more so when passing through walls made of common construction materials. This attenuation is particularly dramatic if the walls are brick or stone (common in Europe), contain wire mesh (traditional plaster), or metal foil (common in insulation in newer homes).
Wi-Fi 11ac and 11ax standards degrade even more rapidly with distance since it uses the 5 GHz spectrum as compared to the 2.4 GHz spectrum used by earlier, slower versions of the standard.
With a distributed Wi-Fi system like Plume, the signal can take several paths to get to the client, and therefore the system can be optimized to choose the most effective path, avoiding signal degradation inherent as the client gets further away from the gateway. Because the signal only has to reach the next pod, this also means that the fast 5 GHz can still be used throughout, even at the furthest corners of the home.
Multiple Pods allows for greater Channel Diversity
A centralized Wi-Fi router can only use a limited number of channels, which is based on the number of radios present. Those channels have to bear the load for all the clients on the home network.
Multiple Pods, each with 2-3 separate radios, of a distributed Wi-Fi network can operate over any number of channels, thereby spreading the radio spectral load without causing interference. The distributed network also benefits from load balancing, allowing clients to be distributed among the
multiple pods in the home, relieving congestion in the local pod to client links.
Channel availability can be further improved by hard-wiring multiple pods, leaving the Wi-Fi free for client use only.
Have Ethernet connections everywhere
Each pod has an Ethernet port, which allows Ethernet only devices to be connected in rooms that are not already wired.