The SuperPod With Wi-Fi 6 ($477 for a three-node kit) is Plume’s latest whole-home mesh Wi-Fi system, designed to bring Wi-Fi 6 connectivity to every room in your house. As with Plume’s Wi-Fi 5 predecessor, these stylish nodes simply plug into a wall outlet to create a tri-band mesh network, and are managed from your phone with a user-friendly mobile app. They offer good close-range performance and multi-gig connectivity, but you have to pay for a HomePass membership to use them. If you’d rather not pay an annual fee, check out our Editors’ Choice winner for Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems, the Asus ZenWiFi XT8. It’s a bit more affordable than the SuperPod, with stronger performance, lifetime parental controls, and malware protection.
Low-Profile Nodes
The hexagon-shaped Plume SuperPod With Wi-Fi 6 nodes look exactly like the previous ones we reviewed back in 2018. Available in champagne or silver, each measures 1.4 by 3.7 by 3.4 inches (HWD) and has a two-pronged plug on the back and a tiny status LED on the top. They also have gigabit LAN and 2.5Gb WAN ports, but lack the USB connectivity that you get with the ZenWiFi AX XT8. Under the nodes’ hoods are six internal antennas, Wi-Fi 6 circuitry, a Bluetooth radio, a 1.5GHz quad-core CPU, 512MB of RAM, and 256MB of flash memory.
This is a tri-band AX6600 system that uses the latest 802.11ax technology, including Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) data transmissions, WPA3 encryption, 1024 QAM, 160MHz bandwidth, MU-MIMO simultaneous data streaming, and direct-to-client signal beamforming.
As with earlier Plume devices, the nodes plug into wall outlets and create a mesh network to bring Wi-Fi to each room in your house (Plume doesn’t specify exact coverage range, but recommends using one pod for every two rooms). They use Plume’s Adaptive Wi-Fi technology, which analyzes your network and optimizes bandwidth allocation based on demand. We reviewed the $477 three-pack, which is designed for homes with three to four bedrooms. You can also purchase individual nodes for $159 each, whether you need more coverage or just want to use one or two nodes.
Aside from the nodes themselves, you’ll need a HomePass membership subscription to install and manage the SuperPod. Subscriptions go for $99 for one year, $179 for two years, or $249 for three years. HomePass provides malware protection, parental controls, and even home motion detection. For malware, HomePass protects all of your connected devices against spyware, botnets, viruses, adware, and other malicious activity. Parental controls include age-appropriate website filtering, individual user profiles, access scheduling, and the ability to see what websites have been blocked. As with previous Plume systems, QoS settings are non-existent. Finally, the subscription also includes Plume’s Sense home motion detection feature, which monitors the Wi-Fi signals in your home for disruptions. When it detects a disturbance between nodes or between a node and a connected device, it translates that into a motion event and sends a push alert to your phone.
While these features are undoubtedly welcome, Plume’s HomePass subsciption is pricey compared with the TP-Link Deco X90, which charges $5.99 per month/$54.99 per year for a HomeShield Pro plan to access premium features. And it’s especially costly compared with the Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8), which offers free lifetime network protection.
The nodes are installed and managed using Plume’s well-designed HomePass mobile app for Android and iOS devices. The home screen contains a network map that shows your nodes, each with a bunch of tiny dots circling it representing connected clients. Tap any node to see who is connected, then tap a client to view network information including the radio band and channel in use, the MAC and IP addresses, and how much bandwidth it’s taking up. Here you can also enable and disable parental controls and online protection for that client, run an internet speed test, and pause online access.
A three-bar icon in the bottom left corner of the home screen takes you to a settings screen where you can add new nodes, change passwords and node names, and enable Guard features including network-wide online protection, advanced IoT protection for smart home devices, and ad-blocking. The advanced settings let you configure the SuperPod for bridge or router-only modes, port forwarding, and primary and secondary DNS settings. The Motion icon in the upper left corner enables the Sense feature, and lets you view historical graphs of motion events.
Plume SuperPod Wi-Fi 6 Installation and Performance
The SuperPod system is easy to install. I started by tapping the Set Up Plume button in the mobile app, which prompted me to create an account and password, then verify my email address. After that, I followed the on-screen instructions to plug in a node and connect it to my modem, where it would serve as the main router. Within seconds the node was identified, letting me set a Wi-Fi name and password. I then plugged in the other two nodes, which the system immediately recognized. After around one minute, the nodes were booted up and added to the network. I gave each a name, and the installation was finished. Once the network was up and running, I received a message saying that Plume needed 24 hours to optimize my network, so I let the system run for a few days before performing my tests.
We use the Iperf measurement utility to test throughput performance, with a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra phone as our client and a desktop PC as the Iperf server. Performance was mixed. The SuperPod router node showed an impressive speed of 888Mbps on our close-proximity (same room) test, besting the Asus ZenWiFi XT8 (860Mbps), the Linksys Velop AX MX10 (865Mbps), and the TP-Link Deco X60 (758Mbps) router nodes. However, its speed of 220Mbps on the 30-foot distance test is well below the TP-Link Deco X60 (290Mbps) and the Linksys Velop AX MX10 (333Mbps). The ZenWiFi XT8 led the 30-foot distance test with a speed of 347Mbps.
See How We Test Wireless RoutersSee How We Test Wireless Routers
The SuperPod satellite node turned in decent scores, but can’t match the competition. Its speed of 517Mbps on the close-proximity test comes in right behind the TP-Link Deco X60 (521Mbps), but both the Linksys Velop AX MX10 (667Mbps) and the Asus ZenWiFi XT8 (675Mbps) are significantly faster. Similarly, the SuperPod node’s speed of 357Mbps on the 30-foot test trails the pack, which the ZenWiFi XT8 leads with a speed of 619Mbps.
To test wireless signal strength, we use an Ekahau Sidekick Wi-Fi diagnostic device and Ekahau’s Survey mobile app, which generates a heat map that shows the router and satellite node’s signal strength throughout our test home (Note: Ekahau is owned by J2 Global, the parent company of Ziff Davis, the publisher of PCMag.com). The circles on the map below represent the location of the router and the node, with the colors representing signal strength (dark green is the strongest signal, yellow is weaker, and gray indicates no measurable signal reception). The software generates a circle for each 5GHz band.
As shown on the maps, the Plume nodes offer good close-proximity signal strength, but that signal weakens farther away from their locations. The satellite node’s signal was lowest in the corner of the garage, and the main router had trouble maintaining a strong signal in the lower left bedroom, making that room a good location for the third node (if you get the three-node set).
A Good Choice If You Don’t Mind the Subscription
With the Plume SuperPod With Wi-Fi 6, you can bring Wi-Fi 6 coverage to every room in your home. The low-profile pods are easy on the eyes and even easier to install and manage, and deliver good close-range performance with multi-gig connectivity. You’ll need a HomePass subscription to use the system, but in return you get strong network-wide malware protection and parental controls with age-appropriate web filters. That said, even before the subscription, the SuperPod is a bit more expensive than our Editors’ Choice winner for Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems, the Asus ZenWiFi XT8, which offers free lifetime parental controls and malware protection, as well as superior overall performance.
