Hands-on: We hammered Plume’s newest Superpod design with all-new Wi-Fi testing

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  Plume's new Wi-Fi 6 Superpods are visually indistinguishable from the older 802.11ac version, pictured here. [credit: Plume ]

Today, Wi-Fi mesh vendor Plume released its newest gear—a Wi-Fi 6 enabled version of its flagship Superpod design. We were the first to get our hands on the new Superpods, which retail at $159 apiece. Plume recommended four Superpods total for our 3,500-square-foot test house, so that's precisely how we tested.

To give the Superpod design every chance to shine, we used a new Wi-Fi 6 enabled test fleet—one equipped with Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 adapters in place of the 802.11ac Intel 7265 adapters in our old test fleet. But replacing the test fleet means needing to generate new baselines. So rather than re-using old tests, we broke out our original 802.11ac Superpods and a three-piece 802.11ac Amazon Eero mesh kit to serve as a competitive measurement baseline.

All three of these kits are top performers—including the Amazon Eero, which routinely beats much higher-spec and higher-priced kits in our testing. And Plume's Superpods have been leading the pack in our various iterations of The Great Ars Mesh Wi-Fi Throwdown for at least five years now.

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