[Cerowrt-devel] eero gains competition in plumewifi

[Dave Taht]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 1:43 AM, Maciej Soltysiak <maciej at soltysiak.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I sure wish I knew how they are implementing diversity routing and if
>> they are bothering to pay attention to make-wifi-fast
>>
>> https://www.plumewifi.com/
>
>
> "Plume is a cloud coordinated WiFi system that exponentially increases the
> signal strength and quality of your WiFi. It monitors your WiFi activity and
> balances your network load without sacrificing the performance of one device
> over another. Plume utilizes multiple WiFi channels in the same home to
> communicate between Plume Pods, eliminating congestion as your WiFi demands
> change and increase.

I love how marketing folk can eliminate congestion with a wave of a
word processor.

> Our cloud algorithms figure out which band to use for
> each device to ensure your devices have access to the speed they deserve,
> avoiding interference along the way. Plume WiFi adapts to the physical space
> you live in, your online devices, your household, and even to your
> neighbor’s WiFi usage patterns (yes, their networks also impact your
> environment!). It adapts real-time to your personal needs."

I am glad they sort of recognise that oh, my, merely because you have
a WPA password does not stop you from radiating outside your home/apt.
The fact that this needs an ! to point out is a sad commentary on the
state of humanity.

> I'm reading this as: we setup the APs on all 3 (1,6,11) channels, have the
> plumes record which channels have best radio and network parameters at a
> given time; store that on their disks over the web (sorry, cloud); then
> dynamically set power and perhaps other radio chip and QoS parameters to
> something a la heuristics: e.g. send X type of traffic on ch11 after 6pm
> Mon-Fri.

I have no idea why "the cloud" is needed, as the amount of storage and
computation required to do this fits into a few dozen k.

Well, what I can imagine is the radios sending a constant stream of
statistics to the cloud (thus leaking who is on, when), giant
databases written in python to manage it, plume reselling your usage
data and patterns to third parties, a whole team dedicated to
developing the json api to manage all this, and the gui for your smart
phone relying on hole punching to get the conf data out to the cloud,
so the json api controlling the parameters could make it back into the
device over unsecured telnet over port 22.

... and one or two guys cross compiling openwrt and crossing their
fingers if it will work in the shipped part of the product, and
utterly ignoring rfc7084 and homenet in developing their sort of meshy
technology.

Of all the things in the preso that bugged me most, it was their
proposal for you to throw out all your existing APs for their stuff,
and secondly not documenting how to interop with the real open source
software they are probably leveraging.

Welcome to our silo! Trust us, we fixed everything you've been bugged
about! Thanks for supporting us on kickstarter!



> Doesn't sound like they're making wifi fast in Dave Taht sense. More like
> working around the issues by multiplying channels and squeezing what they
> can from the radio. That may work, who knows.

One of these days I should stress more that the inverse square law for
radio propagation *vastly* trumps anything we can do in
make-wifi-fast, that we 'canna violate the laws of physics, captain!'
No matter what I try for example, the make-wifi-fast AP I have in the
office cannot reach the kitchen.

So I have definately longed to see the end of your typical wifi
"repeater" that rebroadcast on the same channel, and

I would also have liked it if some "meshy" 2 radio diversity routing
product that plugged into a wall like these things do... also had
ethernet over powerline support. *way* better answer that wifi
diversity routing is in many cases.

> Anyway, this is what a consumer like me reads it.

This non-consumer woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

> Best regards,
> Maciej
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dave Täht
>> Let's go make home routers and wifi faster! With better software!
>> http://blog.cerowrt.org
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>
>



-- 
Dave Täht
Let's go make home routers and wifi faster! With better software!
http://blog.cerowrt.org