[Cerowrt-devel] eero gains competition in plumewifi

[Dave Taht]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Erkki Lintunen <ebirdie at iki.fi> wrote:
> (resent, wrong sender address at first send)
>
> On 06/20/2016 09:16 AM, Dave Taht 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/
>
>
>
> Quite a staffing for a startup, the web site lists 46 names and positions
> from which 26 are named as engineers. Wondering if they already are in the
> business of WiFi chip and RF engineering, which enable them to do some
> "magic" to make a network of their own from the plumewifi plugs. On staffing
> resources this isn't on par with Eero, I think.

Well, it seems that post-nest there was a wave of VC investment into
making "quality" things that could be made hi-margin as market demand
(and consumer foolishness) was demonstrated to exist, by that.
Certainly wifi APs were ripe for improvements... and my own bias
towards fixing the standards and making the main APs better (e.g.
ISP-supplied or open source capable) a slower path.

The actual overheads for a company of building a shippable product
(e.g. marketing resources, manufacturing, structured testing, software
and hardware development, etc) I've long recognized, but I would have
loved to have actually had this sort of backing to go and develop a
product that worked right in the first place, long ago, and ship it.
And be making a living while doing so. I guess I'm jealous.

I really hadn't hit on the idea of the bundled, multiple AP approach
as restoring margins enough for new ideas to make it to
productization.
(I still think the all or nothing silo approach is a hard sell, even
for the classic enterprise AP vendors).

eero has published their GPL'd sources, at least, and this is the
latest of a string of products that promised way too much for what
they can possibly deliver on first ship. I keep hoping the onhub will
improve, but so far, it hasn't. And then there are so many failed
attempts with under-staffed over-promised products that have been
through kickstarter.

Ah, well, maybe this time these boxes will be be better in a
demonstrable way. Hope springs eternal.

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