HomePass Reviews

Honestly I’m just very confused. It’s been months since the design of this new app and it’s still extremely unintuitive to the extent that I’ve stopped recommending Plume to friends as I cannot support the family that use HomePass without getting completely lost in it myself. If all I want to do is find the password I have to click on an unlabeled icon, then a mysteriously labeled other icon and then know to tap on the “show all” to show my passwords (which is very tiny text even on our current large phones). Working with passwords is pretty much the most important thing to do on a wifi network and it’s so incredibly hidden that only a lost monkey or a basement hacker can find it on first try. Yes, I’m disappointed in this user interface and would like to see massive changes made. Please work with a U/I designer that favors humans over pretty icons and silly names.

Old review:
I like that a lot of features of an added in the new app, but it honestly is not a better app. There are a lot of confusing items, especially in the motion sensing sections. The worst is that the interface will spontaneously reset itself in lists and go to the top even when no changes have happened. HomePass is slowly getting better but generally doesn’t do the needed basics of a wifi app without tapping around this confusing interface.

We changed over so that we would have a better internet. When it’s on it is much better, in two months time we have had more interruptions in service than we did with dial up in 10 years. Some of the times it has been out for several days at a time. This is very bad for myself and my family due to I work from home and loose money each day I can not work. Plus my son received a bad grade due to service being out for several days then a day later it was out again for the whole weekend. The lady on the phone told me that she couldn’t help us because they was more worried with installing new customers instead of taking care of the ones that was already paying a 107 a month which is double what I used to pay. I didn’t mind paying because I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with junky internet anymore.

As a parent, I like the feature where you can set the times for wifi to turn on and off for a certain device, but that sliding timer mechanism is tiny and difficult to manipulate.

I like the “pause” feature, but would also like to see an “allow for (allotted time)” feature. This way, if my kid earns 60 minutes of WiFi time, he can use it at his discretion for up to 60 minutes of time. So, if he wants to play for 30 minutes on his Xbox after school, he can. Then, after dinner, he can play for up to another 30 minutes. After 60, it shuts off. Takes the parent out of the equation and allows the kids to manage their own time.

The system is totally not reliable, intermittent operation, if you work from home think about some other system; when it works it’s fine, however, the reliability is poor and when you’re having trouble customer service will not answer the phone; all you get is a recording an elevator music but if you want to sign up for service they will answer right away.

I live in Chatham Illinois, I can’t speak to other locations for the system but it’s new to Chatham; so far I will only give them two stars. Let’s see what the future holds but for now I think I’m going back to Xfinity not that they’re much better but at least they’re more reliable and if the system goes out it’s back up in minutes not hours or days.

The service is great, however, HomePass could use some optimization under the hood for speed. I feel like I’m having to select devices several times before a menu will appear. General overall sluggishness across the entire experience (using iphone 13 pro max). It just feels like it takes forever to change anything. Also No manual way to run device optimization. No way to manually select bridge mode, it’s either auto (bridge) or router only. No dynamic DNS, no DoH or DoT options. I feel like for a paid subscription this is something we should have. Contacting Support is great though, they are pretty responsive.

I love the capabilities of HomePass . The issue that I am having is that I am visually impaired. I use voiceover which reads the screen to me. Many of the buttons on the Plume app are not labeled, and aren’t read in the order that they appear visually on the screen. This is confusing when trying to figure out how to access different functions. Also, many of the buttons cannot be pressed using the jesters with voiceover. If these things were fixed HomePass would be excellent. Apple has tutorials for developers on how to integrate accessibility into apps. Also, Apple has accessibility support available.

The plume pucks work really well for expanding my WiFi network. The sub-net is easy to install and setup is automatically accompanied through their software. I run WiFi cameras that needed better connectivity than my network had and Plume covered that issue perfectly. The only reason I didn’t give them a five star rating was the automatic configuration seemed to reconfigure from all “excellent” to a suboptimal configuration. This started after a few months of stable great coverage. It seems to have settled down over the last month or so. All HomePass lacked connection to the sub-net on and off for a few months. The sub-net was working all the time but HomePass couldn’t connect. This issues seemed to have been corrected.

Overall I’m very satisfied with Plume. And the customer service is top notch!

Quality mesh network system that continuously optimized itself. I was surprised to get an email from support about alerts on my pods. They were able to integrate a better method for band/channel selection which significantly improved my experience.

I started with borrowing a friends pod before purchasing. Then I bought a pod set and also purchased several super pods when they were offered to existing customers before public release. Needless to say, our service allows for seamless streaming, gaming and communication regardless of how many devices or users are in the house. The best part is you can connect your main super pod/pod directly to your ISP’s Ethernet jack, without using their router.

I’m looking toward to the future improvements coming soon.

This would be 5 starts for sure. Easy to use. Great safety features and clarity on the network. Overall honestly it probably is a 5 star app.

However, there are two things that I want to call out that are needed in terms of device management, or perhaps better stated family management. It is important in this overly digital world to be able to limit our kids WiFi time without having to manually tell them to turn stuff off. The down time feature is great, however, it does not seem consistent. That’s the first issue. Often times devices do not pause when the time has been reached. Unsure if there is a bug there.

The second thing is, in addition to the down time feature, there needs to be an ability to set a time limit for a given day (a bonus if it could be by device). For example if I want to limit my son’s Xbox time to 3 hours per day I need the ability to set that.

Obviously, if you have a Plume WiFi set-up you need HomePass, and if you don't, you don't. That said, I'm giving my thoughts here in the hopes they may be useful to someone considering Plume.

Generally HomePass works well, is clearly laid out, and other than a few odd choices is intuitive enough. It does not feel like a native iOS app though, and the navigation stack seems quirky if you're expecting the usual iOS drill-down approach. There is no iPad app (guys, HomePass is being used for heavy lifting, throw us a bone here), so you're going to be stuck doing all your network tweaking on your phone. Fortunately for most users, heavy tweaking should not be required.

It's a shame there's no way to set the icons for devices: I have a HomeKit switch that shows up as a laptop, and I cannot change that. Also, while Plume grabs ZeroConf (Bonjour) names from devices so most devices on your network will be nicely named in the devices list, HomeKit devices show up with little to no differentiation. It'd be nice if HomePass could be updated to mine the HomeKit catalog for device names.

The Plume ecosystem of pods and app make for the best WiFi system I’ve ever found. Gone are the days of resetting the router in a crowded building - Plume adapts. Gone are the dead zones in old houses and buildings - just add a pod and Plume makes it work. Gone are “squatters” who aren’t even in your building - you can see all the devices on the network and freeze out individual devices. If you’re a business and need to provide WiFi for customers, you can isolate your business devices from the general public just by specifying which password has access to which device. You can also enable content, ad, and IoT protection/filtering for a full suite of home and business protections.

Plume is everything WiFi was promised to be 20 years ago, now, and better.

I was skeptical about Plume meeting our WiFi needs at first; but, my son talked me into it - and I am SO glad he did!! Prior to using Plume, I was allowed to work at home - but couldn’t because our WiFi signal sucked! This product solved that issue and is so easy to use right out of the box! Setup was a breeze and we now have evenly distributed WiFi coverage throughout our home. Not only can I work at home now, the Wi-Fi coverage so good that I can hook up our Ring doorbell which requires a pretty strong signal. Their customer service and technical support can’t be beat! They are second to none - seriously!! Not that we had any issues- I just had some questions. I love this product!! Highly Recommend!!!

Plume has simplified my network hardware and performance. I got rid of my router/3 range extenders and installed pods in every room for complete coverage. My range now includes my driveway, garage, patio and backyard. I can stream dyi maintaince videos on my car/lawnmower/or outdoor projects without worry of lag or loss of connection. End result things get done and stay clean. The GUI is simple and informative. I would like to see the ability to share network information so multiple plume networks are represented on one screen. Or at least have a drop down box to cycle between different accounts.

I was initially concerned about switching out my Orbi system for these... The Plume platform easily won me over. Insanely easy to set up, and the adaptive WiFi tuning truly works. All of my devices now have great performance & improved Wifi. Devices in my garages like my Sony “airplay” receivers used to repeatedly drop from the Orbi network. This was hugely frustrating because I’d have to get out a ladder to reboot & reconnect them to Orbi. With Plume, these now stay constantly connected. They just work...All the time... Like they’re supposed to! HomePass is intuitive & so easy to manage & I love the included protections of the security app (“Guard”). My favorite feature is “Sense” that uses the WiFi fields my devices generate to detect & show motion in my home for added awareness & peace of mind. In all, Plume delivers a great platform that delivers a whole lot more than just WiFi.

Luckily, I was one of the first to purchase during their kickstarter campaign and haven’t looked back. Went ahead and purchased 3 super pods as soon as they came out and noticed quite a bit more power. I have 3 floors with a tad over 5000 sq ft and very fortunate to have most all rooms pre-wired with Cat-5. Put in a switch at the “home run” box in the laundry room, hooked in a super pod and not a dead space anywhere. This includes all closets and bathrooms and all of the backyard and patio (.4 acres) HomePass is extremely intuitive and easy to navigate. I can not recommend this product enough.

Setup was a breeze, just plugged in the pods and held my iPhone near each one to name them and that was it. Ever since investing in a Plume system my WiFi has been significantly faster than the router provided by my ISP, and coverage has been spotless across my entire house. I know the yearly subscription fee is off putting but when you consider the cost of the hardware and the features you are getting this system performs as well as mesh routers that cost nearly double or triple what this one does. I can’t wait to see what features get added in future updates.

I am really happy with my Plume network. I have one at home, and another at our store. They have been extremely reliable and very fast. My desktop in the bedroom over WiFi gets 400mb/s + over our gigabit cable internet connection. Our new MacBook Air gets 450mb/s all over our small house. I have three Superpods, which is way overkill for my 1200sq ft home, but I wanted to make sure it stretches far out into our yard for various out devices, like the chargepoint electric car charger, rachio sprinkler controller, etc.

I received two plume super pods and service as part of my ISP’s managed equipment. I cannot tell you how much I love this product. I live in a hone built in the 1800s so running Ethernet is a chore, and I was worried that the signal would quickly degrade from room to room with these pods, however that is simply not the case. I receive fantastic signal, and the pods provide full coverage of my home. I run my whole security system and all IoT devices on them flawlessly. I also use the Ethernet port included on the super pod to run a POE switch which runs an IP phone test lab I use for work. Not a single problem. HomePass is easy and intuitive to use once you get used to it, and instead of setting up a separate ssid for my IoT devices, I can log into the same access point and use a separate password for either a guest or “internet only” option. This is simply awesome. As someone working in the IT sector, I highly recommend this product and app.

I need to get used to navigating HomePass , but the suspend feature is SO brilliant. I have a child who is Autistic (Asperger’s) and gets very irritated when it’s time to put his electronic devices up. He blames me. Now, I phrase it so that it’s his electronic devices that need a timeout. This way it’s not ME nagging him to get offline, it’s automatically unavailable at a desired time. He has responded well to it. Thank you for helping us create a better and easier bedtime ritual.

I have been using 2 of these devices for about 3 weeks and love them. Prior to me having Plume, I had a good dual band WiFi router. Sometimes had issues streaming from 2 tv’s and getting signal into one of the back rooms at the extreme of the house, not any more. Even with the first pod, the 5g range was much greater when I connected the second, I have WiFi throughout my whole house and into back and front yard.
The Plume app makes it the simplest setup I’ve come across. The first time I plugged mine in it did take a long while for HomePass to find it, about 6-8 mins. so be patient. Plugged in the second, found it straight away, they updated then I just followed the onscreen instructions for naming my network and I was good to go. No more streaming issues. HomePass is very intuitive as far as looking at what devices are connected and checking bandwidth etc. love the fact you can name each pod individually also.
I would recommend Plume to anyone, especially if you’re unsure of technology/WiFi etc.