Luma delivers whole-house Wi-Fi for non-geeks, with security per device

Anyone who has had to hook together more than one router, access point, or range extender to totally cover their home or office knows that it can be stressful. Each device normally requires to be configured separately, probably offers its own policy for providing guest access, and can be difficult to debug. Startup Luma aims to adjust all that, with a palm-sized device that can be used singly or as part of a set to provide an easy-to-administer, high-performance, solution for deploying Wi-Fi. For those lucky enough to live where there is high-speed broadband connections, Luma’s Ethernet ports are 1 Gigabit, adequate for fiber-speed connections.

It’s a router, an access point, and a range extender

Large businesses have had access to mesh-like “Enterprise grade” Wi-Fi gear for a long. Typically those units are expensive, and designed to be administered by IT professionals. Luma has taken that approach and adapted it to the home and small office environment. Luma’s device is an 802.11ac router, that can also serve as an access point and range extender numerous are deployed, and is controlled through a free mobile app that is available for iOS and Android.

In addition, Luma’s founders say they have brought the same type of intrusion and malware detection they developed for enterprise customers to the Luma. One example of that capability is that the Luma device can scan your network looking for machines that are not password protected. Picking channels for Wi-Fi devices in a crowded environment is time consuming, and often needs to be redone if sources of interference change. Luma does this automatically, changing its own settings as required. Luma’s device is dual band, and supports multi-user MIMO for improved performance.

Snoopy parents will love this

The demo of the unit’s parental controls from Luma was at CES 2016, and to be frank it was a little amazing how much control it gives you over what is happening on your network. You can see who is browsing what, and restrict access at the user and website level — locally or remotely — if you want. Now, we never did that in our house, and I’m not sure if I’m a fan, but for anyone looking for highly-granular, and relatively easy-to-administer, parental controls, Luma has it. There is one piece of this technology that I think will be very popular. Luma can also control which servers your growing number of smart appliances connect with. As the Internet of Things takes off, securing personal data will become increasingly important.

Pricing and availability

Luma is taking pre-orders for the unit, at $99 for a single unit, or $249 for three. This is half of what they anticipate the retail price will be after the devices ship this spring. Since each device can work by itself, Luma says you can buy three and use them in multiple different locations if you don’t need all three in the same place. Luma isn’t the only company about to ship a product in this space. Startup Eero is taking a similar approach, although its current pre-order price is $199.