Luma Whole Home WiFi (3 Pack - White) - Replaces WiFi Extenders and Routers, Free Virus Blocking, Free Parental Controls, Gigabit Speed

As an avid computer tinkerer with several certifications from Microsoft, Cisco, and others major parties in the computer realm, I have been an active tinkerer with home networking and home automation for a very long time now. I have been a long time user of Asus routers and AsusWRT as well as other offerings with varied amounts of success. Often times I would justify the hiccoughs I would run into because I'd trade off a little stability or connectivity for the vast array of features the traditional "router" offers.Lately however, I've found that the advanced settings of the Asus routers and their "beamforming" offerings leave a little to be desired. With beamforming, you can essentially make both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wifi networks with the same name, and beamforming is supposed to do a great job of routing traffic to the best signal. In my case at least, not so much.One example I can give you is the Wemo Insight Switch, Wemo Insight Switch, Wi-Fi Smart Plug, Control Lights and Appliances From Your Phone, Manage Energy Costs, Works with Amazon Alexa which allows me to control my heater and legacy fans with Alexa and lets me track my energy expenses. the Wemo works great, unless I have Asus' advanced beamforming turned on, in that case several of my devices including my Wemo switch simply will not connect to my WiFi. Not the Wemo's fault however, its the router. Time and time again I've proved that if I turn off the advanced features the Wemo connects, when I enabled them in the router the Wemo disconnects. That simple.Enter Luma.The Luma system presents a different set of challenges and an entirely welcome solution to some of the challenges I've already had for awhile. My specific needs were solid WiFi everywhere, and connectivity. Pretty simple right? You'd think my Asus could handle these things but not so...Instead, the Luma setup was a breeze. I download the Luma app and create an account, then power up the first Luma and connect it to the network cable, then follow the on screen instructions to setup my network. To make it simple, I used the same network password and Wifi name as on my old router, in a few minutes all of my devices were connecting to the Luma.My next step was to connect the second Luma, I did this by setting the second Luma in the same room as the first and powering it up, to follow the same setup procedure as on the first device, and again on the third Luma.Once I had all three Luma setup, I moved them to where the app suggested I place them, roughly in opposite ends of the two story home. Viola! All of my devices connected including my Belkin Wemo. Fantastic!The next step was to connect a small gigabit smart switch such as my NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch (GS208) switch in order for me to connect about six or so wired devices. One click is all it took to the back of the Luma and my entire network roared back to life.Now all I had to do was wait for the Luma's to get their latest software updates so that I could assign static IP's and other neat features. One of the things I did right away is setup user profiles. I setup my daughters devices under her profile, and enabled Filtering which effectively adds a network firewall and DNS filtering for my entire home. I used to have to manually enable these options either by subscribing to OpenDNS and settings in the Asus router by Trend Micro Antivirus or other means, SO SIMPLE!I then assigned my daughter a curfew so all of her devices are stopped at a certain hour, and her profile as the default for pausing wifi! Now we can focus on homework and dinner together, I'm sure she's going to enjoy that a ton!In comes Alexa, Alexa can pause the internet with a command, and prioritize my All-New Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote | Streaming Media Player so that there is no buffering while we enjoy some flix.And the SPEED! WAO! I know I was going to get full bars of signal throughout the house, I was not prepared for the SPEED I now have throughout the house. the Xbox connects faster, apps download faster, the entire internet is faster! MUAHAHAHAHAHHAAAA...Ahem.It's fantastic. I was able to setup port forwarding for my Foscam FI9821PB Plug & Play 720p Wireless/Wired Pan/Tilt IP Indoor Security Camera with Night Vision, Motion Detection Alerts, Two-Way Audio and Remote Viewing (Black) cool Foscam cameras, so that I can access the video stream from the internet, and my Canary All-in-One Home Security Device - Black connected without a hitch.Bonus! No one knows these little hexagons are wifi access points, there are no antennas so they disappear into the furnishings, counters, and behind the television.I am so glad I opted into Luma. And for the tinkerers out there. Fing (available on Play and the App Store) says that the Luma runs on OpenWRT!Cons: Are there any cons? There are always cons. If you want total control of your router the Luma is not that granular. Instead the Luma provides a lot of the right kind of controls in an easy to use interface. There are some software growing pains, I personally would like to be able to see MAC addresses and friendly device names. In some cases the names listed on my wifi devices are unrecognizable. Yesterday I disabled a "kindle" device only to find out later in the day that my Amazon echo wasn't working. It took me a moment to realize that the Luma listed the Echo as a kindle. I had quite a bit more of the same so I had to go through all of my unknown devices to ensure I was giving them friendly names so that I could assign them to family members, which would enable safe surfing, timeouts, and curfews.I am still testing wifi connectivity, it seems that if I get far enough from the last node I lose signal fairly quickly. This would indicate that these devices use less individual power and rely on the mesh to stay connected and connect my devices. More to come on this topic as I'm just now starting to investigate. Of note: Luma supports wired backhaul. Wired backhaul happens when the wireless access points are connected to your main router via a switch, via a wired ethernet cable. This allows the wifi access points to sit further away as long as the wired backhaul connects the network together. In essence you can place these in a far larger area and still have wifi throughout. Once I'm a homeowner, I will be looking to wire my home and implement this type of setup. (think garage connection or workshop connection in a detached shop).I'm still very happy with the purchase and I definitely recommend it.

Luma does not offer what it claims to offer with this product. I had preordered this product back in April. Product was finally delivered mid August and was installed on the 2nd day. 1 email to support, 1 call to support, and 1.5 weeks later, made the decision to return.I have a modem with 1 port, and then need Luma to run my home network. This setup is a challenge as Luma only offers 1 port on each device. I at least knew this prior to purchase, but thought the interface would allow me to setup workarounds. It does not as there are so limited features offered. It makes it more difficult to use Luma to manage all devices so you need to add another bridge or router, and after that, it's still incomplete.The good: Luma is EXTREAMLY simple to setup. Actually, I found myself almost wanting the setup to continue on as it was fun experience with the setup. Luma team put a lot of thought and effort making sure the install experience was a good one. I was highly impressed. Unfortunately, that's where it stopped for me.The Bad: Just as multiple other reviews have stated, Luma's initial feature offering is well short of all the videos they have posted on their website. I have read countless reviews where others are frustrated on this limited feature release. Note that each negative comment is quickly followed by replies from LUMA marketing and branding support teams asking people to call the support number and a new version is coming. I do believe them, but I don't want to wait any longer.Other annoyances i experienced:1) the lack of internal subnet customization. I don't run a 192.168.55.x subnet today and with the 30+ items on my network, i spent too much time having to customize to Luma, vs Luma customizing to me2) guest network is great to have, but Luma needs to let me name it. Pretty easy to do as this is a free text field.3) Luma does not offer multiple ssid networks, apart from a 'OriginalSsidName-guest' format which Luma owners cannot change4) Luma offers the ability to assign devices to people names you add in the app, which is a neat feature. Comes in handy if you have children and you want to stop their internet. Just stop all for someone. But for devices that are not tied to a person, if Luma does not read a hostname from the device, it lists it MAC address which is confusing and sloppy. Also, there is no option to change this, hostname or Mac, to a friendlier name like 'SonyBlueray-FamilyRoom'.5) Luma offers a parental rating policy to help control/protect the People in your app, and the devices you have associated to those people I mentioned in item 4. I'm my testing, I found this feature to be as reliable as the offering embedded into windows95 (many of you didn't even know that feature existed). This setting did not work well in my testing. I was able to get to sites that imo, should have been blocked at the lower settings. IMO, pointing my routers dns to use OPENDNS offered better protections and allowed me to customize the types of websites and exceptions. Luma does offer a screen to allow an exception, but there was no clear way to update that later so if you decide to open something, you better make sure you need it opened because today, there's no way to remove it once it's in there without calling support. You don't even get to see what's being specially blocked/allowed.6) wifi coverage was good, but not as good as I expected it to be. In my setup, I have a 3 stories, one got installed in the corner of the basement, one floor up on opposite side of the house 25 ft away, and 1 more floor up in the middle of the house. The coverage was only slightly better.7) I run a few network tools on my network today. PRTG runs on a server for monitoring and I use the old Cisco network manage pro on a workstation. It appears versions of nmap running on a Luma device seems to cause the luma devices to restart. They CLEARLY break connections with each other which casues a a quick toggle in network connectivity on some of my more sensitive clients. This is a big issue and per what I have read, Luma is are of the issue and working on a fix.8) in my emails and callin to support, I has asked to be added to the beta group to start to test the next features coming. I was being sent on to level 2 and would be contacted "if you are considered for the beta program." Why send a frustrated customer the drama, add me or don't and do it quickly. I was disappointed here after dealing with a lack in functionality. Gave it a over week for consideration but nothing.9) also speaking with support there is no clear timeline of when new features will be released. Even getting a list or access to these features being worked on for release is not available. It's unclear if all Luma features touted in the commercial videos will be released in the next version or if they will be released over time. Need something more guys, if you had not discussed the features in a video already, I could understand the scrutiny, but you've been talking about this since spring 2016 and earlier. When's it coming? "Soon" should not be an acceptable answer to your customers. It was not for me. I will speak loudly by returning, reviewing, and going elsewhere.In summary and imo, Luma is actually not a bad fit for its target market...a customer who is not network savy, wants something simple and easy to setup, does not have a lot of non-wireless devices or smart home devices, does not want to care about network management, and/or has small kids and wants to manage the policy feature, which mind you does not yet exist in the app to allow scheduling as they advertise in their videos, but if you are patient, it should be here in the next release sometime in the next year or so.Luma may NOT be a good device for those that have more networking experience and are comfortable setting their own security, those needing more powerful features like dhcp reservations, firewall port forwarding, logging and log forwarding, and want to use opendns, those having internal devices and need to access from the Internet to internal nvrs or cctv dvrs, or have multiple devices where you still need another router in bridge mode to allow more hardware ports. In this target market of people, luma is going to be a frustration than a solution.