The Wi-Fi industry wants to bring you better, cheaper gear–maybe

While mesh Wi-Fi systems can saturate every corner of your home in speedy wireless coverage, they’re also expensive and mostly proprietary. Prices for these systems start at around $250–more than three times what the average consumer spends on a wireless routerp–and if you want to switch to another router maker’s software and services, you have to replace the entire system. Recently, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced a wireless standard called EasyMesh that’s supposed to solve these problems. By allowing component vendors to create hardware around one mesh standard, the Alliance hopes the resulting economies of scale will help bring prices down. The standard could also allow consumers to mix and match router pods from different vendors, so they’re no longer locked into to one high-priced system. 

Not everyone is so optimistic. Several router makers say that they’re not rushing on interoperability, and an executive at Qualcomm expressed skepticism that the current standard will bring prices down or allow competing systems to work together. These skeptics include Wi-Fi Alliance member companies which were involved in defining the new standard. Still, EasyMesh will have some practical benefits, especially for internet service providers who want to offer mesh Wi-Fi to customers without getting locked into a single vendor. But if you’re looking to buy a mesh system on your own, don’t expect big changes in the market anytime soon.