The concept of a mesh network isn't exclusive to the Google devices but a mesh can have advantages over multiple Wireless Access Points. If you have a decent sized one story home with the ability to set your router near to the center of your home, a mesh network won't have many benefits. If you have a two story home with a basement, and the Internet router location isn't centralized, then you will likely have dead spots or weak spots in your Wi-Fi coverage that can cause slow connections or other problems traceable to weak signals. With a mesh system, you can add other points to cover the weak areas with a minimum of fuss. My shop is a fair distance from my house and the router is located at the far end of the house so the signal needs to travel through several walls just to get to the end of our home. By placing a mesh point closer to the end of the house, I have a good signal there. To get to my shop, I can place a point at the close end of the shop and another at the far end of the shop and I have a fast connection no matter where I might be in either building. The points don't need to be hard wired to each other. Plug them into a wall socket for power and they all use the same network name and password. Trying to accomplish something similar with individual wireless access points would require hardwired ethernet connections and different names or password for each access point. A mesh network makes things a whole lot simpler when you need to cover a larger area.