Are Powerline adapters good?

[hendricksjana]

I am thinking of adding a computer upstairs in our house, but the router is downstairs.

I was looking at Wifi, but I found this Powerline network system which seems cheaper and more stable

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Actionte...&skuId=5215483

or

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Tp-Link+...line&cp=4&lp=5

These looks really good, no new wires, just plug one powerline adapter into a power plug near the router (correct?) and the other on plug in a socket near the computer.

Seems like a simple set up, and they say 500 Mbps which seems fast, good enough for gaming (right?)

Look like there is a lot of adapters to choose from, but some are HomePlug certified, and some are not (the above are).

What is this HomePlug certification, is it important?

Is HomePlug certified faster?

Anyone using Powerline, and how do they like it?

 

[Dstoop]

https://www.homeplug.org/home/

As for whether or not it works, I haven't used it personally but I was thinking about it to avoid running cable through the walls. Reviews are all over the place, the performance seems largely dependent on the quality of electrical wiring in your home as well as distance and anything that may cause interference. If you're just going a floor up or a floor down, it might be ok, but if you're expecting to plug one in on one end of the house and another on the complete opposite end you probably won't be too happy with the performance.

Honestly, if its just for one computer, and its just one floor, i'd stick with wifi. It definitely works and the speeds on N are actually pretty good as long as the signal is strong. Maybe in the future when ethernet over powerlines is a more mature technology it would be worth a shot, but personally i'd steer clear for now.

 

[Eug]

At close distance (eg. 1 floor up), I generally prefer WiFi.
At further distances, powerline networking may be more reliable, but then again it might not.

It really depends on your wiring, and how much interference is on your lines. In fact, different outlets in the same room might produce wildly different results. I presume it's not just because of the physical wires per se, but stuff like the breakers and other devices plugged into that circuit too. Oh and you can't use surge protectors.

Also, if you achieve 50 Mbps consistently on your "500 Mbps" powerline hardware, you're doing well.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

I tried using powerline adapters to hook up my ps3 that was only about 20' from my router to stream movies. I think at the time the adapters were rated at about 200Mbps and had little success. I couldn't even get more than about 13Mbps max on it and streaming HD content was horrible. Ended up running wire outside the house to it. These things are hit or miss IMO.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I tried them once in a relatively new house. (This was back in the late 1990s, the house was built in 1992.)

No dice. The computer would see each other every now and then. Transfers were painfully slow when they worked at all.

I can only hope the tech has gotten better, but I'll either use wifi or run a cable now. No desire to mess around.

 

[dmoney1980]

Been using my Netgear PL adapters for 2 years, no issues at all! My wife and I just purchased a house (was built in 1995), and we hooked up ATT Fiber. We have the router in the basement (not by choice) and my office is on the second floor. The PL adapter is working without issue so far (been about 2 weeks). When we were living in our apartment, once in a while it wouldn't connect and I had to unplug the adapter connected to my pc from the outlet for 3-5 seconds, but it worked right after that. YMMV though, it all depends on the house and the wiring. Also-make sure you plug the PL adapter directly into the outlet! Using them with a powerstrip will not work.

here is the kit I purchased: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833122328

 

[Eug]

The PL adapter is working without issue. Once in a while it won't connect and i have to unplug the adapter connected to my pc from the outlet for 3-5 seconds, but it works right after that.

So in other words, it does not run without issue, as you have a disconnect issue.

That was why I ended up running Cat5e. On one circuit to the room where I wanted it, it would not work well at all. It worked much better on another circuit (which was brand new wiring)... if I was home by myself. However, it sometimes seemed to work less well when my wife was at home, so I wonder if her turning on the microwave or other appliances or else home electronics was adding noise to the system. Or maybe that was just coincidence, but the bottom line is that I couldn't stream HD reliably on certain circuit paths 100% of the time.

It did work pretty reliably on the same circuit, but in that context it wasn't helpful, because that usually meant the source and destination outlets were in the same room. In that situation I'd just run a long patch cable to the second device instead to get full Gigabit speeds.

Where I used it most was to a deercam in the backyard, which was OK because the bitrates for the 480p video feed were pretty low. However, when I upgraded to an HD cam, I laid outdoor Cat6.

---

IOW, I think of powerline networking as a decent solution for web surfing and that sort of thing in certain setups, but if you need to stream high bitrate HD video, it's often less useful.

 

[dmoney1980]

EUG- I get what you're saying. The reconnect issue happened 2 or 3 times in 2 years. It's not a be all end all solution for sure, but Iv'e had good performance with them when it came to online gaming and streaming movies. But like I stated, YMMV depending on the home.

I picked up that kit as a refurb from NE 2 years ago for $30, so it wasn't a risky purchase for me

 

[BrightCandle]

All the reviews I have seen of the powerline networking kit says it runs about 10-20% of its rated speed in their environments, and many had problems getting a connection at all. Its rubbish, pay the price and lay some cabling or live with wifi n.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

All the reviews I have seen of the powerline networking kit says it runs about 10-20% of its rated speed in their environments, and many had problems getting a connection at all. Its rubbish, pay the price and lay some cabling or live with wifi n.

If you already have a multiport router, a couple hundred feet of patch cable and some staples is probably cheaper than the pl networking kit.

 

[oynaz]

I use Powerline from my garage to my house. Works fine, no issues, but I live in Denmark, where I believe the wiring standards are higher than in the US.

 

[ccbadd]

You might try a couple of MOCA adapters over coax if you have cable on both floors. I tried WiFi, them Poweline, then MOCA, and finally pulled cat-5e. The MOCA worked fine, I just wanted GigE through out the home. I did have problems with WiFi and Powerline stuff.

 

[zDraggon]

I installed the ZyXEL 500mbps powerline adapters (PLA) about a month ago and I couldn't be happier with them so far. They report a connection of 125mbps through the software that came with them - I have yet to test file transfer speeds. However, I have tested this scenario of simultaneous use with glowing results - 1) X-High HD playback on PS3 hardwired through switch to PLA, 2) X-High HD playback on 2nd PS3 (using an ethernet to Wireless N adapter) via Wireless N access point hardwired through switch to PLA, and 3) High resolution fullscreen YouTube video playback on wife's iPad 2 via the same Wireless N access point in "2" above. Excellent performance on all three screens.

The key to PLA's best performance that many people miss is that they really, really want to be on the same "leg" of power coming into the house. In brief, a home has 2 legs of power coming in from the power company. This is necessary in order to provide both 120V and 240V. If the PLA setup has to cross over these legs, that means the network signal has to leave your house and go through the power company's transformer in order to come back to your house on the other leg. This can and probably will have a very serious effect on PLA performance.

You can check this beforehand by looking in your breaker box for the breakers that control the two outlets you're interested in plugging PLA's in. Here's a link to an excellent schematic depicting a typical breaker box layout (suggest right-click and Save As maneuver if it works here):

www.homecontrols.com/homecontrols/pdf/Part1-BreakerConfig.pdf

Just be aware that some homes will use a "double" breaker in several of the slots (labeled 1-19 on left side and 2-20 on right side) instead of the single breaker shown. This can be confusing, but a double breaker is still connected to just one of the slots (1 through 20) shown.

There are likely other things that may affect PLA performance as well, but this is a big one that is often misunderstood.

 

[KidNiki1]

I use a powerline adapter in my home, and i have had no issues with it. been using it for about 2 years. my kids' pcs are on the adapter and they game on it, watch netflix and surf the web with no issues. the one i have is a netgear setup i got from best buy. i am unsure of the exact model, but it is similar to what dmoney linked. my home is about 8 years old.

 

[JackMDS]

Power line Network adapters are many times "iffy" solution. They are designed with an assumptions of certain standard in the electrical power system that many time are Not in existence in our Chaotic power installations.

They might work, or Not depending on the specific power line installation.

The way to go is by getting a pair from a vendor that have very liberal Return policies.

Try them (donot forget to switch on and off some high power demanding appliances too), if it works keep them otherwise, return them.

 

[Eug]

All the reviews I have seen of the powerline networking kit says it runs about 10-20% of its rated speed in their environments, and many had problems getting a connection at all. Its rubbish, pay the price and lay some cabling or live with wifi n.

The problem is that laying cable often means punching holes in walls, etc. As for WiFi, distance is your enemy, as are cement walls.

Powerline networking solves both problems because it's a wired connection, and distance per se is not as big of a problem. Its Achilles' heel though is having to deal with noise/interference on the wiring, since electrical wiring isn't designed for data transmission.

In my case using WiFi to the backyard video cam was essentially impossible, because of distance (I have a big yard) and obstructions, and I wasn't about to start experimenting with high gain directional antennae for $$, when simply plugging in powerline network adapters worked.

However, like you suggest, in the end I found some cheap outdoor Cat6 and ran it along the fence or buried it, and a surge protector on the line too. This was because I was going from an SD cam to an HD cam. I'm not sure how long this will last though. It's essentially Cat6 with a regular sheath, and then a second uber thick sheath outside of it that is UV rated. I considered getting flooded Cat5e but at the time it was horrendously expensive locally - several hundred bux for one pull-box. Nowadays it's a lot cheaper though from some sources.

 

[Eug]

So, I just got the chance to reuse my "200 Mbps" powerline adapters. I have an Ethernet jack on one side of the room, but need to install my webcam on the other side of the room. Instead of running a long Cat5e cable on the baseboard all around the room, I just plugged in my powerline adapters and it worked fine. (It's a VGA camera, and the bitrate doesn't go above 4 Mbps.)

I also tested the line with my tablet, and had no problem maxing out my 25 Mbps internet access in a speed test.

Actually, the webcam already has WiFi, but I tried running it for a while, and it would cut out every so often. On powerline, it's stable.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I took the plunge a few months ago because wireless is so congested around here (SF). I am quite happy. Throughput isn't amazing, I think I manage ~40mbps through the powerline networking, but it doesn't suffer from inconsistent latency or inconsistent throughput. For day to day tasks I don't notice any difference vs standard wired, where as with wireless in my congested neighborhood, I was very frustrated.

I was worried especially since my building isn't exactly new. Like JackMDS says, if your wiring isn't in spec powerline networking could completely suck or not work at all. It definitely is worth trying and is very usable as long as your wiring is decent.

 

[Eug]

I'm guessing it also probably has to do with breaker types, etc., and as mentioned, what other things are on those wires. eg. A microwave and a blow dryer, can't be good for throughput.

Even with wiring that is fairly recent, and similar distances, I can get drastically different throughput depending upon what circuits in the house are used.

 

[Alamat]

I have an E3000 running tomato with a USB external HDD serving as my media server. Tried Wireless N which still has some buffering which occurs too often. I have just tried using Zyxel adapters but I wanted to see how good they are for HD streaming( 1080p mkvs..and they are not, well at least at the set-up I have them on right now. I will be trying other outlets and see if they are any better. For internet however, they are more stable than wifi N and though the N adapters say I'm connected at 270 mbps and the powerlines are only at 100, the latter is more stable.

 

[Emulex]

powerline on clean lines do 90% udp packet loss. the newest models can do mimo using multiple adapters to extend distance. so that 500mb speed is 500/90 in tcp/ip land at best.

turn on a dyson or a noisy chinese a/c brick and drop to 0%