Homeplugs - any good?

[bugaloo41]

Just wondering whether anyone has tried these and, if so, are they up to the job. Really just looking for connecting to dreamboxes/net so i aint looking for streaming hd content. Seem to get good reviews but interested to know if anyone here has used them?

thanks in advance.

[chroma]

I tried em a few years ago and wasnt impressed, that being said it was early days (pre 1.0 standardisation) and they should have worked around the noise issues.

The problems i had however where not all related to noisy lines interrupting transfers, i had initialy wanted to run upstairs to downstairs and never really thought about the problem with that.

Downstairs is on a seperate ring main from upstairs so theres no way to communicate between them without rigging up some wiring (which kinda defeated the purpose)

The house was a conversion from a couple of stables into cottages too, so internal walls used to be externals (ie: 2' thick stone) i wound up just going wireless and getting a few wifi bridges which did the job.

So yeah my experiencce wasnt great, but like i said it was really early on before anything was standardised and improvements must have been made.

[gingergool]

It depends on what your wiring is like. New houses will be better than old houses.
We have used them at work between floors and they work great. We only have the 85Mbps ones and they work a treat.
No packet loss at all. Even Dot1Q VLANs work so they dont do anything special really.
Give them a try, remember you can always take them back. ;-)

[andiewill]

I think there great and in most modern houses the wireing should be up to date and no problem should not happen at all, i chose this option as i was having problems connecting with a access point etc...... very little configuaration to set up virtuly plug n play.

[grex]

I've got a couple of Devolo AV 200Mbps homeplugs, one which is connected to an HD media player.
I can easily stream 720p files to it, but it struggles with 1080p content. I'm not sure if that was due to the way the data was being streamed or a limitation in the link speed, I'm still investigating.
The throughput tool that came with them has the link running at about 130Mbps but I'm not sure if that's 100% accurate!
As for stability I've had one of the plugs drop off the network a couple of times and need a power cycle to get it back, but on the whole they're really stable, 2 dropoffs in 1.5 years isn't bad!
I second the easy setup, mine were almost plug and play.

Give them a go, as mentioned you can always take them back

[caveman_nige]

what happens with regards to extention leads and these things.. can they be used on extention leads both normal old style ones and the newer ones with surge protection?

[grex]

what happens with regards to extention leads and these things.. can they be used on extention leads both normal old style ones and the newer ones with surge protection?

I've tried one of my Devolos in a normal extension cable and it connects fine and passes data.
With it in a surge protected extension was another matter! It powered up (all the lights came on) and then it looked like it sensed the surge protector and immediately powered off, no lights or traffic!!
I put it back into the standard extension cable and it linked up straight away.

All the docs say they should be plugged into the wall, I can only think that it's for the same reason as not having long spurs off old coaxial Ethernet networks, the possibility of packet collisions rises. If that is the reason it's probably not a issue unless you have lots of them on the mains!

[Lyrrad]

I have 3 x Zyxel 200MBps. One for xbox, one for dreambox and the master running from internet supply.

No problems at all using tveristy on xbox, but in general I'm not streaming 1080p. Security wise they are second to none. With regard to extensions it's hit and miss. Best not to use them IMHO. I believe I have read somewhere they are a no no with surge protection.

[bugaloo41]

Well seen on hukd that bt comtrend were going half price and purchased a couple - very impressed.

One thing that has me confused is that my downstairs (i thought) was on a different ring from upstairs but i tried it just to see and it works perfectly. on the lookout for another 2 now.

[wooper]

Hi all, whats the minimum one I should use on Xbox live?

I see you can get 14, 85 and 200 Mbps.

Not too technically minded. Dont want any HD streaming, just no lag game play.

Thanks

[ManofScience]

85 should be fine, 200 if you want HD content streamed.

the speeds quoted (200Mbs for example) aren't what they usually run at, it's the max.

[dbishop]

what happens with regards to extention leads and these things.. can they be used on extention leads both normal old style ones and the newer ones with surge protection?

Just encountered that one this morning, so thought I would add my findings,

If the home plug is connected into a surge protector at either end, this dramatically cripples (no other word for it) your performance (using Advent 200mbps - powerline plugs) the link is circa 30Mbps, however when both are plugged into wall sockets this rises to circa 120Mbps.

Internet browsing is nigh on in possible when connected via the surge protectors.

You may scoff at this but to demonstrate the attenuation or interference that the surge protectors introduce, I have a 10Mb cable connection. when I have the 30Mbps link I only achieve 0.4Mbps on a broadband speed test, however when I plug into a wall socket, I achieve 9.6Mbps.

The solution?

Don't use a surge protector to plug the powerline adapter, however if you use a standard 4 way, 6 way etc your link speed reduces slightly, but the speedtest I did remained stable at the same as when no surge protectors used.

Result !


Hope this answers your query, if you need anymore then please give me a shout. As people have said depends on your wiring, but bear in mind even the 200Mbps devices only have 100Mbps ethernet connection, so guess the the 200Mbps only really comes into play if you are using more than 2.