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What are powerline adapters and how do they work?

What are powerline adapters and how do they work?

Powerline adapters are one of the most useful home-networking products on the market in my opinion. They are small devices that usually come in a pair of two (with two small Ethernet cables included) that allow you to transmit an internet signal from one room of your house, to another, via your household electrical wiring. This way, you won’t need to have messy Ethernet cables running all over your floors. So instead of running a cable from your modem, all the way upstairs to your PS5, powerline adapters provide you with a much simpler solution.

Basically, all you’ll need to do is connect one powerline adapter to your wall socket near your modem/router and run an Ethernet cable to it and then, place the 2nd powerline adapter to, for example, in the power plug near your smart TV, run an Ethernet cable between the two and voilà! You now have a direct high-speed Ethernet connection from your modem to your smart TV without the cables! This is always better than a Wi-Fi connection especially if you love your 4K movies/shows or just want the best possible connection while gaming or just simply want the best internet speed for your laptop/desktop.

Want to extend your Wi-Fi instead? No problem, Wi-Fi powerline adapters can do that. However, you’re probably asking, why not just opt for a range extender? It’s a good question to ask because you may be thinking that it does the same job without having to connect it to a power plug near your modem. While you’re right, they don’t exactly work the same. Range extenders will repeat whatever Wi-Fi signal you set it up for, however, if the signal you’re extending is weak, that means it’s going to be repeating the weak signal, essentially, expanding your Wi-Fi but still doesn’t give you the speeds you’re looking for. Whereas a Wi-Fi powerline adapter works similar to how a traditional powerline will work, but, provides you with a Wi-Fi access point as well. Why is this different? Instead of repeating the signal, you’re creating a brand new access point with the powerline adapters, directly from your modem/router, so it’s like having another router directly in the room you choose to install it.

They’re pretty straight forward devices and come in a number of different types, which are:

  1. Traditional powerline adapters
  2. Powerline adapters with Pass-through
  3. Wi-Fi powerline adapters
  4. Finally, Wi-Fi powerline adapters with Pass-through

There’s not much of a difference at all between a powerline and a pass-through version. The only difference is that the pass-through models have a power plug in the front of the device as well. The reason for this is that powerline adapters MUST be plugged into a wall socket, they will not be able to communicate to one another if you place them on a power board, so instead, you can plug a pass-through model into the wall and have a power board plugged into the powerline adapter, so that way it doesn’t take up a whole powerpoint to itself. This is a great feature for those people who have only 1 powerpoint rather than a double, or if they have both of them occupied and still need to use the powerline, you’re able to remove one and plug it into the powerline adapter instead.

Like I said, they’re pretty straightforward devices, so if you need a direct Ethernet connection or an access point in your room, then this is the solution for you!

 

How do I set up and use a powerline adapter?

 

  1. Below is a diagram of how a basic powerline will work.

 Powerline adapter diagram

  1. As you can see in the diagram. On the 1st floor, they have most of their wired and wireless devices on that floor, along with their modem, and on the 2nd floor they have their smart TV and Wireless router

  2. Powerlines run through the electrical circuit of your household, so they must be on the same circuit to work. The following will detail how to test out which circuits in your household to see if where you want to use them, is compatible with each other.

    1. To test out if your power is on the same circuit, you’ll need to have 2 devices plugged into the wall sockets you wish to extend the powerlines to. One where the modem is plugged in (you’ll need to put one power line adapter in that wall socket) and one in the room where you desire to extend to, plugged into the wall socket.

    3.2. Locate your electrical switchboard and flick off only 1 of the switches (if they are labeled, make sure it’s not the light switches or the main power switch)

    3.3. Once the electrical switch is off, check the two devices that you had plugged in earlier to see if both have powered off. If both have been powered off, that means that the powerline adapter will work on those wall sockets.

    3.4. If both are still on, that means it’s not the correct switch. Turn on the one you turned off first and then try a different switch. However, if you’ve tried and only 1 of the devices has turned off, that means they are on different circuits and a powerline adapter will not work for you in those locations.

  3. A lot of people will ask if they can use it through to a granny flat from the house. The short answer is no. Why? It’s because most granny flats are not on the same power circuit as the house, but if it is, go nuts!

  4. How many powerlines can I add on?
    For the TP-Link models that we stock. From PA411KIT all the way to the AV2000 models, you can connect up to 16 nodes in total. 8 on the D-Link models and 8 on the NETGEAR models.

  5. Can you use different brands with other powerlines?
    They won’t be able to communicate with each other, they must be the same brand.

  6. What if I don’t have a spare wall socket? Can I use it on a power board?
    No, you won’t be able to use it on a power board. However, they do make Pass-through powerline adapters. With the pass-through powerline, it works as a standard power line adapter, except it also has a ‘Wall socket plug’ in the front of it. So that means, you can unplug your power board, plug in the powerline into the wall socket, and then plug the power board into the powerline adapter as if you had a 3rd power socket this whole time.

  7. What can I use with powerlines?
    Well, it depends, if your desktop or laptop or other non-wifi machine has an Ethernet port but you are far away from your modem router. You can use the powerline to plug in a physical connection to those devices without having to move them close to the modem or use really long Ethernet cables across the house.

    Besides non-wifi devices. Some devices have both wired and wireless connections. However, wireless connections aren’t always reliable or the signal is too weak (Eg: For gaming consoles or streaming boxes / TVs). So you can use a powerline adapter to give it a wired connection which is faster and more stable than wireless in most cases.

    However, sometimes the devices they are trying to extend to don’t have a wired function. Luckily you can get wi-fi powerlines, (Eg: WPA4220/KIT or PLW1000). These work better than range extenders. Instead of repeating the signal as a range extender does (it could be repeating an already weak signal). This is giving you a direct access point where you like through the powerline.

Check out our powerline adapter range by clicking here

If you need more help with these, don’t hesitate to contact our staff on (02) 9687 8828 or shoot them an email at [email protected]

 



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