Wifi over the plug sockets?

[Cookson]

Working from home, I've noticed that the wifi capability of my PC is f**king junk, probably because it's a £10 USB adaptor. I'm getting 2mbs on speedtest (although I get over 100mbs on my phone). My office is in the back bedroom, probably the furthest away I could get from the router, so hard wiring is not an option as I don't want Cat5 cables trailing through the house.

Can anyone recommend anything else? I seem to remember something like this being banded about a few years back

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[Krarl]

My brother has that one for his house in Sheffield as he's in the loft and it works fine for his PC

I've got one of these to boost my Wifi upstairs

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[Cookson]

Just wondering wether boosting it is worth it if the wifi dongle is w**k

 

[Krarl]

The one I have is just for range, does help though because before we couldn't get wifi in the bathroom

Virgin routers are notoriously dogger

 

[ClioPowa]

Was in the same boat, then I bought a MW5 Tenda Mesh system and the WiFi is not spot on, no more WiFi black spots in the house. Outside the house signal is strong too, perfect for when I install the Ring floodlight.

 

[Cookson]

Can't be the router though if I am getting decent wifi on the phone? I've just moved the dongle to a USB3 port and no difference, so it's obvioulsy that. FFS.

I don't want to have to order 50m of cable and lob it over the house like Indiana Jones

 

[leeds2592]

We use the Powerline things for our ip camera that's on the garage that's detached round the back of the house.

A good 10-15m between the router and camera and we have no problems with connecting to it etc. now we're using the Powerlines. Did try a WiFi signal booster thing before and it was shite.

 

[AndyPembs182]

I run a power line network and it works brilliantly - highly recommended!

 

[Ben]

Yeah I run my CCTV, home office upstairs and Sky Q boxes from power line adapters and they’re spot on.

 

[R3k1355]

Have run powerline for years, works fine.

Although I have to ask quite how old and s**t your laptop must be to require a wifi dongle?

 

[DrR]

Have run powerline for years, works fine.

Although I have to ask quite how old and s**t your laptop must be to require a wifi dongle?

He said it’s a PC.

 

[Clio_fool]

I've got the power line plugs for my sons ps4 which is as far away from the router as possible in our house and the speeds tripped from being on WiFi. I've since added another one upstairs and they both work flawlessly.

 

[Jonnio]

Another that's been using a powerline kit (TP-Link) for years. Getting 70+mb/s with the pc plugged directly into the router and the same speeds with the laptop sat out in the garage on the powerline adapter.

Only issue I've had is they occasionally lose connection so need to reset them (usually just turn the plug off and on).

They do kits that you can plug into and that extend the wifi as well which could be worth looking at - https://business.currys.co.uk/buy-r...XKCEyUkKV4r2hvdmRQQaAnWtEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

Powerline adapters aren't without their faults and can be a pig to debug in my experience.

I've just installed a Google Wifi setup in my flat - I've gone from Wifi being intermittent in the kitchen and the Chromecast audio rarely working, to being able to get Wifi 2 floors down in the garden and in my car from the carpark.

You can also plug a switch (or single computer/device) into the ethernet port of the units so doesn't need everything to be Wifi.

Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06XWL99TQ/?tag=cliospnet01-21

 

[Ay Ay Ron]

I run my sky box and my ps4 through the power line adapters but using the Ethernet cables instead of WiFi. Runs absolutely spot on.
I’d run the TV in the bedroom the same if my shitty sky router had more than 2 ports on it.

 

[Donny_Dog]

HomePlugs can be hit & miss, but it's better to have to restart them than struggle for long periods with poor wifi connectivity.
I use the ones with 'pass-through' so you don't loose a plug socket, but they seem to be more temperamental than the more traditional ones. They lose layer 2 connectivity and never regain it, until it is physically unplugged or switched off/on at the switch.

 

[charltjr]

Another + for powerline here, plug and play, job jobbed.

 

[Cub.]

Another one here. I had a booster to my office which was outside my house on the back of the garage. Was fine pre-extension.

Post extension, signal was garbage and I just couldn’t work in the office on a booster set up.

Bought a TP link powerline set up very similar to the one you linked. Wallop. Reliable broadband immediately with no problems.

I’m also with Virgin.

 

[boultonn]

You'll probably notice that if you add too many adapters in different rooms it'll drop off quite quickly, but if you only need a wifi powerline adapter in one room I would say crack on.
You get what you pay for...

 

[shiftspark]

I have both power line and a mesh WiFi system and the mesh system is miles better than the power line connections.
Sons Xbox was very laggy/intermittent and bang on now he uses the mesh network. All probably trial and error but I’d say go mesh 👍🏻

 

[Adam111]

Working from home, I've noticed that the wifi capability of my PC is f**king junk, probably because it's a £10 USB adaptor. I'm getting 2mbs on speedtest (although I get over 100mbs on my phone). My office is in the back bedroom, probably the furthest away I could get from the router, so hard wiring is not an option as I don't want Cat5 cables trailing through the house.

Can anyone recommend anything else? I seem to remember something like this being banded about a few years back

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Buy TP-LINK AV600 Nano Powerline Starter Kit at Argos. Thousands of products for same day delivery £3.95, or fast store collection.

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Same ones that I use and never had a problem with them. Worth a try for £25.

 

[VXR killer]

I run my sky box and my ps4 through the power line adapters but using the Ethernet cables instead of WiFi. Runs absolutely spot on.
I’d run the TV in the bedroom the same if my shitty sky router had more than 2 ports on it.

should only need the one unit by the router and just get the extra unit for your bedroom.

 

[Ay Ay Ron]

should only need the one unit by the router and just get the extra unit for your bedroom.

I've got two units. I run one to the sky box and one to the PS4. My units only have one ethernet port on each. I don't run them wireless. I've seen some with two or three ports but I already had these in the house.

 

[VXR killer]

I ment you only need the one unit plugged into the router, and get another unit for the tv or get a double for the existing set up and use the singles else where.

 

[MarkCup]

I've been running this for the last 3 months as my work desktop has no wireless connection.

Performance over that time has been flawless

 

[R3k1355]

I've got two units. I run one to the sky box and one to the PS4. My units only have one ethernet port on each. I don't run them wireless. I've seen some with two or three ports but I already had these in the house.

You can run them into a hub or switch if you wanna run more things through the one socket.

 

[Greeny.]

Anything is better than WiFi tbh, Powerline adapters will do the job if you cant run Ethernet but aren’t always perfect and the rated speeds are always bullshit but are usually more than adequate for most home networks/broadband connections unless you’re a prick like me and have FTTH.

 

[Cookson]

Powerline adapters plugged in. 45mbs at the PC. Boom.

Now, lets see how it runs at peak times tomorrow.

 

[Jonnio]

I use the ones with 'pass-through' so you don't loose a plug socket, but they seem to be more temperamental than the more traditional ones. They lose layer 2 connectivity and never regain it, until it is physically unplugged or switched off/on at the switch.

Guess that's what happens with my pass through ones.

 

[Darren S]

As with all powerline adapters - make sure you don't have them plugged into trailing sockets as many have surge filters that can affect the transfer of data.

If you can - I'm a massive advocate of running cables. It can be a pain - but sometimes it can be very straight-forward. I'd certainly check behind the carpet edges and the like to see if it can easily be tucked away. I put it off for a couple of years in our apartment as I simply CBA and thought it would be too much hassle. One weekend, I decided to take a look and noticed a small channel under the edge of the carpets in every room.

Got some CAT5 and brought in my termination kit from work - and had a direct connection from the router into my PC in a few hours. Not bad to say I'm on a 150MBPS package...

I guess the effort is offset with what you're doing as well. If it's merely browsing, social media and emails - the up & down nature of powerlines (especially wireless) won't have much effect. I wouldn't really be that keen on playing large multiplayer games with yo-yo performance in broadband though.

 

[Cookson]

It would be way too much of a faff to hard wire in bud. It's the back bedroom where the office is, and the router is at the front in the living room. If I was, I'd have to go with cable over the house.

These powerlines seem to be working OK at the moment

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

Anything is better than WiFi tbh, Powerline adapters will do the job if you cant run Ethernet but aren’t always perfect and the rated speeds are always bullshit but are usually more than adequate for most home networks/broadband connections unless you’re a prick like me and have FTTH.

I'm getting 2-3ms ping to my router from this PC (which is connected to a switch, which is connected to a Google Wifi mesh unit (by wire). And the other Google wifi mesh unit is connected to my router.

I refuse to believe you'd notice 3ms (assuming ethernet to the router would be <1ms)

 

[R3k1355]

Nah couple of ms is nothing.

 

[Darren S]

I'm getting 2-3ms ping to my router from this PC (which is connected to a switch, which is connected to a Google Wifi mesh unit (by wire). And the other Google wifi mesh unit is connected to my router.

I refuse to believe you'd notice 3ms (assuming ethernet to the router would be <1ms)

All about the ping life...

 

[jam.]

 

[Greeny.]

I'm getting 2-3ms ping to my router from this PC (which is connected to a switch, which is connected to a Google Wifi mesh unit (by wire). And the other Google wifi mesh unit is connected to my router.

I refuse to believe you'd notice 3ms (assuming ethernet to the router would be <1ms)

Internet thoughput not latency. They certainly have their place, but I can’t get the my full download/upload speeds using them, which is irrelevant for the devices that are using them anyway.

 

[Scaramac]

Since people seem to kno what they’re talking about in this thread, I thought I’d ask a question on WiFi extenders. I added one to my home internet and felt there was a slow down in performance. The reason I added it was that I have blink cameras outside the house at three points.

I needed to change the name of the extender to allow these cameras all to be picked up through the camera module and it wouldn’t allow that with the WiFi being on different names.

Mia it normal for thisto slow down so extremely? BT WiFi, hub and extender.

 

[R3k1355]

Shouldn't slow down, but the wifi extender needs to have a decent link to the hub obviously.

 

[Darren S]

Shouldn't slow down, but the wifi extender needs to have a decent link to the hub obviously.

This is the thing. Although it could vary how you get from A to B - you're adding a lot of extra steps into the 'chain' of communication with wireless. Encryption, decryption, interference through building materials, proximity to appliances such as microwaves, distances between the wireless devices, volume of data being sent, etc.

The list just goes on. I tried it with a bobby-basic IP camera being plugged direct into the router and then tried it again over a wired powerline adapter - and even that had a very noticeable drop in smoothness and performance. I wouldn't even attempt that with wireless thrown into the mix.

 

[Scaramac]

This is the thing. Although it could vary how you get from A to B - you're adding a lot of extra steps into the 'chain' of communication with wireless. Encryption, decryption, interference through building materials, proximity to appliances such as microwaves, distances between the wireless devices, volume of data being sent, etc.

The list just goes on. I tried it with a bobby-basic IP camera being plugged direct into the router and then tried it again over a wired powerline adapter - and even that had a very noticeable drop in smoothness and performance. I wouldn't even attempt that with wireless thrown into the mix.

This is my problem. I want the WiFi to be as good as it can be yet when I searched regarding the issue on google, people said that this can/does happen. Not what you want just to operate one additional camera in the system. It does work without it but seems to be intermittent.

I did move my hub towards the central staircase in my house and this does seem to have made a difference.

Thanks for replying both of you.