techreview - Devolo dlan 500 wifi starter pack

Purchased through : http://www.routercenter.be/product/412362/devolo-dlan-500-wifi-starter-kit.html

Intro :

I personally have been a non-believer in powerline technology ever since it started popping up everywhere. I strongly believed (and still believe) in cabled ethernet for all possible applications, and wifi where ethernet is not possible (smartphones/tablets).

Recently I found myself in the need for a powerline adapter because I needed internet connection in a place where no ethernet could reach (my garage, don't ask ;-) )

So I started researching powerline, with my max budget of about 100€ in mind. I had read good things about devolo so I figured I'd give it a try. See my findings below.

Purchase :

I bought the Devolo powerlan 500 wifi starter pack for 79€ from Coolblue (a local webshop that does free next delivery). I originally wanted the newer (faster) version but that a bit out of my price point.

Setting up :

I usually disregard the manual for all things tech and just wing it. This time however, since I had no prior experience in the field, I opened it up and tried to follow the instructions. These seem very clear at first, but once you get a few steps further, they start to conflict. Basically it tells you to do a certain step to secure the network, but that step is exactly the same as the step to clone the current existing wifi (which was not an option for my application). All in all I messed around with it a bit and got it working. I downloaded the Devolo app on my Android smartphone, connected to the Devolo network and set up the rest of my settings.

A nice bonus is that you can set up a guest network, with either connection to the local LAN & Internet or just straight-through Internet.

All in all the setup was pretty straightforward with the small exception of those first steps. After the initial setup I disconnected the wifi adapter from the plug next to the dlan duo (which is the 'source' adapter), and plugged it into the power outlet in the garage. The garage is about 30m from the house, with a single power line running there.

Experiences :

After the setup described above I was ready to test the Devolo dlan 500 wifi. It works perfectly for my purpose. there is little to no added latency (Internet ping went from 14ms on ethernet to 17ms on the powerline adapters' wifi). 

Connection speed is another story. While it is good enough for me (I get about 50mbps up & down), it's nowhere near the advertised 500mbps. Even if they advertise with the half-duplex speed (which wifi marketing usually does) it's still only 1/5th of what was advertised.

Conclusion :

The Devolo dlan 500 wifi does work, keeping in mind that you can't expect any miracles. They are good for when you need 'a' connection on a difficult to reach spot but I would always firstly try wifi since that is in my experience the more predictable technology.

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