NETGEAR - Powerline AC1200 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (2-pack) - White

I recently moved from a house that was wired for CAT5 to one that is not. Although I have a wireless N router, I wanted a wired option for more reliable VPN, video streaming, and file sharing/backups to a home NAS. I purchased two 2-packs of the PL1200 (4 devices) using a mover's coupon. I will mention that NetGear Genie allows you to see the PowerLine devices on the network map, however, it does not provide you with configuration options at the moment. I understand this will be included in a future release. In the meantime, I am utilizing TP-Link's PowerLine Utility to view the transfer rates and modify the configuration of the devices (name/password). This is not necessary, however, as all four devices recognized each other immediately after plugging into the wall socket. The devices will go into a power save mode when they are not being used. The TP-Link utility reports a rate of ~250 Mbps between devices on the same circuit. Across circuits, I see a rate of ~150 Mbps. This has been consistent for about 3 weeks. The wiring and breaker box are circa 1990's and have the three prong grounded outlets that these devices require. I am using either CAT-5e or CAT-6 networking cables and gigabit switches for other wiring. The primary PowerLine device is connected to a Verizon FiOS Gateway router, the other devices are connected to switches servicing 3 computers, Xbox, NAS. While this isn't the 1200 Mbps advertised, it is sufficient to fully utilize my 75/75 Mbps FiOS connection. Speed tests run from each PowerLine device were ~90/90 Mbps. They provide a stable connection for VPN and streaming content to the Xbox. In testing, I was able to run two VPNs simultaneously and stream Netflix without any hiccups. It would be nice for a faster transfer rate to the home NAS for backups, however, I am still able to use the NAS for streaming music and videos. Some gripes I have are: 1) to utilize an outlet, you must plug the device into the bottom outlet which is a problem for outlets that are wired to a switch, it would be nice if the PowerLine could be turned to use top or bottom outlet 2) larger plugs, such as a AC power adapter, will not fit in the top plug when the PowerLine is plugged in, you may want to consider the passthrough version if this is a problem, 3) these are somewhat pricey for the performance compared to competitors online. Overall, I'm satisfied with the purchase. These give me similar performance to the CAT5 wiring in my old house and were simple to install. You may want to shop around for models with better performance ratings or better software support.

This may be acceptable for others in their homes (maybe newer homes fare better) but I didn't end up having the best experience when purchasing these last week and returned them shortly afterward. I purchased these since I had purchased the Linksys Velop 3-pack from Best Buy a few weeks before, but in the second node in my home office (maybe about 40 feet away from the Velop primary node) I was noticing that internet speeds were considerably reduced (by about half of the available internet speed, so instead of 300 Mbps I was only able to get about 120-130 Mbps out of the second Velop node in the home office). I figured with these powerline adapters rated for 1200 Mbps that if I could get even half of that it would allow me to get the maximum internet speed (and possibly also lower the latency from the Velop unit, which seemed to go up/down from a few milliseconds to the 50-200 ms range without reason). Initial issue I ran into (since I had recently purchased battery backup / UPS systems for my home) was that I learned powerline adapters have to be directly connected to the wall (they don't seem to work properly if connected via a surge protector or UPS) which was a negative for me since that would mean the internet in my home office wouldn't work properly if the house power went out since the adapter needed to be directly connected to the wall. So right off the bat this was a likely deal breaker, but I still wanted to give it a shot to see what the speeds looked like. In my home, I was only able to get about 70-80 Mbps between the main part of the house and the home office using these powerline adapters, and the latency was even poorer than what I was noticing over the wireless connection (at least from what I can remember, I might be wrong on the latency part). So at this point I determined I wouldn't be able to use it for my home office, but I thought I'd give it a shot at my folk's house too in case the electrical wiring there was better (their house was built about 20 years ago, the house I'm in is considerably older, though it had some electrical improvements about 4 years ago). From my old bedroom to my parent's bedroom I was able to get about the same speeds I saw there in my home office (and the room's are only about 15-20 ft apart). So I tried one last test from directly in my old bedroom...a powerline adapter on one wall, with another on the wall directly across from it and I was only about to get about 130-150 Mbps in this case, which was still not as good as it should have been so at this point I packed them back up and returned them to Best Buy. It's a great concept, and I know it works well for certain homes and individuals but in my particular case it was not a good solution and the wireless Velop units ended up performing better without it.

I purchased a set of these last fall (about 4 months ago) because Comcast said they needed $5k to bring internet from the road to our house. I already had power about halfway to the road, so I purchased another 250 foot roll of 12-2 with ground wire and ran it nearly the rest of the way. I bought these in the store hoping they would send the signal the full 550 feet from the road to the house. They do the job wonderfully. I tested the speed on these (using lantest) and could never get the full 1200 Mbps that they advertise. I tried this in the house with them in outlets in two adjacent rooms. Basically the top speed was about 200 Mbps. That was more than fast enough for me, so I decided to keep them and run it to the road. I then put one in the house and the other 550 ft away at the road. Top speed now is about 90 Mbps, but that is still faster than our internet at 75 Mbps, so I'm happy. It's a big jump up from the 3 Mbps we had with DSL. In case you are wondering, the circuit breaker in our breaker box serves only this wire going to the road. We have a total of three outlets on the way to the road. The first is about 250 ft out, then another 50 ft after that, and the last another 250 ft after that. So this is not one continuous wire, but does have several junctions in it. These adapters seem to handle that with no problem. When I installed these I also installed an ethernet surge suppressor on one end because I still had another 100 ft of ethernet before reaching my cable modem. I did use a name brand - APC suppressor. For the record I had purchased some ZyXEL 200 Mbps adapters prior to this and found that I could only get 20 Mbps out of those under ideal (adjacent room) conditions. I've reached the conclusion that manufacturers rate these about 10 x what a normal consumer can expect. If you are expecting to get 1200 Mbps out of these, then don't buy them. You won't achieve that except MAYBE under ideal conditions. If you need 100 or 200 Mpbs, then these should work well. Note - I have considered installing a noise isolating transformer between the first outlet and the circuit breaker, but they work well enough that I haven't needed to do that.

I bought these to connect an office with several wired devices to a router on opposite ends of the house. Because I wasn't keen on running wires at the time, this seemed to be a more reliable and cost-effective solution than buying, say, a WiFi bridge. Setup is pretty simple; just plug each of the adapters into a free wall socket and run an Ethernet cable between the adapters and the devices. There is a pairing process but I didn't have to do that. The devices run reliably on my house wiring, but I've been disappointed with the performance. These are advertised as "gigabit" but I've seen nothing close to that when benchmarking them. Running an iperf benchmark between two machines on either end of the adapters yields transfer speeds between 67-75Mbps; a hardwired connection between those same two machines is well over 900Mbps. In all, these adapters are easy solution to connect devices in the absence of wires, but those looking to transfer big files between local workstations, or those with Internet connections in excess of 50Mbps are going to be bottlenecked.

After purchasing a Samsung Smart TV on Black Friday, Everything worked fine, until I turn off the TV. When attempting to access my Amazon streaming service, my network settings had all disappeared, and I had to re-enter. After re-entering the settings, it would always work fine, however, I had to re-enter these settings every time I turned on the TV. The TV would not retain the WI-FI Network settings. Google searches showed that many users had this same problem, and after spending about 5 hours on the phone and chat lines with Samsung support, they were of no help whatsoever. Not going into additional detail, although my old Samsung(not a SMART TV) worked fine for years with my Amazon Fire stick, using my WI-FI. Samsung suggested connecting my TV directly to my router as a wired connection, but I wasn't going to run Ethernet cables from my 2nd floor loft to my 1st floor Family room. After discovering the Netgear Ethernet Power Adaptor, I decided to give them a try. The package includes 2 adaptors with Ethernet ports. Each device is plugged into a power outlet. One is connected to a port on the router, and the 2nd one is plugged into the Ethernet port in the Netgear device that you plug into an outlet near your TV. Two 6ft Ethernet cables are included. There is no router configuration required. The entire setup described above took less than 5 minutes. Afterward, I just changed my network settings from Wi-Fi, to hard wired in the TV network settings, and after 2 months, I have never encountered the loss of my settings again. Extremely happy with this purchase.

I found this product via an online search on how to extend my home wifi into my new metal storage building. Granted, it's not that far from my router to the new building (~50' direct route) but I didn't want to run a CAT5 cable between the two so I was happy to find the Powerline 1200 existed and even happier when I plugged it into my laptop and it worked! I then took the Apple Airport Express that I was using in my living room as a wifi extender and plugged it into the Powerline in the metal building and voila! Now I can use my phone and tablet in there, too. Caveat: The metal building and my house share an electrical box so I have no idea if this would've worked if they were separate as some reviews have mentioned. This system is made up of two (2) Ethernet adapters and two (2) 6.5' Ethernet/CAT5 cables and is very easy to install. I plugged one adapter into the wall outlet next to my router, plugged the cable into the adapter and router. In the metal building I plugged the second adapter into the wall outlet, plugged the cable into the adapter and my laptop and my home network was found immediately. I was up and running in just a few minutes. Since I don't need internet all the time in the metal building I moved the second adapter back into the house. I have not-so-great rural internet (just fast enough to allow Apple TV and Amazon Prime streaming) so I tried the adapter on the tv and saw the difference via less frequent loss of picture quality (precursor to freezing and buffering) and buffering timeouts. Enough of a difference that I purchased a second set of two (2) adapters for the tv and laptop.

I think these units would work really well IF your working on the same electrical circuit. So, the premise to these devices is, plug one device into the wall AND your router and then somewhere else in your home plug in the wall and plug in another device to extend ethernet connectivity to. In my house I got 2-3 MB/s which is terrible compared to the 25-60 I get on my wireless network. My application was to extend my network to a dead zone where our son plays his xBox and the wifi is terrible. But because this particular area is on a different electrical circuit from where the Router is located the connection was VERY POOR. However, if I had the time to move the electrical outlet to the same electrical circuit as the router I think it would have worked fine. But if I were going to do that I'd just run a dedicated ethernet connection. Instead I returned these and purchased the NETGEAR - AC1200 Dual-Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Range Extender. I highly recommend the Dual-Band Gigabit WiFi Range extender! It has worked flawlessly and my son's speeds are as high as they would be anywhere else in the house.

This is one of those magical little tech solutions that you read about and think, "Okay... this can't be possible." But it totally is! It converts your power grid into an ethernet grid. I don't know how it works, but it freaking works. I've been using it for a while now, and I've seen no negative side effects. If you have a part of your house that's hard to reach (for me it was an xbox in my basement) this is a nifty little way to create a plug-in quality of connection without drilling holes for wires. In my case (just to give you an idea): At the modem, I have plug-in speeds in excess of 75 mbps. Via the wireless router component of said modem, in my basement, I had a speed of 9 mbps. Simply awful, and useless for online gaming. I plugged one of these behind my modem, one in my basement, ran an ethernet cord to my modem, an ethernet cord to my xbox, and instantly I had a connection of 35 mbps. So obviously, some speed was lost through the power grid, but compared to what I was working with, this was a game-changer. Literally. I have had to reset the configuration once since purchase, but doing so took me 10 minutes, and I think the cause of the failure was in the ethernet cords, not this product. No issues since.