Solwise Homeplug?

joe2cool

Hi I'm thinking of connecting my Sony internet TV to my router via the use of a homeplug, rather than a sony dongle due to the bad reviews of connection & the homeplug being more reliable.
I've been looking at 'Solwise 3-port 85Mbps Homeplug Ethernet Adapter' for connecting the TV, Humax & blu ray to the internet. Would this be OK for connecting all three? I realise I'd need a single one connected to the router as well for a network.

Or do I need a separate plug for each one?

Thx

k9387

[STRIKE]
No need for a seperate plug, just plug in to a 10/100 switch (can be had to under £10) and then plug each of the devices in to the switch.
[/STRIKE]

Scrap that, just had a look and they do plugs with multiple ports - just get one of them.

joe2cool

OK so the 'Solwise 3-port 85Mbps Homeplug Ethernet Adapter' would be fine, thx

k9387

Yeah, should be fine.

I quite like their stuff, wouldn't use it if I could use put down some enternet cable though.

One place I used this was sharing a connection wirelessly down a 50m corridor - a wireless hub (even with uprated power) only reached the rooms halfway down the corridor (very thick solid walls) - using the solwise products and 3 wireless plugs spaced down the corridor, things worked great.

joe2cool

OK thank you................ 'SOLWISE' does get pretty good reviews

neilwoods

They should be fine for connection to the internet.

One question, would you be doing any streaming of large HD videos files from PC to TV via the homeplug. If you were then the 85mbs may struggle a bit

macman

You need one Homeplug at each end-one from device to socket, one from router to socket. I'd get the 200Mbps ones.

joe2cool

Thx will do.................

Gratis

I’ve no experience of the “85”mbps model but we use the “200”mbps version of the Solwise 3-port powerline adaptor for the same purpose you are considering and it works fine.

We have the Solwise triple plugged into a wall-mounted mains double-socket beneath our kitchen table and it services an Internet-capable 24” Sony TV, a Humax Freeview HD box and a PC tower (which is also sited underneath the kitchen table). The TV doubles as a 1080p monitor for the PC, via an HDMI lead.

Usefully, the Solwise triple-port unit is slim enough to permit the second mains socket of most double mains sockets to be accessed: some from other manufacturers are so wide that they cover the whole double-socket, thereby denying an electricity supply to anything else. :wall:

Solwise also sells a weird-looking but useful “200”mbps device it calls a PIggy 6. This is a hemispherical black lump, vaguely resembling Darth Vader’s helmet with a 13 amp power lead. It incorporates six 13 amp sockets of its own, arranged in a circle around its top, and it has a panel with 3 Ethernet ports mounted on its side. It would offer you a solution if you have only a single mains socket on the wall (because the ordinary Solwise triple-port unit has no mains pass-through).

To provide the other end of our Ethernet bridge we use a Solwise “200”mbps High Power single-port unit, connected by Cat5e cable to our principal (Gigabit) router in the lounge, close to our BT Master Socket.

It’s always better to use a Gigabit-capable hard-wired network wherever you can, though. Most of our property is Cat5e networked (with wireless routers tapped in at strategic locations for use by laptops and other wireless devices) but our kitchen is impractical to reach with Ethernet cable and stone walls deny it much signal from wireless sources. So, powerline was the best alternative there. For devices such as televisions, with only 100 mbps Ethernet ports, at a premises with just ADSLMax “8”mbps Internet available anyway, a “200” mbps Solwise triple is perfectly adequate for all but high-speed intra network transfer of very large files between devices.

An additional advantage is that once the powerline network has been set up, provided you have decent electrical wiring you can access it from anywhere else on the property that has a mains socket. We keep handy a simple “200”mbps Solwise Piggy with an Ethernet cable and a laptop charger attached to it: it can be plugged in anywhere, at a moment’s notice (if, for example, somebody wants to use the Internet on their laptop in the summerhouse at the far end of the garden!).

The Sony BR-100 wireless adaptor does work quite well with Sony televisions if you have good signal strength from a 5 MHz 802.11n domestic wireless network but they are a pain to set up and the supplied instructions offer no clues. For this reason they get bad reviews and can now be acquired quite cheaply on eBay because so many people can’t work out how to configure them. (You have to convert your network name and the password into one huge hexadecimal key and then enter that on to the television at the appropriate point in the appropriate setup menu.) Even then, streaming still works better with a Solwise “200”mbps powerline adaptor.

Anyway, I hope all this dispels your concerns and assists you with your own deliberations.

joe2cool

Very helpful appreciated................

Fifer

joe2cool wrote: »

Hi I'm thinking of connecting my Sony internet TV to my router via the use of a homeplug, rather than a sony dongle due to the bad reviews of connection & the homeplug being more reliable.
I've been looking at 'Solwise 3-port 85Mbps Homeplug Ethernet Adapter' for connecting the TV, Humax & blu ray to the internet. Would this be OK for connecting all three? I realise I'd need a single one connected to the router as well for a network.

Or do I need a separate plug for each one?

Thx

The Solwise kit is ok, but 85Mbps (you won't achieve that in reality) is a bit too slow for reliable HD streaming. You might also want to go for a homeplug device with more than one ethernet port, otherwise you'll need a switch or a hub to connect all three devices. You might want to look at something like this which is 200Mbps and provides 4 ports at each end.