powerline or wi fi

Heedtheadvice

Have edited my earlier post. Got that wrong! Apologies all.

Thanks to Andy and others have tried to access admin via WiFi and it works. No idea why it has failed for me before.....

But as posted above there are downsides....and then you may well need a cable. I currently have two routers one slaved to the other (for the non technical) and can only access it by cable. The primary router is ok on wireless.

Suplex_Backbreaker

Powerline is a great solution but does depend on the wiring of your house.

If you have a really old wiring setup, you may have problems. Also, if your house is large and you have different parts on different circuits, there will almost certainly be problems talking between devices on the separate mains rings. Plus, if you have some really electrically 'noisy' devices on the same circuit as your powerline plugs (heaters, washing machine, microwaves), you'll see speed decreases when the noisy devices are in use.

However, I'd say for most regular houses they'll be fine. Best adapters to get are the 'pass through' ones as it's not a good idea to plug them into a multi-gang socket due to potential interference from other devices on the socket (plus many multi-gangs are filtered which will kill performance) and you don't want to tie up a wall plug just for a network connection.

WobblyDog

Powerline is good when it works, but sometimes it just stops working, presumably because some other appliance is injecting interference into the mains.

Also, the plug-in powerline units I have consume 2 or 3 watts each continuously, which starts to add up when you have several in the house. Maybe the latest ones are more efficient.

mgfvvc

My experience of both powerline and wifi has been mixed. The wiring to my living room is noisy enough that AV200 sockets struggled to deliver an acceptable speed. Since I upgraded to AV500 sockets speed and reliability has been adequate. Both my original TP-Link adapters and the Zyxel adapters I currently use have a fairly high failure rate.

Regular Wifi connections have problems with not reaching the whole house, interference from neighbours, etc.

I am considering "mesh network" wifi solutions, such as the BT Whole Home system. They review well, but I have no practical experience of them.