Do powerline wifi adaptors actually work?

Ibrahim5

All my fixed devices are on powerline adapters and my wifi devices are on the mesh. Both work perfectly well. I would never dream of drilling holes all over the place and dangling wires around. There is just no need.

steviebabes

One thing I have leaned is powerline adapters don't work over armoured cable. They worked perfectly to my garage (underground cable in ducting) but refused to work another 10 meters away in my workshop fed by armoured cable. I have since repurposed an old BT Hub 5 as an access point, fed over LAN cable, in the loft, this works for a good 50 meters around my house and inside the workshop.

[Deleted User]

steviebabes said:

One thing I have leaned is powerline adapters don't work over armoured cable. They worked perfectly to my garage (underground cable in ducting) but refused to work another 10 meters away in my workshop fed by armoured cable. I have since repurposed an old BT Hub 5 as an access point, fed over LAN cable, in the loft, this works for a good 50 meters around my house and inside the workshop.

That's really interesting about the armoured cable - I also got very poor results for the distance on an armoured cable.

Ant555

We have had great results with this item
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07349P1TX

OK, its not cheap and I simply went for the most expensive one thinking that I could just get it sent by Amazon direct and it didnt require trips by me to sort out (restricted travel due to corona etc)  but daughters university house suddenly found that as 5 of them all with online lectures over wifi was a laggy nightmare last September.

My daughter is in a room in the roof at the top of the house and a simple plug in wireless extender/booster half way up the stairs still didnt work very well but the product I linked to has worked an absolute treat.

Ethernet cable in back of router downstairs to master plug - extender unit  plugged in her bedroom.  It works brilliantly.

The fuse box in the cellar of the house shows that her bedroom/upstairs is on a separate fuse to the downstairs where the router is - I originally wondered if that would be an issue but it hasnt been so.

Hope this helps.

Tigsteroonie

We have two TPLink wifi extenders - one in the back bedroom to boost wifi for me to WFH, the other is in DH's shed. No problems with either.

Paula_Smith

We have wifi extenders and they work ok.

There is an app called Wifi Analyser that we have found useful - you can see what the strength of various wifi signals are so you can see if the neighbours are interfering and switch channels to improve matters.

Other similar apps are probably available.

matelodave

In the end they seem to work for some people and not for others. Mine are fine, even using SWA cable between the house and the shed. 

I suppose that ideally you either need to borrow a pair to see if it does the job or even get them from somewhere like Amazon and return them for a refund if they do do the job. 

As others have said the most reliable solution is to run an ethernet cable and not faff around with wifi or relocate your router to somewhere more suitable.

Ganga

I have 3 Talktalk ones ,1 plugged into the router ,1 for the tv box and 1 upstairs for my laptop ,work fine and better than cables all over the house plus they are cheap.

mgfvvc

For me powerline worked well to my study but was very poor to my living room. I and a friend both found that TP-Link powerline adapters starting failing after a few years. I also had at least one Zyxel adapter die on me. I now use a TP-Link Deco mesh, which has been very good.

Jenni_D

Ant555 said:

The fuse box in the cellar of the house shows that her bedroom/upstairs is on a separate fuse to the downstairs where the router is - I originally wondered if that would be an issue but it hasnt been so.

Fuses on circuits don't present a problem. Even MCBs (miniature circuit breakers) are usually OK. The problem comes if the MCB has an integral RCD (residual current detector) ... the components for it can attenuate and affect the powerline signal.