As you might know I have been having issues with my wireless setup at home to transmit media between the master bedroom, study and lounge.
The best solution would have been to wire up the house with Cat5e cables but that would involve a lot of sweat and tears, not to mention the unsightly cables coming down the walls etc etc etc. Being a solid DIY enthusiast this would not have been a problem but unfortunately time is always against us and a quick and easy solution took preference.
Enter the Western Digital Livewire Ethernet over Powerline solution.
The package comes with 2 units, each with 4 100mbps Lan ports, 2x Cat5 cables and 2 power cable allowing the unit to be placed away from the wall socket.
The units are each the site of a small 4 port hub with pretty green lights indicating status, power and connectivity.
Installation is dead easy really. Simply plug the unit into the wall socket (not recommended to be plugged into a power bank, ups, or surge protector) and click the sync button on each unit. Viola. Secure network established.
I started off by connecting one of the unit in the study with 2 PCs and the ADSL router connected to it. Yes, another great feature is that each unit is in fact a 4 port hub therefor allowing you to link 7 devices onto a ADSL/Livewire combo.
The second unit was connected in the master bedroom to the Xbox360. Synced both units and signed into Xbox live. Perfect connection with reported speed of 120mpbs. (WD claims 200mbps but that is mostly marketing speak)
I then connected a third unit to the house, this time downstairs to connect the Mede8er to the network. Again it was as simple as clicking the sync button on the third unit. This time however the unit only reported 60mbps to 80mpbs which unfortunately is not good enough to stream 720p content. Still good enough to allow SD content streaming and file transfers over the network as well as internet sharing.
At R800 per set this solution is not the cheapest out there but the ease of setup and additional functions make up for this. The documentation is pretty spot on should you need to use it and the supplied network monitoring software does a great job of reporting speeds etc.
I need to try out some other power sockets in the house to see what will give me the best speeds. For now I am quite happy with the setup.
Pros
1. Incredibly easy to setup.
2. 4 port hub on each device.
3. Well documented.
4. Stylish looks.
5. Good speeds compared to wifi.
Cons
1. Slightly on the expensive side.
2. Speeds nowhere near the 200mpbs claimed by WD
3. Sync switches are quite stiff
The best solution would have been to wire up the house with Cat5e cables but that would involve a lot of sweat and tears, not to mention the unsightly cables coming down the walls etc etc etc. Being a solid DIY enthusiast this would not have been a problem but unfortunately time is always against us and a quick and easy solution took preference.
Enter the Western Digital Livewire Ethernet over Powerline solution.
The package comes with 2 units, each with 4 100mbps Lan ports, 2x Cat5 cables and 2 power cable allowing the unit to be placed away from the wall socket.
The units are each the site of a small 4 port hub with pretty green lights indicating status, power and connectivity.
Installation is dead easy really. Simply plug the unit into the wall socket (not recommended to be plugged into a power bank, ups, or surge protector) and click the sync button on each unit. Viola. Secure network established.
I started off by connecting one of the unit in the study with 2 PCs and the ADSL router connected to it. Yes, another great feature is that each unit is in fact a 4 port hub therefor allowing you to link 7 devices onto a ADSL/Livewire combo.
The second unit was connected in the master bedroom to the Xbox360. Synced both units and signed into Xbox live. Perfect connection with reported speed of 120mpbs. (WD claims 200mbps but that is mostly marketing speak)
I then connected a third unit to the house, this time downstairs to connect the Mede8er to the network. Again it was as simple as clicking the sync button on the third unit. This time however the unit only reported 60mbps to 80mpbs which unfortunately is not good enough to stream 720p content. Still good enough to allow SD content streaming and file transfers over the network as well as internet sharing.
At R800 per set this solution is not the cheapest out there but the ease of setup and additional functions make up for this. The documentation is pretty spot on should you need to use it and the supplied network monitoring software does a great job of reporting speeds etc.
I need to try out some other power sockets in the house to see what will give me the best speeds. For now I am quite happy with the setup.
Pros
1. Incredibly easy to setup.
2. 4 port hub on each device.
3. Well documented.
4. Stylish looks.
5. Good speeds compared to wifi.
Cons
1. Slightly on the expensive side.
2. Speeds nowhere near the 200mpbs claimed by WD
3. Sync switches are quite stiff
