O.T. - Powerline Adaptors

[Sausage]

Like many others, I'm facing the prospect of working from home for the foreseeable. With two kids and the wife also stuck at home, I need a bolt hole. Fortunately, I've got a shed that's perfect for this, with mains electricity recently installed. Unfortunately I didn't get round to installing data cables so I was wondering if anyone has any experience of using Powerline Adaptors to connect to the internet and whether they're any good.

[Claret-On-A-T-Rex]

Better to run a cable out no?
Or is that not a possibility?

[Darthlaw]

Like many others, I'm facing the prospect of working from home for the foreseeable. With two kids and the wife also stuck at home, I need a bolt hole. Fortunately, I've got a shed that's perfect for this, with mains electricity recently installed. Unfortunately I didn't get round to installing data cables so I was wondering if anyone has any experience of using Powerline Adaptors to connect to the internet and whether they're any good.

Used to have them at my old gaff.

Usually you lose bandwith in the process of converting down the powerline. This can be impacted by how far from the original socket (where the router is) to your output plug. Added to this, if you use a wifi broadcasting output plug, you will lose speed again in the transfer over the air.

As I recall, we lost about 60% of the speed doing this setup but it does work.

[Sausage]

Better to run a cable out no?
Or is that not a possibility?

It's definitely a possibility. All options on the table at the moment.

[Sausage]

Cheers Darthlaw. I am assuming some adaptors are better than others in terms of losses. I'm thinking of it as a short term solution (claimable on company expenses) but if it's a pile of old toss, I'll go with running a cable.

[Tall Paul]

Have had them since moving house five years ago and they work perfectly. Only had one problem with them recently but that was an issue with the socket I was using being on an extension rather than part of the mains supply, so as long as the shed supply is wired to the mains, you should be fine.

[Sproggy]

Have had them since moving house five years ago and they work perfectly.

This. We have 80mb broadband and I can work downstairs whilst my kids are streaming whatever online games they play upstairs (all of us connected via Powerline adaptors) without noticing any issues. The newer your wiring, the better and there is some seed loss, but if your base bandwidth is reasonable, they should be fine for any "normal" working.

[MarkGreen]

As long as your sockets in your shed are on the same circuit as the socket nearest to your router, you should be fine. There is very minimal loss in bandwidth really, far better than you'd get from wifi anyway.

[superdimitri]

You have to make sure the shed is on the same circuit. If it's part of your home ring circuit, great. If it's a single extension from a particular socket in your house you'll need to have the home power line in that specific socket.

[Bosscat]

Just put some of these powerline adapters in for BT TV... they work great but they have to be plugged in to the socket not via a extension...

[Sausage]

As long as your sockets in your shed are on the same circuit as the socket nearest to your router, you should be fine. There is very minimal loss in bandwidth really, far better than you'd get from wifi anyway.

No, the shed sockets are on their own circuit, albeit from the same consumer unit as the various circuits for rest of the house. Does this mean the Powerline Adaptors won't work?

[MarkGreen]

Does this mean the Powerline Adaptors won't work?

Correct, they use the cables already built into your house to pass the data, they don't act like wifi that talk to each other wirelessly.

[Sausage]

Cheers Mark. Cat 6 cable it is then.

[Bertiebeehead]

If it’s on the same consumer unit it will work.

[Sausage]

If it’s on the same consumer unit it will work.

Okay. Now I'm confused. To be clear, I have one consumer unit which houses the usual array of MCB switches for various lighting rings, ring main, oven, shower etc. One of the switches is for the shed circuit. The router is powered from a socket in the living room which on the ring main. The shed is not on the ring main. Will the powerline adaptors work?

[Croydon Claret]

I have one in my garage. Got the main unit plugged into one circuit, the supply to the garage runs off a different circuit from the consumer unit

Inside the garage there is a further consumer unit that splits the single supply into one circuit for the lights and another for the sockets

I'm telling you this to depmonstrate that despite the additional circuitry it still works.

As long as they're both feeding off the same original consumer unit, which pretty much all houses are, then it will work

[Bertiebeehead]

I have one adapter on the downstairs ring main, one on the upstairs and one on the kitchen socket ring main circuit all working at about 15-20mbps. Separate circuits but same consumer unit will work but the distance from the shed to the house could be an issue.

[aggi]

The powerline adapters can certainly go beyond one ring.

I had an interesting experience with them where I discovered I was able to access the network of the house next door but one from me including the personal documents on their NAS, their Sonos, etc

I put a password on it to stop that happening but it's worth considering.

[tarkys_ears]

Christ... Hope my next door neighbour doesn't hack into my powerlines to see what's streaming through the cables to my WD TV...