Devolo and Solwise HomePlug kits

There are only 2 sad facts about this technology:

• All these Systems interfere with wireless communication in the house and often with Amateur Radio frequencies
• They are quite easy to wiretap

 

Not a bad bit of technology. I wonder how well it would work in a commercial environment.
We have a few "offices" in our building that dont have network ports, basically they are partitioned offices to put people that were promoted to "managers" of made up departments to keep them happy.Drilling holls and runnign cables under the floor all the time is getting annoying. so it would be cool to just plug them into the wall or floor sockets. I am not sure though if the complexity of our power and alarm systems would block these sort of things.

 

One question ive always had about these things.. do they need to be plugged into the "master" socket, ie.. the wall mounted one, or can you plug one into a 6way extention (for example).

I'd love to use this at home, but the rooms in which i have PCs only have single wall sockets, and i have to use 6ways.

 

Nope, you can plug them into a 6way and they will work fine.

 

An important aspect of these kits that wasn't covered I think - what is latency like? Is it possible to play online fps etc with this kit without issues? My current wired setup gives me a ping of > 10ms, and I'm curious to see how these perform...

 

right so how would you power it, a generator ? they don't produce a very smooth output anyway

My dad is the hi-fi freak in the house (I'm not allowed a dimmer switch and this would certainly be banned) he has Russ Andrews extension leads, the hi-fi has a special filter on it, and there are about 5 mains smoother's in the house too

even the fluorescent lights have digital starters, because they are much cleaner

 

I'd like to echo the question above about whether they work across separate ring mains - so could I plug one in downstairs and another in upstairs (different circuits) and have them talk to each other?

 

these things could come in handy for me ill read more about them ty for the review

 

The ones I have work fine like that. Much better than to wireless network connection I tried (a brick built house).

I did find I got a better connection speed if I plugged them directly into the wall socket (even via a multiway adapter plug), rather than into a 2m extension lead. There wasnt that much differance though, 10-15Mbits as I recall so the connection was reported as 65-70Mbits.

PS This was with the Devolo version. I later tried the other version when a collegue at work bought some and found them to connect slightly faster.

 

Chances of these being "hacked" into by a next door neighour attempting to use one a set in his house ? (yes im being blonde)

 

I'm so confused as to how these work.
Anyone handy enough to draw up a diagram?

I just don't understand why you need two, and how you get the internet aswell?

 

You could try the Flash Advert on the devolo site.

 

You may mock but battery power for sources does happen in high end hi fi. My DAC (Pink Traingle DaCapo) had a battery version. The quality of mains power causes a huge headache so a battery that is being trickle charged is a solution, if a somewhat expensive and cumbersome one.

 

Thanks!

 

Excellent point. I read terms like inherent security, but i have to ask, if there's no encryption set up, how do we know our data is secured?

I mean, if you lived in a terraced house, or flat, what's stopping someone from connecting / snooping your network by purchasing an similar plug?

Is the electricty meter sufficient in providing a barrier? surely that is the case if the electricty is switched off! but when the electricty is on, then the circuit has to allow "electricity" into the premises?

Now, perhaps i should have asked this question before purchasing the Solwise kit! ... On the up side, it was truly *PLUG 'n' PLAY*, i didn't even use the supplied CD, and so far, i'm very impressed, but i'd love to know more about the security implications.

Regards.

 

very interesting advert...... me understands better.

 

I believe that the way it works is that each circuit is normally not connected to other places. If you all run off one meter then its one circuit.

99% of flats have individual meters so have individual circuit.

 

I remember someone that had plugs based on this technology like, 4 years ago. You could use your PC to control on/off at a plug socket.

Not sure if he ever used it for anything more than freaking out visitors.

 

No, that's X10 technology, which has been around for years. It's just serial control over electrical wiring.
This is networking over electrical wiring, which is considerably more faster than X10. It too has been around for a number of years, but this is the first time that they are available with decent speeds (up until now, 14Mbps was the theoretical maximum available).

 

Netgear has 200mbps versions out now, and they look mighty sweet!

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=3478