Powerline AV Wireless Network Extender (PLWK400)

UPDATED ON MARCH 3, 2014:I recently bumped up my internet speed and began running some speed tests to verify this. I was surprised to find out that the throughput over these powerline adapters had dropped by over 50% since I originally reviewed them. I've tried resetting them and reinstalling the firmware, but the problem remains. The only thing that may have changed was the fact that I accidentally pressed the "encryption" button on one of the adapters a few days ago (around the time I increased my internet speed with Comcast), but resetting the adapter should have cleared that.The adapters still push around 90Mbps in the same room, but this number drops significantly as I move the adapters away from each other. Where I was originally getting over 90Mbps with the adapters on different floors, now I'm getting around 40Mbps with the adapters in the same position.Since I now have a 50Mbps internet connection, I'm a bit disappointed in that these adapters are now the bottleneck. I'll look into the issue some more and may contact support, but I won't knock off any stars off my original review until I find a cause.ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM NOVEMBER 19, 2013:This review is for the 4-port Linksys Adapters, and not the wireless extender. Not sure why my review is tagged that way.Just some quick background info that may help some users:There are basically two ratings for powerline adapters: 200Mbps and 500Mbps (a few other speed ratings may be found, but 200 and 500 are the standards). I've used a few different powerline adapters over the years, and believe that currently, the 200Mbps-rated adapters are simply a better purchase than most the 500Mbps-rated adapters. Most of the higher rated adapters are pretty much a gimmick, in that while they are designed to meet the specifications for 500Mbps over the powerline, the adapters are often equipped with 10/100 ethernet ports. This basically means that while they could potentially push data at 500Mbps over the powerline, the bottleneck is the actual ethernet port on the adapter, which is limited to a measly 100 Mbps. I don't know if this is a cost-saving measure or a technical issue, but it looks like most manufacturers design, and market, their powerline adapters this way.I've also found that the 500Mbps adapters are more sensitive to more power-hungry devices on the same circuit. For example, if you have a power hog like a home elevator or a gym-quality treadmill, the 500Mbps may be more sensitive to that when in use.If speed over the powerline is truly what you're after, by all means spend the money and get a 500Mbps+ adapter, but make sure it has gigabit ports (and definitely use Cat 5e or 6 ethernet cables), or else you're just wasting your money. Along with the Linksys, I also considered the TP-LINK TL-PA4010KIT AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter Starter Kit, up to 500Mbps. It has great reviews, an attractive price, and can be purchased with a gigabit port. Unfortunately, TP-Link doesn't sell this model with a 4-port switch as Linksys does, which is why I went with the Linksys. If I only needed a single port, I would have gone with the TP-Link.Now onto the Linksys:I ended up purchasing the 4-port adapter kit. As is usually the case with powerline adapters from most of the big manufacturers, the setup was quick and simple--literally plug and play.As for real-world speed, I ran some iperf tests on my network (two Macs and an Asus RT-N16 router running Tomato firmware)... here are the results:- Both clients wired into the same 4-port powerline adapter (other adapter not used): 93.3 Mbps (my theoretical max)- Both clients wired into different adapters in same room, different outlets: 90.6 MbpsAnd with the adapters on different floors- Both clients wired, no router: 90.2 Mbps- Both clients wired, with router: 90.0 MbpsThe speeds were very consistent in my tests--far more consistent than pushing data over wireless. After reading reviews of some 500Mbps adapters on the market, my test results showed that my speeds usually exceeded the ones reported by reviewers of many 500Mbps adapters. And a side note: don't pay attention to reviews using results from SpeedTest.net or other internet-based speed test service as a good measure of network adapters. Internet speeds have nothing to do with your home network speeds.Overall I'm very happy with the speeds, setup and consistency of these adapters. It's too early to tell if the adapters will keep up this performance over time, but so far it's very promising.

I was excited to get this - we get a lot of rebuffering while streaming Netflix through one of our WiFi BluRay players due to poor signal strength, so, after reading the great reviews, I thought this would be the perfect solution. It solved the problem, but not without frustration.The device itself works fine and I have a great WiFi signal strength (5 out of 5 bars) on the Blu Ray player, where before I only had 1 or 2 bars. Same with my phone and tablet - 4 out of 4 bars, where before I only had one.The connection will work either wired or wireless (the unit that plugs into the remote location can be wired to the WiFi device with the included ethernet cable).I had trouble getting Netflix up at first, but after unplugging everything, including the modem and BluRay player, and reconnecting, everything works perfectly.This device actually sets up its own wireless network, my advice is to give it a different name than your home network, so you can identify which one you're connected to on your devices. I didn't understand this, I thought it was going to splice into the existing network, so at first I named it the same as my home network, which really confused things.My router is Linksys, so I specifically bought a Linksys brand powerline adapter thinking it would interface smoothly with the router. In retrospect, I don't think it mattersBUT the reason it did not get 5 stars and I had considered giving only 3 stars, was for the difficulty installing and setting up the units. I'm not a computer geek, nor am I a computer dummie, I'm somewhere in the middle. I followed the incredibly sparse instructions in the box, inserted the installation CD into my computer and got some useless screens that did nothing.I tried to figure it out myself, tried going to the Linksys web site to download the user manual, and found a manual that was about 140 pages, starting in Dutch, moving on to German, then Russian... Rather than scroll through 20 languages to find one I could read well enough to install my product, I called tech support. I was on the phone with the tech for nearly an hour and a half getting the devices installed! That is JUST insane! I told the tech that I couldn't believe what a pain this was to install and I have never had a hardware installation that required this much time and effort. She said it's because I must have strong security and firewall on my computer. Whatever... it's installed and the tech was very nice. She had offered, initially, to remotely access my computer and take over the install from her end, for a ten dollar charge, but that didn't sound secure to me, so I declined.Bottom line, I'm glad I bought this device, it definitely gives me WiFi in a corner of the house that was previously almost nonexistent but the installation process took way too long for me.

This is a very nice product, but the "Start Here" guide and the "User Guide" describe unnecessarily complicated installation procedures. Here is a simple no-bells-and-whistles procedure that works very well. If your wireless router has good security, the following undocumented procedure will preserve it.1. Plug in the PLE400 unit into a wall outlet near your router and connect one of the blue Ethernet cables between the PLE400 and an Ethernet port on your router.2. Write down the PIN number at the back of the PLW400. It is an 8-digit number, the bottom number of three on the label.3. Plug in the PLW400 into a wall outlet near one of your computers (I use Windows 7) and connect the other blue cable between the PLW400 and the Ethernet port of the PC.4. After a few seconds, a new wireless connection (Ciscoxxxxx) will show up among the wireless connections in the tray at the bottom of the desktop. Select it and click on "Connect".5. You will be asked for the PIN number and then you will be prompted either to keep the suggested name of the new wireless connection or to choose a different name.6. The next screen will give you a security key. Write it down, you will need it for connecting other computers to the new wireless network.7. The way my Windows 7 version is configured, I am then asked by Windows to make the new connection part of a home network, a work network, or public network. I use work networks.8. You are done, connected wirelessly. If you want to be connected via the Ethernet cable, reboot and you will have that option plus the new wireless option. Either way, everything works, including printers connected by Ethernet cable or wirelessly to the router itself. Some wirelessly connected printers may need to be shut down and restarted for them to work.Finally, one reviewer wrote "Does N O T work across circuit breakers, therefore it is useless!!!! I live in a three a story house with about 20 circuit breakers, does not work."I also live in a house with about 20 circuit breakers, on a 200-amp panel. I have the PLE400 and PLW400 in different, distant, parts of the house (that is the whole point of powerline range extenders), on different circuit breakers, no problem. Liksys (Cisco) does say that the two units must be on circuits of the same main panel box. So if you live in a large palace with more than one panel box, take that into account.

I live in a one-floor apartment and my Wi-Fi would not reach from my living room to the furthest bedrooms. All of my rooms are on the same circuit breaker, so this product was a good potential solution for me.I'll start by saying that when the product works, it is really fantastic. I couldn't believe the speeds I got in my bedrooms after installing this product. The product has solved my WiFi range issue.So, why only 3 stars then? Well, I bought two of these sets and one of them had a defective unit. The problem is, Cisco's setup documentation and online support are so poor that I had no way of deducing that the product was defective. So, I spent hours reading and re-reading their lousy instructions, pushing the needlessly confusing buttons on the units, trying them out in every power source to figure out why they'd only sometimes work. I thought I was doing something wrong, or that my powerlines were not compatible. Finally, after much deduction, I realized that I just had a bum unit.Had Cisco (or Linksys') documentation and unit controls been clearer and more obvious, I would have known right away that it was a problem with the unit. If I had known that, it would have taken me literally 10 minutes to set these up and it would have seemed borderline miraculous. Sadly, the documentation and site support are so information-poor and unfriendly to end users, I can't recommend the product whole-heartedly.Thankfully, Amazon has a great return policy and I was refunded within days. I kept the working unit and I'm enjoying great WiFi in my bedrooms now. Hopefully it lasts, because I desperately do NOT want to have to go back to that support site again!

I thought that this would be a great solution, but I have been completely unable to get it to work. I have OSX10.8.2 and a retina MacBookPro and can not get the ethernet cable to connect to the PLW400. First, the install disk gets spit out of my DVD drive, so I had to download the utility from link sys along with the instructions. OK. Then I installed the PLE and PLW on the same circuit and went to set up following the instructions. No connection via the ethernet so I could try and set it up. Went online at linksys/support and got unhelpful suggestions. Maybe some day I will get back to this, but for now I rate this as not ready for prime time.Ok I got back to it, and found the manuals online, and got it installed on the one circuit in my house that accepts it. It worked great for an hour. Now I get "no internet connection". What a load of crap! Can I remove even the one star I gave?

I am an engineer, eternally skeptical, show me the data kind of person. I read all the reviews on this item and quite frankly I was VERY skeptical it would work for my application...I was preparing myself for a direct bury CAT6. I have a large detached garage about 350 ft from where my DSL router is located in my house. I really wanted WiFi there, I had tried a couple of Wifi Extenders at the closest location possible within the house and well...zero bars of coverage in my new garage/workshop. I got this device last night, followed the simple instructions, changed the security from disable to WAP2 with the little utility they give you from my laptop connected to the Wifi portion of the device, hooked up the inside unit with a Cat5 cable, plugged it in the wall. Walked outside and up to my garage plugged it in the wall and, WOW!!!, it synced in like 10 seconds. I am not very often amazed, not very often at all, I was even preparing in my mind on how I was going to return the device. This device is going thru the wiring in my house, to the breaker panel, thru the main power out to the electric meter, back to the main power at that point back out to my new garage thru another breaker panel and to the wall outlet just below that panel. I now have 5 full bars of Wifi in my garage. Great device!, all I can say. I want to caveat what I'm saying here though. My house is relatively new, all the wiring is up to code, grounds done properly, etc, etc. I really just can't believe this works, but, it does and works well. I live in the boonies, and the best internet I can get is a download speed of about 1.5-2 Mbs, I get the same speed at the router as I do on Wifi at the remote point in the garage...I watched a whole streaming movie just to see if it would loose sync, I logged into my Slingbox and streamed a movie from my Dishnetwork dish. Last thing, I don't work for Linksys, I know it sounds like I'm trying to sell something here, I guess I'm just a bit overwhelmed that something actually does what it says it will.

I love the idea of this device. It has so much potential. There is very poor wifi coverage however on the PLWK400.I purchased this hoping I could place a single access point in the middle of my house rather than having two (at either ends). The wifi signal was so weak that my laptop gets a better signal from my old Asus Black Diamond router which is 50 ft and several walls away, rather than 20 ft and one wall away. So it won't help for my application.Separately my experience with Linksys tech support was awful. I am already using some old PLE300s (prior generation Linksys Powerline devices). Linksys chose to design their networking software for the PLWK400 to not be backward compatible with the prior generations, so I went to their website to download the utility for the PLE300. Unfortunately the utility on their website under the PLE300 is actually for the generation before that - PLE200. Also, it won't work. It says it doesn't see any network devices connected.So I try to find the utility another way. Cisco Linksys product materials say you can also "check our FTP site at ftp.linksys.com" But I think that Cisco marketing forgot to maintain that site when the bought out Linksys. It won't even pull up.So in trying to get these Cisco Linksys devices to play together - I'm frustrated.Worse yet, when I chatted with Linksys tech support to get the correct link for the PLE300 utility, it took about thirty mins to get the tech to understand the issue was with their webpage. Then he told me I'd have to pay $29.95 for further support. Big waste of time and the support technician was really arrogant about this too.I promised the tech I would share my experience with Cisco in my review on Amazon and N**egg and asked him one more time if he could help me with the glitch on his webpage or finding the utility, and he was worthless. So here's my review!Save your money and buy an Asus dual band router, and put it in the very middle of your house. That's what I'm trying next.

I quite enthusiastically support the Cisco Linksys Powerline AV Wireless Kit.I was an early adopter of this technology, utilizing the Netgear XAVB101 Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit for about four years. We have a long house (115-feet) and the Verizon FiOS connection enters at a far basement corner. We could not maintain reliable Internet connectivity throughout two floors of this lengthy ranch using the sole Verizon router located at the service origination point.Various wired and wireless solutions were explored. I'd read about power companies deploying Internet service over power lines system-wide with reasonable performance. Still, I remained a skeptic.But cost,convenience and flexibility compelled me to give it a try in our independent film post-production (edit) suite, offices, a viewing room and gathering spaces. The Netgear boxes worked reasonably well and eliminated a potentially major Ethernet cabling project to accomplish the same end goal. As many months of usage passed, Powerline unit performance became increasingly erratic, some days requiring multiple manual reboots of all four Netgear Powerline devices. Each reboot and troubleshooting assessment required at least ten-minutes, sometimes far more time.Enter Cisco Netgear. Their Powerline Internet adapter is a breath of fresh technology air we quickly and successfully deployed throughout our facility. Connectivity and through-put looks excellent. We have a studio envirment in which the movement of large 4K video files is a demanding process for multiple users and stakeholders. So far, so good. System uptime and throughput speeds are the major metrics we monitor and both have improved markedly in just a few short weeks. The product is simple to install and easy to modify.

on the same electric panel. Just a great product , wifi hotspot without passing cable.

Pensaba solo comprar un extensor de rango simple pero esos solo funcionan si está cerca del módem o router inalámbrico. A parte la mayoría son de distintas marcas y la verdad linksys en este tipo de aparatos es la mejor (aunque cuesta un poco más cara pero lo vale).En fin, recomiendo tanto el producto como la marca para ampliar el rango del internet.Lo único malo es que no tiene un manual de instalación sencillo y en español y no hay videos en línea pero siguiendo las instrucciones en inglés, se vuelve sencillo instalarlo una vez que conoces cómo funciona.

I dont have words to describe this product. I wonder why is it not popular in India already.Those who are looking to extend the range of their wifi, Those who have big houses (lucky you) will find this supercool.The only drawback was its size. Could have been smaller.

Awesome. Could install it in no time. Working Excellently!

El producto sirve. Lo uso von mi co sola ps4 y todo bien.Lo unico malo es que no sirve con windows 10