Homeplugs (mostly for Beanz I suspect)

[DeskJockey]

One of my trusty Solwise Homeplugs failed! Luckily I had a spare, so could plug that in and get the network back up and running, but apart from running proper network cables, is there a better option?

I bought them in 2014, so perhaps a decade isn't too unreasonable.

[Beany]

Nah, not really a better option unless you're prepared to dump a couple of hundred quid into mesh networking, which in fairness is actually a viable thing these days at not horrific costs.

Homeplugs haven't really got that much better in terms of data rates in the last ten years (they'll advertise multiple gig rates, but in the real world, they never get that far) so I'd expect any decent main brand one these days should be pretty solid, and ideally at least as reliable as the existing ones.

[DeskJockey]

Cheers. Have mesh WiFi, but the NAS is cable only and not in a suitable location to connect to the router, and the printer is old with flaky WiFi. I'll keep what I've got for now.

[Jimexpl]

Mesh WiFi with something decent like Unify can also give you network ports on the WiFi point.

[DeskJockey]

Yup. When I'm next upgrading kit, I might go for a unified solution, but until the current setup stops working, I'm not spending on it.

[Jobbo]

Even my Google Wifi devices have an ethernet port on them - just the one but you could always add a switch.

[DeskJockey]

Have unmanaged switches hanging off the adapters. When it is time for an overhaul I'll look at something a bit more elaborate with better control options.

[scotta]

I've got TP Link powerline ethernet out to the cabin in the Garden. It works well enough to surf and stream music but it struggles a bit for teams. Best i get even on CAT 6 with them is around 30 meg (from a promised up to 500 meg) versus 550 in the house on CAT 6. I should really have a play with moving the adapter around the house and see if i can get it on a shorter powerline run. Unsure if that would be any better however.

[Jobbo]

I found the TP-Link 1200mbps homeplugs I had bought about 7 years ago when we moved. I kept them out wondering if they might be useful. Turns out they may be; I have a few things (laptop dock, Synology server) which don't do wifi and there's no mesh node next to my desk. I had a play last night and tried connecting the laptop dock via homeplug to the nearest mesh node (shorter distance in the ring main, longer via wireless) and to the main router (much further in the ring main, no wifi). Interestingly the results for both ping and speed favoured the shorter distance via homeplug to the nearest node and then wifi. I did some tests via wifi only using the same laptop and found the ping worse but max download speed higher. Through the homeplugs the speed tended to max out about 140MB/s which is just about the rated speed of the homeplugs, so they seem to be working fine.

Anyway, the real proof of the pudding will be in the eating... sorry, gaming. I found a website which tests Buffer Bloat: https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat - i.e. how much your ping deteriorates when there's a large data throughput - and while the Orbis are not particularly regarded as amazing for this they seemed to perform pretty well.

Anyway, posted this here because it was more about Homeplugs, but I was pleased that something I bought years ago and left lying around in the garage to gather dust worked so well. I have two more of them so I'm considering whether there might be any more uses for the spares.