INTRODUCTION

   Although the majority of people out there seem to choose Wi-Fi as the primary way to share their internet connection there are some people who prefer wired connections for a number of rather obvious reasons (speed, security being the two most important ones). Powerline adapters were introduced in the market several years ago to help those who prefer wired connections save both time and effort by transferring the signal via the structures electrical wiring. The only downside with this technology is that in very old houses or in houses that have three-phase electrical wirings speed may get very low and in some rare cases they may not work at all. That being said most people i know always wanted powerline adapters to have one significant feature which is to broadcast the signal from the secondary adapter using Wi-Fi (quite useful for smartphones and tablets) and even though it took some time for manufacturers to do so there are such solutions available in the market as we speak. Today we will be taking a look at one such solution and more specifically the dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ Starter Kit by Devolo.

   devolo AG is the leading European company on the market in Powerline communication solutions. The company's core product is dLAN®, a technology that allows flexible networks via existing wiring like electrical and coaxial lines. Powerline solutions are employed in private households as well as commercial environments and they lead the way in future-oriented energy data distribution and home automation. devolo invests its development resources into improving dLAN® technology through its own patented solutions. The globally operating company has been the world market leader in the Powerline segment since 2009. Numerous top-product test reviews and distinctions, not to mention over 16 million shipped adapters, substantiate devolo's success. Through sustainable market practices, devolo upholds its responsibility to customers, employees and the environment.

   The new dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ adapter is pretty much an combination of the dLAN 500 AV+ adapter which we had the chance to test a while back with two internal Wi-Fi antennas which in turn can broadcast the received signal to 802.11 a/b/g/n compatible devices (2.4Ghz/5GHz) at the push of a button. Now as many of you know we don't really use Wi-Fi that much but there have been many times when we've had visitors who wanted to access the internet via their smartphones and tablets so this is a feature that can be very useful especially for people who want to turn Wi-Fi on and off at will. The dLAN 500 AV Wireless+ also features a power socket and offers 128 Bit AES encryption for the signal along with many different security options (WPE/WPA/WPA2/WPS PIN/WPS PBC). Our only concern is that since speed between two powerline adapters is reduced (always compared to the initial received by the modem/router) we don't know how powerful/fast the wireless signal can be so without further delay let's find out.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

The kit gets shipped inside a white box with a product picture at the front right next to the company logo, number of adapters inside and its features on the upper right corner (our box arrived in bad shape so we had to use a marketing picture).

Both adapters are placed inside a formed piece of cardboard while the rest of the bundle is placed above and beneath.

Inside the box you will find the two powerline adapters, Ethernet cable, user's manual, installation guide and the software CD.

THE DLAN 500 AV WIRELESS+ STARTER KIT

The polished white powerline adapters of the DLAN 500 AV Wireless+ Starter Kit may not be the smallest ones around but you can't ask for a power socket and still worry about size (devolo also makes a lot smaller Wi-Fi adapters without a power socket).

At the front of the secondary adapter we see 3 buttons (Wi-Fi on/off, WPS on/off, LAN pairing) and 4 activity LEDs (Power, Link Quality, Link Activity, Wi-Fi activity).

We were quite impressed to see that the adapter comes with 3 Ethernet ports so aside the Wi-Fi feature you can plug up to three devices into it.

The Wi-Fi key, company logo, serial number, electrical specifications, 2D barcode and several certification logos are placed on a sticker at the rear of the adapter.

Aside the power socket and the devolo logo at the front of the secondary adapter we see 3 activity LEDs (Power, Link Quality, Link Activity).

The secondary adapter features a single Ethernet port with which it connects to the modem/router (we wish it had two) and a reset button.

At the rear we find the security ID, electrical specifications, serial number, 2D barcode and some certification logos.

Although the activity LEDs look nice as you will see later on you can disable them.

DLAN COCKPIT

Prior to actually using the adapters i strongly recommend heading over to the official Devolo product page to download the latest firmware and software versions.

The DLAN Cockpit software indicates (and updates) the connection between the adapters which as you can see in our scenario (15m range between both) it's 107 Mbit/s.

You can access the secondary adapter settings page by clicking on the arrow next to it.

The very first page notifies you of the general state of the adapter including the how many devices are plugged into its Ethernet ports.

Through the device configuration page you can set a password for the settings area, adjust the IP address manually or via DHCP, use a password to secure the wired network, setup the date and time and enable/disable the activity LEDs.

You can change the security type, pick a name as the SSID, set the access key, enable/disable a guest account, set WLAN filters, use the parental control, adjust the WPS settings and setup the automatic Wi-Fi synchronization in the WLAN configuration page.

In the Management page you can reset the device configuration, save/restore the current configuration and update the firmware.

You can also disable the primary adapter LEDs by clicking on the arrow next to it.

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   As already mentioned plenty of times in the past the performance of Powerline adapters is directly linked to the quality of the buildings electrical grid/wiring so the output speeds from such devices will most probably vary between new and old structures. Still the results recorded when testing Powerline adapters inside the same building should easily point out the best one and so to that end we used the well-known Passmark Performance Test to measure the data transfer rate in wired, wireless and Powerline modes with a fixed (for every test) distance of 15 meters between our Netgear DGN3500 Gigabit modem/router and the primary and secondary systems (30m in total between both systems). For Wi-Fi capable powerline adapters we left the secondary adapter at the same spot as with the other tests and used it with an 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac compatible Toshiba Qosmio Laptop placed roughly 5 meters away.

   The network data transfer test was set to duration of 40 seconds and was repeated a total of 7 times after which the average numbers were recorded into our charts. As a secondary test we are also using QCheck by Ixia which is considered amongst the top measuring tools of its kind. Tests are performed 7 times at throuput mode with a data size of 1000Kb and in the end the average numbers once again get recorded into our charts.

TEST RESULTS

CONCLUSION

   We may not have tested each and every powerline adapter manufactured by Devolo but so far the ones that we have tested and used have performed extremely well so when we received the DLAN 500 AV Wireless+ Starter Kit we knew it would perform at least on par with the previous DLAN 500 AV+ Starter Kit. Fortunately the DLAN 500 AV Wireless+ Starter Kit performed quite better (roughly 30% better) but what really impressed us was that the Wi-Fi signal strength was even better than wired when measured in QCheck. Now we don't know how that can be especially since the Network Test by Passmark seems to disagree but even those results are very good. The integrated power socket is also a plus (although nothing really new) while the 3 Ethernet ports placed on the secondary adapter can come very handy for people who also have need for wired connectivity. I was hoping that Devolo would place two or more Ethernet ports on the primary adapter but perhaps doing so would create conflicts in the Wi-Fi signal we really can't know for certain.

   Powerline adapters with integrated Wi-Fi antennas are something quite new and much like everything new they don't come very cheap especially when they perform like the DLAN 500 AV Wireless+ Starter Kit by Devolo. Unfortunately although currently you can grab the kit for 135Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) we were unable to locate it elsewhere and that's the only serious drawback we can think off. Of course Devolo is an EU based manufacturer so it may not be in their immediate plans to expand outside the EU but we really hope they will eventually. High performance, very good build quality, integrated power socket, 3 Ethernet ports on the secondary adapter and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n capable the DLAN 500 AV Wireless+ Starter Kit has it all and that's why it gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Performance (Wired & Wireless)
- Integrated Power Socket
- 500Mbit/s Compatible
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n Capable (2 Internal Antennas)
- AES 128bit Encryption
- devolo Cockpit Software

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Current Availability