O-Sense
INTRODUCTION
Just like with most things in the electronics industry wireless technology keeps getting better and better (both in terms of coverage and signal strength) and we see that each time we test a brand new router and/or modem-router. However we also need to face facts and so although Wi-Fi is now able to cover many rooms and even more than just one floor it's really not suitable for every single case and this is where powerline adapters have found their way in people's houses. Certainly using the electrical grid of a structure (power lines) as the means to transfer data may not be nearly as efficient as using regular Ethernet cables but the resulting speeds are usually higher and more stable than what Wi-Fi can offer (always when distance from the router is an issue). Devolo is among the most popular brands in the market working on powerline solutions and recently they sent over their latest DLAN1200+ Starter Kit for us to test.
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 over existing wiring such as 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 awards, not to mention over 28 million sold adapters, demonstrate devolo's success. Through sustainable market practices, devolo upholds its responsibility to customers, employees and the environment.
As clearly stated by the name of the product the DLAN1200+ is yet another HomePlug AV2 compatible powerline adapter capable of data transfers speeds of up to 1200Mbps (1000Mbps effective via the built-in RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port). The DLAN1200+ also features devolo’s range+ technology for increased range, automatic AES-128bit encryption for increased data protection, PowerSave mode for minimal energy/electrical consumption, automatic phase shift for easier transfer of the 2nd powerline in any room and an integrated electrical socket with child protection. Unfortunately this particular powerline adapter doesn't also feature Wi-Fi connectivity (devolo makes some of those too) but regardless it will be interesting to see how their latest wired model does against some of its latest "opponents" in the market.
SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS
The DLAN1200+ Starter Kit is shipped inside a white and blue box that has a large product picture at the front right next to the main product features and the company logo.
You can see the OS compatibility list at the base of the box right next to two product pictures.
At the top of the box you can see the various usages of a powerline adapter.
The features list is printed at the rear of the box in 10 languages.
Packaging is pretty much excellent since the adapters are placed inside a formed piece of cardboard.
Along with the 2 powerline adapters the package contains two RJ45 Ethernet cables, registration paper, declaration of conformity paper and the installation instructions.
THE DLAN1200+
Because of the integrated electrical socket the 208g heavy DLAN1200+ adapters are not very small so they measure 131mm in height, 66mm in width and 42mm in length (electrical plug excluded).
Each adapter has but one status/activity LED at the front and a button on the right side used to enable/disable hardware encryption.
Once again i was pleased to see that devolo has used child protection for the integrated electrical socket.
Unfortunately the DLAN1200+ powerline adapter has but 1 RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port at its base (not a bad thing for the host adapter but it would be a lot useful if the 2nd adapter had more).
Printed on a large sticker placed at the rear of the adapter are the serial numbers, 2D barcode, MAC address, security ID and the product electrical requirements.
DLAN COCKPIT SOFTWARE
You should always visit the support page to download the latest firmware and software versions.
Installing the firmware update takes less than a minute and regardless of what the program says both adapters just need to be present in the network (not plugged into the PC via Ethernet).
As usual the DLAN Cockpit software indicates (and updates continuously) the connection speed between the main adapter and the two (or more) powerline adapters (the update button is used to look for software updates and not firmware ones).
You can access the properties of each adapter just by moving the mouse cursor above them.
From within the properties page you can name each adapter, disable the LED light, disable the adapter entirely, enable/disable PowerSave mode (by default it's enabled but we disabled it on both adapters for our tests), identify each device (via the LED), record their performance of each adapter and send it back to devolo and finally you can reset them to their factory settings.
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 D6300 Gigabit modem/router (we changed from the DGN3500 since after 20 tests we saw no difference in performance with the D6300 between the powerline adapters we have here) and the primary and secondary systems (30m in total between both systems / we make use of CAT7 cables for wired tests). 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 throughput mode with a data size of 1000Kb and in the end the average numbers once again get recorded into our charts. As of February 2015 we also record ATTO results in our charts (256MB total length) after 7 repeats.
TEST RESULTS
CONCLUSION
Devolo is considered to be among the leading manufacturers of powerline adapters in the world and time and again they’ve proven why that is with their high quality and performance models. Because of that we weren’t really that surprised to see that the DLAN1200+ grabbed the 2nd place in our charts from the AV2-1000 model by D-Link. The 1st place still belongs to the FRITZ!POWERLINE 1000E by AVM since it’s still the highest performance powerline adapter to reach our lab but I guess even 2nd place is not really bad. As for the DLAN Cockpit software well it has remained the same for quite a long time but it’s easy to use not to mention that being able to see the current connection speed between adapters is quite useful. Unfortunately as mentioned earlier in the review the adapters just have a single Gigabit Ethernet port (not unlike most in the market) something which I hope devolo looks into for their next models.
Again we were unable to locate the product in our hands inside the USA but in the EU the DLAN1200+ Starter Kit retails for 128.9Euros (Amazon.de) a price tag which places it over most (if not all) similar kits today. Of course this may turn some potential buyers away but in this review we’ve proven that the DLAN1200+ Starter Kit is one of the 2 best kits money can buy today (at least from the ones we’ve tested so far) and for that it gets our Golden Award.
PROS
- Build Quality
- 2nd Fastest Powerline Adapter To Date (In Our Charts)
- 1200Mbit/s (1000Mbit/s Effective)
- Integrated Electrical Socket
- Low Power Consumption (PowerSave Mode)
- AES 128-Bit Encryption
CONS
- Single LAN Port (For Some)
- Price (For Some)
