NETGEAR PowerLINE 1000 Mbps WiFi, 802.11ac, 1 Gigabit Port - Essentials Edition (Renewed)

We used this to remote a Nest wireless camera which was out of range of the wireless router. Most "wireless" extenders have to connect to the subscriber supplied router (i.e. AT&T, Spectrum, etc) using WiFi. This one works differently. You plug it into (using an RJ45 cable) the subscriber router so "it doesn't use the subscriber WiFi" connect to the subscriber router. We've had lots of issues using subscriber souter WiFi to connect extenders in the past (mosty setup issues and not being able to access the setup inside the subscriber router). This eliminates that, to the subscriber router it just looks like another computer, etc. The box that connects to the subscriber router, connects to the wireless part of this pair through your home power lines. Setting up the power line portion of the gadget is very easy. What is also nice is that the device creates another, totally separate WiFi network at the "wireless" end. We had no issues connecting Nest cameras to the separate network or keeping those connections from dropping. Other, non-power-line based WiFi extenders dropped the cameras all the time (personal experience using wireless connected to subscriber router units). I give this an A+.

I'm an electrical engineer and familiar with setting up a network, so this was super-easy to setup and use. This device provided the flexibility that I needed also. My wifi router is tri-band, but our whole house has wifi switches on the indoor and outdoor lights plus a few smart plugs, outdoor sensors and cameras. All of those must run on the 2.4GHz band. Since there is a limit of 32 devices on any given band, and we have over 70 devices, I needed to assign devices to different bands. I already had an extender that gave us an additional 3 bands, but the extended signal still wouldn't reach areas due to walls. All of our existing bands have unique SSIDs (the network name) so that I could assign devices to allow connectivity to all. The Netgear PLW1000 is flexible so that I could add two more unique SSIDs. I tried the extender in various outlets, I could not find one that gave me a green signal strength indicator, only red or amber. However, it's much more forgiving that some extenders that require the powerline adapter and its receiver to be on the same electrical circuit. The wifi signal is strong and has been solid so far.My initial observations:The "select a plug" powerline signal strength indicator is difficult to read when the wifi indicator turns on. If the powerline indicator is amber, when the blue wifi indicator turns on the powerline indicator looks white. This is due to the LEDs bleeding through the clear plastic LED cover, combining the colors somewhat. Not a deal breaker, just be aware. I glued my plastic LED cover on the corner, then dremeled the plastic piece between the portions that covered the adjacent LEDs. I then painted the edges where I had cut with flat black paint and reassembled. Problem solved.Initial testing showed consistent download speeds of 2.1Mbps, far from the powerline link speed of 50-80Mbps limit when you have an amber powerline quality indicator, using the supplied ethernet cable that connects the main wifi router to the powerline transmitter. Since these devices have a gigabit ethernet port and I wasn't certain about the supplied cables, I bought some CAT6 cables. These made a huge difference! I went from 2.1Mbps download to about 45Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 60Mbps on the 5GHz band (with amber powerline quality indicator).Good product so far. Just make sure you use CAT6 cables.

These are pretty great. I set this up in the house, and it worked great in the house. Took the unit out to the garage, and nothing... so at least I discovered two things - if the base and the end unit are both on power that is from one side of the electrical box, it is great. If the base is on power that is on one side of the electrical panel, and the end unit is on the other side, it will not work. These are perfect for a large house, a second or third floor, etc. If your garage is on power on a different side of the electrical panel... not so much. I think most homes won't have this issue, but mine was built in the 50s and perhaps the electrical layout of things is/was different. Real world results in the house, though - spectacular. It didn't work in my particular situation, which is why I gave it four stars, but I think for the incredibly vast majority of users, this is a great solution. For you techies out there, the units themselves act as a bridge across power, and do not create a different network or subnet. Pretty great for shared resources over the LAN like file sharing, cameras, etc. Four thumbs up.

I have to confess that I really don't understand or know why this NETGEAR PowerLine 1000 does not work for me, but it just does not. It was installed correctly, plugged into the outlets directly. I compared several computers and PC's at different locations throughout the house and found that at the minimum DOWN/UP loads are the same either way. However with my laptop DOWNLOAD is 50% faster than when this system is on with direct plug or wifi versions. This is not to say it won't work for you guys, who read my review. There could be so many different factors that contribute to this. And at no time is it my intention to talk this product down as "BAD", because from what I have seen with other people reviewing it, it works for many people. I need to set up a work station for my wife to do her work at home and we don't have access to an ether net cable connection there (yet). But now I will by the 100 feet cable and will climb up to the attic and run the cable. Her computer on ether net direct to the router gives me 10 times the download speed (150). It's just a hassle. It was wishful thinking. Maybe before I return these 2 sets I bought fro $160$ bucks, I will try to get some ideas and troubleshooting from the Netgear Tech guys. We will see. That said, I like Netgear. My router is a Netgear.