TL-PA4010 KIT AV600 Powerline Adapter Starter Kit, HomePlug AV Powerline Network Adapters, Up to 600Mbps, 1× Fast Ethernet Port, Plug & Play, Energy Saving Mode, 300M Range

The basic simplest 600Mbps TP-Link PA4010 Powerline kit works a treat; we didn’t need pass through sockets, nor extra WiFi, nor gigabit speeds, just enough bandwidth for a POE camera. Initially I plugged my quartet into adjacent sockets, let them synchronise with the pairing buttons, and then moved the distant ones to their new homes and it all just worked. So simple. Wonderful. Secure. And WiFi can be OFF. If one wishes to make the system more secure than the default, or to change the names or passwords on each unit, or to add more units into the power line, or to change the priority mapping, or to monitor QoS (Quality of Service) etc, then one can download a full pdf User Manual and a Management Utility that can run on the PC. This also allows one to upgrade the firmware etc in the devices when TP-Link produce updates. I wanted to connect an IP security camera on a garden shed to the network, but the wifi from the house was not good enough, too far away, and adding another Ethernet cable was going to be a nightmare. Hence this network extender to add to an existing pair. It matters that they are on the same ring main because the signal does not seem to pass at a high enough speed through the MCBs in the fuse box. So the initial units are using normal 13A sockets on the downstairs ring main and the last is on the spur in the shed, full speed, no problems even though the shed is about sixty feet of wire away. I've not noticed any interference on any other equipment, nor has anything else interfered with this net connection. It was supplied with some microscopic paper instructions, but these are not really necessary as the pairing by pressing the button simply just worked as expected. There are three LEDs on each unit; power, Powerline, Ethernet, and the steady on or off or blinking and colours are intuitive. Note that if a standard network switch is added to a distant Ethernet extender port then the power saving mode will not happen, because even if nothing is happening on the switch it will still be polled by the router and will keep the Powerline awake.

I purchased both a TL-WPA4220KIT and TL-PA4010KIT as part of the same home WiFi solution. As such, I have given the same review for both purchases. We have a long thin Victorian house with a BT HomeHub-5 in the front lounge. We have a ‘copper’ connection to the BT exchange as fibre is not available in our area of London yet. That said, we usually get a reasonable 9-10Mbps connection. Our problem is that we cannot get usable WiFi coverage in the kitchen at the rear of the house. We initially tried to use WiFi signal extenders but these proved slow and unreliable. So, about 3 years ago I purchased an AV500 PowerLine solution from SAGEMCOM. This included a PowerLine WiFi extender in the kitchen. This proved to be adequate though we did need to reset all of the adapters about once a month when things ‘locked up’. Then, a month ago, the WiFi adapter in the kitchen handed in its cards and died. Thinking I would try for a higher-tech solution I purchased a WiFi Mesh solution on Amazon. However, this proved to be a complete disaster being slow and totally unreliable. I suspect this was due to the requirement for overlapping WiFi signals between the nodes. So, it was back to the drawing board and I returned to the tried and tested PowerLine solution. I chose these AV600 kits as I have always liked TP-Link products and found them dependable and reliable. As such, in total, we have 3 x TL-PA4010 mini PowerLine adapters and a TL-WPA4220 WiFi extender (in the kitchen). One of the mini adapters in located in the lounge and is connected with a LAN cable to the BT router. The other 2 adapters are in the bedroom. One is connected to a BT YouView box and the other to a Roberts Internet Radio (neither of which support WiFi). A secure network was made by connecting all 4 units in turn by use of the ‘pair’ buttons. All then burst into life and worked fine. The WiFi extender was using its factory SSID and password. I successfully tried changing this by logging onto its admin screens using a browser (you will need to know its IP address to do this – I picked it up from the BT Hub setup menus). Then, I used the ‘WPS’ method to clone the BT Hub SSID and password by, temporarily, moving the extender to the lounge and following the easy ‘quick setup’ guide. This worked a treat and everything has now worked without hiccup for over a month. I have had previous issues with cloned SSID’s - with mobile devices getting confused when connecting. However, thus far, we have not had any problems and devices switch between the BT router and TP-Link extender (as we move around the house) without issues. That was a pleasant surprise! I did get the tpPLC android app for my mobile and its quite informative. It has a poor rating in the Google Play Store but this is IMHO, unjustified. It has no whistles and bells or astounding graphics but it does a job simply and well. I can see the status of all adapters and the speed of communication between each one. I seem to be getting a respectable 380-450 Mbps between each device except when they are idling and the communication rate drops to, I presume, a default 11 Mbps. The app also allows you to rename the devices (which may be useful for any future trouble shooting) and it can used (apparently) for firmware upgrades. Alas, it cannot be used to restart devices (it only allows a factory reset). Nor, can it be used for changing the settings (SSID ID etc) on the extender – this can only be achieved by ‘browser’ access. So, we are pleased. This solution is (thus far) reliable and is reasonably priced. It is also easy to set up (though my prior experience in this area helped) and it’s a step up from our old SAGEMCOM PowerLine solution. Had BT supplied us with a higher speed ‘fibre’ internet connection, I would have gone for say, an AV1200 setup with dual band WiFi. As it is, this meets our needs. Also, if you have a shortage of mains outlets in your house, you may want to opt for more expensive ‘mains pass-through’ adapters. NOTE. I see there are a number of debates on Amazon regarding the reliability of PowerLine solutions. ie. Some people are extremely happy while others have persistent problems. This is not peculiar to TP-Link products. Based on my experience, I would suspect that performance is directly related to the state of the house mains wiring. Our house has recently been rewired which not only improves (and reduces the number of) connections, but potentially shortens cable runs too. As such, unfortunately, a PowerLine solution may not be ideal for everyone - particularly in some older houses with extensions and complications added over the years. You may need to 'suck it and see' to decide if it works for you.

There are many powerline adapters out there, but what makes these a bit special is their very compact size. In my case this allows one to fit behind my wall-mounted TV, where other adapters just wouldn't. They are very simple to use. You can use them straight out of the box or if you'd like the traffic between the two adapters to be encrypted, you just have to push the "Pair" button on each adapter. The only negative and why I've deducted a star, is that, as noted by another reviewer, they only seem to last about 4 years before becoming unreliable and needing to be replaced. They aren't massively expensive and so this isn't a show-stopper for me. But still a shame from a "green" point of view that they don't last a bit longer.

Works perfectly! The signal is good and connects all the way to my outbuilding in the garden over 18m away where other extenders have failed - three times a charm! The set up was very simple too, box comes with everything you need and it’s quite literally just plug and play. Would recommend to anyone looking for a reliable extender.

excellent product - easily installed - perfect

I've had CAT3 running through the ducting in our house for the last 7-8 years and recently I needed to up the speed due to increases in use and faster devices, CAT3 is diabolically slow. I've been researching these types of devices for quite some time and finally took the plunge. At home I have 17 network devices at home, 3 routers and several small switch boxes, the cabling is used to join the rooms together, so I needed a way to bypass all that cabling and simply isolate the devices to their local switches. I needed a minimum of 4 devices all able to talk to each other. What can I say, they work absolutely perfectly! I bought 2 pairs of units and and few CAT6 patch leads ( got them cheap as Amazon additional items ) and it took me about 5 mins to plug these in, sync all 4 units together and the network was back up and running. ( You can have up to 16 such devices on the same network with this model of unit. ) I couldn't believe how easy it was to get these working. The trick is get one in and then sync the other units to it one by one, checking as you go until they're all talking to each other. Don't plug them all in at once, do them one at a time. The biggest advantage is that unlike cable, if you remove one of these items from the network the other units that are left carry on talking to each other. Having to remove a chunk of devices from the network previously would cripple the network for everyone as there was no way to carry on on communicating, with these little gems carrying the comms from room to room I can simply unplug if I need to and it doesn't stop anyone else reaching the primary internet router as these these beauties just "route around" the missing main unit that's been taken out. While they don't reach gigabit speed they're do work pretty damn fast and after having to put up with CAT3 speed for so long, these are a huge boost to speed between my devices.

I'm using this to get from my living room to a room upstairs that's a WiFi black spot for a gaming PC. I am using the receiver it on a multi-gang extension cable (recommended straight into the wall), transmitter straight into the wall, but across two different ring mains (recommended to use one ring) on the same consumer unit. When connected the connection is fast and reliable, I can get the full speed of my fibre provider. In use it has never dropped out. However, occasionally, when I boot my PC from cold (it is off by default) I get no network and need to unplug, wait and re-plug the receiver to get connected. Not a show stopping problem as it is on my desk, and I don't need to re-pair the two, but this happens often enough to warrant 3 rather than 4 stars. Update: When my computer goes into sleep mode, or low power mode I completly loose network connection, and need to un-plug and plug in again. I am getting close to making a longer ethernet cable and going straight into the wall socket to see if that helps.

Did the job brilliantly