Netgear Powerline AV500 Hy-Fi Ready Network Adapter Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,083 words · ~5 min read
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today i have an unboxing of an item that looks not very interesting a single
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power line adapter from netgear why is this cool
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well because it is compliant with the
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draft standard 1905.1 hi-fi or hybrid fidelity standard
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from qualcomm so what's interesting about that is that it is going to turn
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power line into something from something that's kind of niche uh requires
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multiple adapters and isn't really integrated with the rest of your network
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in a meaningful way it's going to turn that as well as wireless access points
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that operate on powerline and wireless range extenders into something that
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automatically provides fail safes automatically
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picks the optimal path for your network to travel in order to give you the best
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possible networking throughout your entire home so that sounds like very
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vague and very nebulous so what i'll do is i'll give you guys an example over
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here no i'm gonna bring it over don't worry here i have a 1905 compliant
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router so this router has your standard wired wireless interfaces and it has a
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plug that goes into the wall and turns your
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entire house into a power line ready network right here i have a completely
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the wrong brand power line adapter this is netgear
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the router that i have is d-link
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but it has the hi-fi software loaded on
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it which means that it can communicate with this in fact all hi-fi compliant
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devices will with one button
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configuration figure out how to communicate with each other in order to
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pick the best possible path so here here's my hypothetical network so i've
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plugged this into the wall i've got some computer plugged in here i've got a
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wireless uh phone here my phone is operating off of wireless and then i
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take this powerline adapter and i go plug it in somewhere else entirely okay
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so if i have all of my network devices enabled on say something like a notebook
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i it will go wi-fi automatically
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now with this software patch assuming all of my adapters and all of my equipment is
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compatible what it'll do is if i plug into here
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it'll automatically go over power line if i plug into a wire it'll
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automatically go over wired so what it'll do is it'll intelligently figure
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out the best possible path so if i have a tv let's say my tv has built-in wi-fi
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okay and then i have something else plugged in
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by Ethernet so it'll automatically go okay the
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quickest possible way the best possible way with the best signal is to go
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through Ethernet and then go wirelessly to the tv or it
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might decide that's not the best what if my house is really big and i have either
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a power line or some other kind of access point that or a range extender
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set up on my network your range extender as long as it's hi-fi ready
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your okay get this your router will know
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to take the wired signal and pass it not directly to the tv but
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to the enabled range extender which will then pass it to the tv if that is the
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strongest signal that it can achieve so that's what's cool about this it will
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allow us to take power line which i'm a huge advocate of if you guys watch any
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of my videos you probably already know that and turn it into something that
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works seamlessly between manufacturers right now the only way to set up
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powerline is you go Ethernet cable from the back of your router into a power
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line adapter power line adapter into the wall and
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then you have another power line adapter somewhere else that goes out with an Ethernet cable to something else well
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now we're taking out one of them so we're reducing the overall cost of
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implementation for powerline and we're making it more interoperable so you
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don't have to worry about oh if i buy this powerline adapter now and i want to expand my network later and i can't get
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it anymore it's not going to be compatible you don't have to think about that anymore as long as it's 1905
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compliant then you'll be able to use completely
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mismatched hardware like this and build your network in a way that is
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seamlessly upgradable and intelligently decides what is the fastest way to move
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your data around that seems like a very good thing to me and since this is
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technically an unboxing of the powerline av500 adapter i should probably talk
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about this guy a little bit it's got a gigabit connection on it and
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that's not necessarily something you might consider relevant but it is
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because even though it's only a 500 megabit per second power line adapter
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many 500 megabit per second power line adapters and 200 megabit per second
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power line adapters include only 100 ports which means that unless you're
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using multiple adapters in which case it behaves more like a hub you are actually
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going to be limited by this port rather than by the power line interface itself
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so why would you need a 500 megabit per second power line adapter well if you
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wanted to stream multimedia multiple hd streams and have a gigabit connection
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you would need that otherwise a 200 megabit per second connection is
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probably fine you can actually stream hd over 200 megabit just fine as long as
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you aren't running multiple powerline adapters because like i said multiple
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powerline adapters will act as a hub so
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that means that instead of sending the data only where it goes
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powerline will actually transmit the data to every node on the network and so
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you can end up with a lot of overhead if you have a whole bunch of powerline
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devices so i'd say anywhere from you know two to probably around five is
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about all you really want to do although most households won't need much more
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than that so thank you for checking out my unboxing of the powerline av 500
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adapter don't forget to subscribe flyers tech tips from unboxings reviews and
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other computer videos