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Edimax’s 500Mbit/s HomePlug AV adaptors are the smallest powerline adapters we’ve seen yet, and unlike the Solwise NET-PL-500AV-PIGGY and the Devolo dLAN 500 AVplus are small enough to fit easily next to other plugs in a four-way adaptor. The small size comes at a price – unlike the Solwise and Devolo adaptors, there aren’t pass-through sockets which let you plug other electrical devices into them.
There are two adaptors in the kit along with a couple of network cables, and if you’re just connecting the two adaptors in the box together, setup is simple; a push of the button on the bottom of each adaptor sets up a secure connection. If you’re connecting to adaptors from other manufacturers which also conform to the HomePlug AV standard, you’ll need to use a utility to give each adaptor on your network the same password. There’s a CD with the Power Pack utility in the box; this is fairly clunky, but we’ve yet to see a HomePlug AV adaptor it doesn’t recognise.
At very close range, the HP-5001K performed identically to both the Devolo and Solwise 500Mbit/s HomePlug adaptors, with 139.81Mbit/s – this is quicker than 10/100 Ethernet, so you’ll need a Gigabit router and Gigabit Ethernet adaptors in your PCs to take advantage of the speeds. At 10m range across an electrically-busy lab we saw 50.4Mbit/s from Edimax’s adaptor – again, similar enough to the Solwise and Devolo plugs to show they’re most likely based on the same chipsets.
Edimax’s HP-5001K kit is fast and good value. For the same price you could have two of the Solwise NET-PL-500AV-PIGGY adaptors with their electrical pass-through sockets, but if you’re after a more compact set Edimax’s kit is a good buy.
