6 votes

Wireless bridge or Powerline?

Posted by tomf
Tags: ask.recommendations, tech support

I have an HTPC (a shitty asRock beebox) away from my main router and all. For the most part the wireless signal is fine, but it can act up at times or completely cut out.

The design of the beebox is bad for wireless. I get a more consistent connection running from USB C > USB hub > USB Wireless stick -- but it still isn't great.

I'm thinking I should just bit the bullet and use ethernet. Would it be better to go with powerline or a wireless bridge for this? The reviews for powerline stuff are all over the board.

The HTPC pulls everything off the LAN, so outside speeds are about 99% irrelevant. The most it'll ever pull is metadata for Kodi's library, and even then it doesn't pull a lot.

Which is best? I'm running an RT AC68U running Merlin if that matters. I also saw a lot of gripes re: the AI Mesh stuff.

5 comments

  1. [3]
    spiffytech
    Link
    Powerline can be hit or miss depending on the quality of your home's electrical setup and on what path through electrical components the signal takes between devices. It's always worked for me,...

    Powerline can be hit or miss depending on the quality of your home's electrical setup and on what path through electrical components the signal takes between devices. It's always worked for me, but speeds (even internal) are sometimes great and sometimes pretty disappointing.

    9 votes
    1. arghdos
      Link Parent
      Second this. I’ve used one in an old home (where I get great latency, but barely a tenth of my total DL speed) and a brand new home (where it was almost perfect)

      Second this. I’ve used one in an old home (where I get great latency, but barely a tenth of my total DL speed) and a brand new home (where it was almost perfect)

      3 votes
    2. tomf
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      ok cool. I had no idea this was a thing. I'm going to give it a swing. The reviews are all over the place. thanks also @mat and @JXM! edit: I ordered the TP-Link AV2000 -- we'll see how it goes :)

      ok cool. I had no idea this was a thing. I'm going to give it a swing. The reviews are all over the place.

      thanks also @mat and @JXM!

      edit: I ordered the TP-Link AV2000 -- we'll see how it goes :)

      2 votes
  2. mat
    Link
    Powerline. It's cheap, reliable and fast and doesn't eat a bunch of your available wifi bandwidth which a bridge does. Buy a reputable brand like TP-link or Belkin or something and you'll be fine....

    Powerline. It's cheap, reliable and fast and doesn't eat a bunch of your available wifi bandwidth which a bridge does. Buy a reputable brand like TP-link or Belkin or something and you'll be fine. Half my house's network infrastructure runs over powerline and I've never had an issue.

    4 votes
  3. JXM
    Link
    If you're just pulling video files, then you can most likely get away with wireless as long as you get a strong signal. Unless you're streaming full 50 GB direct Blu-ray rips, you should be fine....

    If you're just pulling video files, then you can most likely get away with wireless as long as you get a strong signal. Unless you're streaming full 50 GB direct Blu-ray rips, you should be fine. It may take a second or two longer to buffer but even AC wifi is still more than enough bandwidth-wise for a high quality HD stream.

    1 vote