ZyXEL 500 Mbps Mini Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit (PLA4201KIT)

These little devices are amazing! Plug one into the wall, wire it up to the router, plug the other in, wire it where you wish, and you're done! It takes a while (a few hours or so) for them to reach full speeds. When they first connected I ran speed tests (through my network to an outside server) and it maxed around 2 Mbps, but after a few hours I easily hit 22 Mbps (the max speed of our internet connection) and I'm sure they were communicating at much higher speeds, I didn't bother to check actual speeds in house after my internet connection was in full swing.The software packaged with them is nothing short of terrible to install. If you get errors about WinPCap, just Google that name and download the latest version. That should solve the problem and let you continue the install. Once running, the software lets you interface with the devices for more advanced functions, but that is not a requirement. The software is also Windows specific. This clunky software is not enough to make me mark down from 5 stars though, they're really great things to have and don't need to be configured at all to work on a basic level.EDIT 9/12/2013Modified a few lines in response to some comments (specifically network speed vs internet connection speed and MB/s vs Mbps). Had them for a while now and they've worked great, far superior to the Cicso Network Extender they were bought to replace which regularly brought down our WiFi. I lent them to my father for a while who also had a pair to add a third line to his system (he only needed one of them). He'd set them up on a named network with the software, a step of setup I didn't bother with. When taking them back to my new place, I just plugged them in, held the reset button for 12 seconds to factory reset, hooked up my lines and I was back in business. I'm in love with these things, highly recommended.

I bought this product for an apartment where a wire could not be ran from one area to another. Wireless would have worked but was not sufficient for streaming videos from one computer to another so I figured I would give this a try. After attempting to pair them once or twice I ended up getting them to work and got my advertised speed from the ISP and an excellent intranet speed as well.The reason this product did not get 5 stars from me was the "instructions" were not very clear at all what needed to be done and following another customer's review on this product helped me get them going.to get this product to work:1. Plug a live ethernet cable into each unit (I plugged them directly into the router)2. Plug your "source" (the adapter you don't plan on moving) into the wall3. Plug your "receiver" (the adapter you plan on moving) into the same outlet4. I pressed and held the reset button on each of them and held it for 2 seconds (not sure if this is part of the process required to make them work but it worked for me)5. After seeing the activity light blink on both of them for a couple minutes I moved the "receiver" into the new area and plugged it in and voila a fast internet connection is now available.It should be noted that these must plug DIRECTLY into the wall as a surge protector and even a power strip might cause these not to workThis is a good product and I recommend anyone who has a similar situation where wireless is not an option for the area they are trying to bring internet to.

Ok, I've scrapped my initial review of this product altogether. I had initially given the product good marks, but after a few days living with it, I'd almost rather go back to having a cable running across the living room floor from my office. This piece is marketed as being capable of bandwidth "up to" 500 Megabits per second. Having a look at the product "literature" and the retail box it comes in, it's touted as 40% faster than previous generation 200Mb models. Wait a second... that's some fuzzy math that even I don't get. So lets see, 200 + (200 * .4)=500? How's that go?The product does indeed provide a connection between devices using Powerline Networking, but I couldn't get anywhere near the advertised 500Mb using the product to connect two Gigabit devices. I tried setting them up on the same outlet, on the same circuit but different outlet, different circuit in the same room, different circuits in different rooms, all pretty much with the same or worse results. I couldn't even get a quarter of the advertised speed. Moving the devices around my house (a modest Ranch with all solid copper), to determine if it was a circuit length/load/noise problem, the best I was able to get was about 40Mb/s. Installed where I need them, I get 25 to 30 Mbps. Meanwhile, the utility found on the CD that comes with the devices shows the available speed as about 120Mb in each direction.Regardless of where I place them, the one closest to my desktop shows all green lights, but the "remote" unit will change the HomePlug/Powerline status light to amber or red randomly throughout the day. It does this regardless of physical or electrical proximity of the devices. It also doesn't matter if I switch them; whichever is closest to my PC has all green lights, the remote indicates degraded connectivity.Back to that utility. It often changes it's mind about the available bandwidth of the devices, too. Random, wild swings in the indicated bandwidth happen without provocation. No load changes on the circuits, no A/C coming on nearby, no water heater cycling on. No perceivable or controllable force or event has happened, but the utility indicates that something has changed. There must be some flux in "the force".So, after all that....Would I recommend them. Absolutely not.Will I send them back? No, but only because I'm lazy.I'd suggest you instead buy a product from a more recognized consumer networking equipment line.