Devolo dLAN 200AV Wireless N review

Devolo’s dLAN 200AV Wireless N Starter Kit includes two HomePlug devices. One is a single-port plug to connect to your broadband router, while the other has three LAN ports as well as wireless. You can plug this into a socket far from your router to extend its wireless range, and it gives you a choice of wired or wireless connections.

As with most HomePlug devices, initial setup is easy – you plug both units in and press the button on each. Once the HomePlug icon lights up, your network is set up and secured. The wireless setup information is on the bottom of the wireless unit. There are two MAC addresses – one for the physical LAN and one for wireless – plus a security code. This code is the password for the wireless network, as it’s secured by default with WPA2.

The kit also comes with a CD containing Devolo’s Windows control panel, the dLAN Cockpit. From here you can change the settings of all Devolo HomePlug adaptors attached to your network. There’s a network-accessible configuration page, but you must be connected via one of the Ethernet ports to make changes to the wireless configuration.

Wireless options are sparse, but you’ll do most of your network administration through your router’s configuration interface. You can change the default SSID, the pre-defined password and the security type. This interface also provides one-touch Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS).

There’s a basic MAC address filter and a tool for scheduling when the wireless LAN is available, although for this to work you’ll also have to configure the dLAN 200AV to verify the time with a time server periodically. The default server worked fine, and there are more at www.ntp.org.

Speed over the HomePlug network wasn’t as fast as we’d hoped, at 52Mbit/s, and wireless speeds were average, with 35Mbit/s at 1m and 24Mbit/s at 10m. There’s no option for channel-bonding or Greenfield mode – both of which can increase speeds if there’s little interference from other devices.

As a starter kit, the dLAN 200AV offers a lot of flexibility, but it’s not fast. If you don’t need wireless as well as three LAN ports a cheaper kit may suffice – the Solwise PL-200AV-PIGGY Mk2 and NET-PL-200AV-3PE make good alternatives and achieve faster throughput.