Powerline adaptors and boosters

[Howard]

Very happy with my PodPoint but I agree it is best to get a tethered charge lead. I didn't and it is a bore having to get the lead out and plug in both ends. It all worked fine for several months then started losing the wifi connection. I had an old repeater in a drawer which I put in the house near where the podpoint was installed outside and it is fine now. I have a mesh wifi system but the range did not quite reliably reach through the wall to the podpopint.

Yes, I hadn't thought about the process of plugging in both ends. It would be a nightmare for me as, to reach the charger, I'd have to lean against a potentially wet/muddy car which is parked close to the internal garage wall where the charger is fitted. With a tethered charger the cable is looped up onto the wall bracket fitted by the installer close to the car socket.

It's worth, if installing in a double garage, considering future needs and the possibility of two electric cars? I did think about changing my car to a BEV as well so, before installation, checked that the charger lead would reach both BEVs. A neighbour has to "juggle" their two electric cars to each use their outside charger. (And, yes, they are very heavy )

regards

Howard

[stewamax]

The latest breed of powerline adaptors are very good: if your purse will stand it go for the Devolo Magic 2 WiFi 6 (SKU 8813 and their compatible non-WiFi adaptors for attaching the router or a 'wired' PC). Modern phones will support WiFi 6, and although it will not at present be much faster for one device than WiFi 5, if you have lots of devices all wanting WiFi traffic, it will help.
Remember also that all powerline WiFi access points will also have at least one LAN (usually Gigabit) Ethernet socket for connecting a wired device such as a tower PC.
Finally, if you already use a modern WiFi repeater/extender in an already congested wireless area (multi-storey flats for example), you may be able to improve performance by also using a non-WiFi powerline adaptor to route the backhaul* traffic to the router instead of tying up a WiFi channel.

* i.e. wireless is only used to link the WiFi access point to the device

[Arborbridge]

Very happy with my PodPoint but I agree it is best to get a tethered charge lead. I didn't and it is a bore having to get the lead out and plug in both ends. It all worked fine for several months then started losing the wifi connection. I had an old repeater in a drawer which I put in the house near where the podpoint was installed outside and it is fine now. I have a mesh wifi system but the range did not quite reliably reach through the wall to the podpopint.

Very pertinent experience for me as I have three brick walls between the podpoint site and the BT hub. I believe there are other systems which offer both WiFi and mobile connection so that might be a possible option. Alternatively, I would be able to fit a smaller charger nearer to the hub and one less wall away.

Interesting you mention the mesh didn't work reliably either, as this was suggested as potentially a better method.

PS my powerline has dropped out for a couple of minutes at least once today but I can live with it.

Arb.

[Infrasonic]

PS my powerline has dropped out for a couple of minutes at least once today but I can live with it.
Arb.

AC mains wiring is very noisy, hence the generally poor throughput for PL.
If you've got 'noisy' switching appliances like fridges, microwaves, washing machines etc. then filtering them at source might help with the PL stability.

You have to careful with things like surge protection plugs though as that can mess up the PL signal. Some of the specialist smart home/networking sites have articles about what you can and can't do to improve PL stability with additional filtering measures.

[scrumpyjack]

Very happy with my PodPoint but I agree it is best to get a tethered charge lead. I didn't and it is a bore having to get the lead out and plug in both ends. It all worked fine for several months then started losing the wifi connection. I had an old repeater in a drawer which I put in the house near where the podpoint was installed outside and it is fine now. I have a mesh wifi system but the range did not quite reliably reach through the wall to the podpopint.

Very pertinent experience for me as I have three brick walls between the podpoint site and the BT hub. I believe there are other systems which offer both WiFi and mobile connection so that might be a possible option. Alternatively, I would be able to fit a smaller charger nearer to the hub and one less wall away.

Interesting you mention the mesh didn't work reliably either, as this was suggested as potentially a better method.

PS my powerline has dropped out for a couple of minutes at least once today but I can live with it.

Arb.

It's about 30 feet across a large room from the nearest Mesh saucer to the wall outside of which is the podpoint. So I just put the cheap repeater just inside the wall. It was able to pick up the Mesh signal and link with the podpoint the other side of the wall perfectly. If the Podpoint loses the wifi connection it still works but ignores any timing schedule you have, so does not take advantage of the cheap rate.

[BullDog]

Very happy with my PodPoint but I agree it is best to get a tethered charge lead. I didn't and it is a bore having to get the lead out and plug in both ends. It all worked fine for several months then started losing the wifi connection. I had an old repeater in a drawer which I put in the house near where the podpoint was installed outside and it is fine now. I have a mesh wifi system but the range did not quite reliably reach through the wall to the podpopint.

Very pertinent experience for me as I have three brick walls between the podpoint site and the BT hub. I believe there are other systems which offer both WiFi and mobile connection so that might be a possible option. Alternatively, I would be able to fit a smaller charger nearer to the hub and one less wall away.

Interesting you mention the mesh didn't work reliably either, as this was suggested as potentially a better method.

PS my powerline has dropped out for a couple of minutes at least once today but I can live with it.

Arb.

It's about 30 feet across a large room from the nearest Mesh saucer to the wall outside of which is the podpoint. So I just put the cheap repeater just inside the wall. It was able to pick up the Mesh signal and link with the podpoint the other side of the wall perfectly. If the Podpoint loses the wifi connection it still works but ignores any timing schedule you have, so does not take advantage of the cheap rate.

Another work around would be to set the charging schedule on the car rather than the charger.

[tsr2]

Well there was at least one poster on here who had issues with their BT mesh setup dropping connections all the time (including after firmware updates)...

That would be me. I replaced the BT mesh with a TP-LINK Deco M5 mesh, which has caused me very few issues. Once or twice it has been a bit flaky and running the optimise network function in the app has resolved the problem. It would be nice if it told me approximately what the issue it found was, but it's not vital.