Western Digital Live Wire Power Line AV Kit

Introduction:

Any media Junky, audiophile, or true technology enthusiast will tell you. When it comes to networking, wired is better. They are making vast improvements in wireless technology however, with more improvements, come more devices. Pair that knowledge with the interference from neighbors competing WiFi frequencies, and the only solution is to Wire your whole house. Unfortunately, this isn’t an option for people who are renting, don’t have a network guru in their back pocket, or don’t want to fork out the money to have it done professionally.

NEVER FEAR…Western digital Is here…

Today we have the Western Digital Livewire Powerline AV network kit. Lets see what Western Digital Has to say about it:

“Expand your home network instantly without running wires. Create high-speed Internet connections anywhere in your home without running wires between rooms. Just use your home’s electrical wiring to create a network.”

The technology for Powerline AV is not new, we have seen products from D-Link and Netgear Utilizing the same theory for years. What has Western Digital done to make this technology their own, and improve it?  Lets see if the Livewire can handle the juice.

Packaging:

 

The box is pretty neat looking it wraps up on itself and has a unique design. Packaging alone does not a good product make, but we do notice the small things.

 

The box contents are pretty straight forward. both ends of the unit, 1 ft power cables (standard 2 prong), and 1 foot network cables.

 

You can see the package did come with registration material, and a quick setup guide.

 

Features:

As easy as plugging in a lamp.

• Simply plug the adapters into your electrical outlets to create a high-speed network connection anywhere in your home. No tools needed. No holes in your walls.

The speed you need to stream HD.

• Media-optimized HomePlug AV technology offers up to 200 Mbps* performance for smooth HD video streaming over your network.

* 200 Mb/s is the ideal physical data rate. Network traffic, interference, building materials, and other conditions lower actual data throughput rate.

Expand your home network instantly without running wires.

• Create high-speed Internet connections anywhere in your home without running wires between rooms. Just use your home’s electrical wiring to create a network.

Multiple secure connections.

• A total of 8 ports means you can connect up to 7 devices and your router, all protected with 128-bit encryption.

Encrypted for security.

• The data transfer between the WD Livewire adapters is protected with the same 128-bit encryption that you trust for your online banking and shopping. And because the encryption is automatic, there’s no need to remember a password.

 

Specifications:

System Requirements

• Ethernet router
• AC power outlet

Compatibility

• HomePlug AV certified
• IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u compliant

Kit contains:

• Two 4-port HomePlug AV adapters
• Two Ethernet cables
• Two power cables
• Quick Install Guide
• CD with WD Livewire utility software
• Warranty and support guide

Hands on Testing:

Western digital included a very straightforward quick setup guide. According to the guide this device is as simple as it could get.

1. Plug it DIRECTLY into the power outlet (no power strips/surge supressors)
2. Plug one outlet(of the 4 on each unit) into your router
3. Plug the other end in to power
4. Press the sync Button on the unit
5. Press the sync Button on the other unit

PRESTO!!

Normally before I use a “user friendly” setup, I prefer to see the raw interface on the device. Especially when I have little faith that the device will function as I desire after running a sync, or one button config. This time I was supremely impressed, the sync button is almost exclusively the method for setting this device up. The software that western digital provides for the device is geared towards diagnostics and enhanced security. ( I touch on this more later). So i have this device that my five year old nephew could plug in and get started. But let’s see how it performs.

 

Test Setup:

I wanted to find out what this could do , so I set each of the two units on an exterior wall outlet at opposite ends of the house. With the primary unit plugged into my Trendnet TEW-691GR gigabit router I knew that the router would not be the bottleneck for the speed test. I also plugged the other end into my gigabit media center pc.

Once I was setup it took a total of three minutes for the Livewire to configure itself, and my pc to have an IP address. I was concerned that especially with the encryption options Western Digital was boasting that I would somehow have issue sharing file between my two PC’s. This was not the case.

I installed the Western Digital software to see what capabilities it had and i was pleasantly surprised. The installation was very fast and it offered real time status of the device. Using the software is also how you would enable the device encryption, or add a third powerline av device to the network.

Western Digital’s specs say the theoretical maximum speed for this device is 200 mb/s. When looking at the western digital interface you can see it is currently at 121MBps.

To test this I used Lan Speed Test. I transferred two files size 100 Mb and 200 Mb between my Desktop directly wired (via gigabit) to the router, and the media center connected to the Livewire. Here are the results.

 

For comparison I have included the results from my Gigabyte router testing here.

You can  see from the results the the WD Livewire performed at 18% of a gigabit – gigabit direct connection through the same router. The boasted theoretical speed of 200Mb/s which is 20% of 1000 Gigabit cat5e/6 capabilities. You can see that in real world testing, the WD live performs almost perfectly 20% of the speed of the gigabit connection. THIS IS AMAZING.

 

Conclusion:

In conclusion the WD Livewire performs miles better than I expected. I have seen friends and coworkers use other such devices and be none too pleased with the results for over a year. Western Digital brought their A game with this unit. In addition to being remarkably easy to set up, the unit provides a significant amount of functionality, with four lan ports on either side you can not only expand the capacity at your router by three, but you can plug up to four devices in at the other end. The unit can even be expanded to include other Powerline AV devices using Western Digital’s very simple to use software interface. When you factor all of this in with the speed performance and the media streaming capabilities I have no choice but to award this the Awesome Hardware award.