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Customer Reviews for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Model: WDBABY0000NBK-NESN
SKU: 1221566
UPC: 718037764603
Easily extend Internet capability via your home's electrical outlets with this A/V network kit that features 2 adapters with 4 ports for connecting your router and 7 Internet-connected devices.
Average Customer Rating:
4.5
out of 5
(16 Reviews) 16
Rating Snapshot 16 reviews
5 stars
13
4 stars
1
3 stars
0
2 stars
1
1 star
1
88% of customers would recommend this product to a friend
(
14 out of
16)
Customer Reviews for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Review 1 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
This product works great!
Customer Rating
5.0
What's great about it: Very easy to set up.
What's not so great: Nothing!
This product works exactly as they said it would. I wanted to hook up a blueray player in the basement den, which has no cable or Wi-fi signal. I wasn't sure if this product would work, or if the internet signal would be strong enough. It was so simple to hook up and works great! I would absolutely recommend this product for areas of your house that don't have an internet signal.
This product has... Fast connection, Reliable connection
About me... Budget Conscious, Business Professional
I would recommend this to a friend!
I use it in...:Small home
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 2 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Perfect in my Setup
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy setup, Video Streaming over internet or network, great for devices that lack wireless.
What's not so great: Only 2 cables included and they are too short.
I have a 12mb internet connection and with wireless I usually get anywhere from 8-10mb. The speed varies a lot in tests and is never a steady number. This creates inconsistent streaming quality on video playback and sometimes buffering with HD content. Buying a long ethernet cable would have been a cheaper solution, but I did not want to have wires running through the house. After reading reviews on the WD Livewire I decided to purchase it to see if it would solve my issues.
I hooked it up today and it was very easy to get setup and running. Once I had it going I did a speed test online and was able to get a solid 11.4mb of speed. The nice thing about seeing the test run was the speed was consistent at one value over the whole test as opposed to the variance I was seeing over wireless. Needless to say the video playback is solid and does not drop in quality or "stutter" like it would over my wireless. The other big thing, no more buffering issues when streaming content in HD.
Depending on the age of the wires in your house and distance between the boxes you will get different results. Knowing that even with wired ethernet connections you do not always get the maximum amount of bandwith you pay for, the fact that I am getting 95% of my speed makes this well worth the money to me. More importantly, even if you do not get 95% of your speed, you are getting a much more steady and consistent connection as opposed to wireless. This makes a big difference when you are streaming video, especially HD, over the internet or from a network storage device.
I currently have the WD hooked up to my Boxee Box but will be adding my Directv receiver and Panasonic TV both of which are not wireless. Since each box has 4 ethernet ports getting connected with other devices is pretty easy. I should note there are only two ethernet cables included and they are not very long, looks like 3 feet to me. I already had some 6ft cables so this was not a big deal just something to be aware of that you may need to buy.
This product has... Fast connection, Secure connection, Easy to set up, Reliable connection, Easily expanded
About me... Heavy media streamer, Technology guru
I would recommend this to a friend!
I use it in...:Small home
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 3 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Excellent Compliment to WD TV
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: Stiles17
from New Hampshire
on 11/25/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Reliable, efficient, no dedicated network cabling required.
What's not so great: The technology can't keep up with the high data rate of dedicated network cables. That's just the way it is.
This is an excellent compliment to any of the WD TV lineup. There really isn't much to say about it other than it is your typical powerline networking standard. Though the technology is relatively simple it is brilliant in that it allows transmission of data at high rates which is required for video streaming. It allows you to put your peripherals (WD TV) anywhere there is a "clean" electrical outlet. By "clean" I mean the Live Wire is not plugged into a power strip. Many power strips filter the power which in turn degrades your power line signal, and in some, if not most cases, prevents the device from working at all. The Live Wire allows you to put your WD TV wherever you want without the need for dedicated Ethernet (network) cables.
As an example, my system runs like this. Keep in mind that I view my data as very important so I have it setup in a redundant array. In other words, I have a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks). SO...here's how the rabbit hole goes from my computer office to my home theater downstairs:
1.) Data is stored on my RAID setup in my computer. I take which files I want and copy them onto the WD TV which is on the network. On my network it's called WDTVLIVEHUB. I copy the files (say, video files) into the "Video" directory in the WDTVLIVEHUB on the network.
2. This copying is done via the Live Wire setup. Data is transferred from my computer through an Ethernet wire to the Live Wire device. The data is transferred through the electrical plug of the Live Wire then is transferred to the actual WD TV downstairs in my living room by coming out of THAT electrical plug (the secondary Live Wire device), and out yet another Ethernet cable that is connected to the back of the WD TV.
That's it. It's pretty simple data transmission and offers pretty darn good data transfer rate. It is not has good as dedicated Ethernet cables, but if that were the case and you were using them, you wouldn't need the Live Wire!
Money well spent and it adds a whole new realm of dynamics to the WD TV series. Highly recommended.
This product has... Fast connection, Easy to set up, Reliable connection, security is part of your network not this device.
About me... Heavy media streamer, Technology guru, i'm a clinical scientist. details matter.
I would recommend this to a friend!
I use it in...:Large home
+4points
4out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 4 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Works as advertised
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Simple set up, good price
What's not so great: I wish they sold single Powerline boxes so I wouldn't have to buy a whole new set if i want to add on.
Super simple set up, just plug in and away you go. I've had no issues thus far with this product. it's so nice to have a wired connection in the bedroom for streaming HD movies to my Apple TV.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 5 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Finally, a Powerline adapter that works!
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Performance.
What's not so great: runs a little warm.
After trying mulitple products to transmit data over electrical lines, I found one that works. Several of the Netgear and belkin products tried provided poor overall results. Although they were good enough to do basic websurfing and email, they were not able to stream HD video or transfer large files.
I tested many different adapters and tried connecting them to different outlets. I initially hooked both adapters to the same extension cord (results were 85% of incoming signal - 33Mbps) and walked the adapters from an electrical outlet farther away, each timing seeing a hit in performance. I continued to walk the adpater away from the router trying to get to the end destination were I want to hard wire a TV, BD player, and A/V receiver. By the time I hit the outlet with those items connected, performance was typically down to 5-12% of orignal signal (1.5 - 5 Mbps). This is not enough to stream HD movies.
Just when i though I was going to have to get in the attic and run Cat5 wire over cathedral ceilings, I found the WD mentioned on a forum. I found the item in store at a local Best Buy and decided I would give it one last go. I hooked it straight to the final destination right out of the box and tested it. BD player gets 17.1 Mbps, TV is getting 16.9 Mbps. More than enough to do what I need.
The WDLiveWire adapter, as CNET reviews stated, is the best adapter on the market today. My testing confirmed that.
Strange that a company not know for networking has created a better product than those companies that live in the networking realm.
I tested many different adapters and tried connecting them to different outlets. I initially hooked both adapters to the same extension cord (results were 85% of incoming signal - 33Mbps) and walked the adapters from an electrical outlet farther away, each timing seeing a hit in performance. I continued to walk the adpater away from the router trying to get to the end destination were I want to hard wire a TV, BD player, and A/V receiver. By the time I hit the outlet with those items connected, performance was typically down to 5-12% of orignal signal (1.5 - 5 Mbps). This is not enough to stream HD movies.
Just when i though I was going to have to get in the attic and run Cat5 wire over cathedral ceilings, I found the WD mentioned on a forum. I found the item in store at a local Best Buy and decided I would give it one last go. I hooked it straight to the final destination right out of the box and tested it. BD player gets 17.1 Mbps, TV is getting 16.9 Mbps. More than enough to do what I need.
The WDLiveWire adapter, as CNET reviews stated, is the best adapter on the market today. My testing confirmed that.
Strange that a company not know for networking has created a better product than those companies that live in the networking realm.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+9points
9out of 9found this review helpful.
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Review 6 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Great product!
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
4.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to use product and simple.
What's not so great: Price.
Have a 25meg cable connection and very little lag if any. Much better than WiFi.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 7 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Excellent product!
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy set up, good price, works well
What's not so great: nothing
Item was easy to install and works like a charm! I've had it for about 60 days now and have not experienced any issues.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+8points
8out of 8found this review helpful.
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Review 8 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Easy and fast
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: Msaguiar
from Brazil
on 02/05/2011
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy Set Up
Really easy to set up and works really fine. Definatelly recommended!
I would recommend this to a friend!
+4points
4out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 9 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Doing what I got it for.
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: panzar2
from Milford,PA
on 02/02/2011
What's great about it: It just works!
Held my breath while installing. No problem,working like charm. Now streaming Netflix on the other end of my home from router with no problem.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+4points
4out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 10 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Good value
Customer Rating
4.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Performance
2.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: They work right out of the box
What's not so great: Very frustrating after a power failure to get them working again.
This product was so easy to install that I immediately ordered two more. It was just plug them in and they worked where my wireless network would not reach in the house. I connected laptops, an Apple TV, a receiver, and a blu-ray player and everything worked great. Then, one day there was a power interruption and they all stopped working. After several hours of trying to use the included utility to recognize the units and add them to the network, I was totally frustrated and just unplugged them all. A couple of days later, I plugged them all back in and waalaaah, they worked again! I have no idea why.
The Powerline Utility software is extremely unreliable. It does not recognize the units consistently, even when they are working and online. When I try to add a device and enter the password, it always tells me that the password is invalid, even though I enter them very carefully multiple times. It always says it cannot add the dev ice to the network, but in the next scan, it recognizes the device with a different name than what I entered and no password. Then in subsequent scans, it may find it again and it may not. It never finds the device connected at the computer, even when it is working. Frustrating, but now I rely on my network software and ignore the Powerline Utility.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+4points
5out of 6found this review helpful.
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Review 11 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Beware Mac Users
Customer Rating
2.0
Value for Price
3.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Performance
4.0
Ease of Installation
1.0
What's great about it: Speedy
What's not so great: No encryption for Mac
Beware Mac users there is no Mac software to take advantage of the encryption feature. WD is usually supportive of Mac, but not in this case. I even tried accessing the encryption via Parallels / Windows with no luck.
I ended up returning this item.
I will say that they did connect and had good speed, but without the encryption it made no sense to me.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-4points
1out of 6found this review helpful.
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Review 12 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Works like magic!
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: bhype1
on 01/22/2011
This is truly plug and play. I needed a stable connection between my LG 55lx9500 HDTV and my router 30 feet away in another room. Bought the WD powerline instead of the wireless dongle. After emptying the box of the contents, I was up and running in about 5 minutes! Works like magic and I am able to stream hd content from Netflix to my TV without any loss of connection or bufferring. Wish I would have found this technology sooner.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+5points
5out of 5found this review helpful.
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Review 13 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
just not the speed I need
Customer Rating
1.0
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Performance
1.0
Ease of Installation
3.0
What's great about it: ease of setup
What's not so great: speed was lousy
I was trying to hook up a ps3 and run mp4 from a nas and just did not get the speed I needed. It would jump and stutter. Setup was easy, took about 5mins.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-9points
0out of 9found this review helpful.
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Review 14 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
great alternative to wireless
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: it works great !!!
What's not so great: that i couldn't get them years ago
i live in a stone building built in the 1700's with wiring about as old as thomas edison and these work great. i have computors, game consols, dvd players and tv's everywhare, i spent a lot of money on wireless setups that barely worked. these are truely plug and play. i bought two sets and had them up and running in a matter of a few minutes...everything communicating with everything else, even my old windows '98 and xp units that i built years ago......no lag, no drop outs, no freeze ups.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+6points
6out of 6found this review helpful.
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Review 15 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Outstanding Piece of Gear
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
After attempting to connect my Xbox to my existing home network using a powerline adaptor from NetGear with extremely mixed results, I settled on the Westen Digital LiveWire Adaptor.
Set-up was a breeze and I can now connect everything in my home to one network without running CAT-5 everywhere. I am currently using only one port on the receiver; however, I intend to add additional devices such as my Blu-Ray Player and a Home Theatre PC. If all goes as well as it did when connecting the Xbox, life will be good!!! Thanks to Western Digital for a great product!!!
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 16 for Western Digital Livewire Powerline A/V Network Kit
Great product!
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to install, fast connection speeds
What's not so great: That I didn't get it sooner!
We had a wireless bridge connecting our Xbox 360 to our network. This worked, but it was slow. Added a DirecTV HD Receiver and Bluray player, so now we needed more connections.
Found this product with four Ethernet connections and wanted to give it a try. Ordered online and got my package quickly.
Took it out of the box and saw two identical units, each with four Ethernet ports and a power plug. Connected one unit to my Wireless router and plugged the power into the wall plug. Went into the living room and connected the Xbox 360, DirecTV HD Receiver, and the Bluray player to the other unit and plugged it into the wall outlet. Everything worked right away. Didn't touch anything else.
You get two short Ethernet cables with this item, I had several longer cables on hand to complete my install. Been running since Christmas Eve without any issues. I've watched online videos via the Bluray and streamed HD content from the receiver to my laptop with no issues.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+11points
11out of 11found this review helpful.
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