Review on 🏠 Transform Your Home Connectivity with Magic 2 WiFi Next - Whole Home Powerline Kit by Justin Woolley

Up front, it should be noted that PowerLine and mesh networks are significantly inferior to running Cat5/6 cables through the home. The assumption when looking at this point is that using Ethernet isn't really an option you want to explore. The idea behind the Devolo Magic 2 WiFi Next Kit is that you get a G.hn PowerLine adapter to place next to your router and two PowerLine/WAP combo adapters to place on the edges of your home . Importantly, for those unfamiliar with the PowerLine network, neither adapter is connected to a splitter, AVR, or UPS. Unlike mesh wireless networks, which require overlapping Wi-Fi bands, these adapters can be further apart. This kit was installed at my sister's house with a "simple" adapter where her cable modem and router are located. Other devices were plugged into other outlets in the room and then moved to the master bedroom and then upstairs. In terms of performance, the environment for PowerLine is pretty decent. The house was built in the early 2000s without electrical base cabinets. My sister's adapters pass 300 to 600 Mbps. That's fast, but well below the theoretical maximum. WAP is ok, but rely on internal antennas. It looks cleaner but I don't think the range will be as good as if you had a pair of external SMA antennas. The WiFi speed for various phones, tablets and IoT devices (TV, Fire Stick, etc.) is around 80-150Mbps, which is more than enough for video streaming, web browsing, etc. Bridged ethernet ports are handy for stationary devices such as a TV, PC, etc. I used PowerLine at my sister's house before the AV600 came out. G.hn is an incremental AV2 update which was the last iteration I installed there. It seems slightly faster, with better connection stability - combined with the convenience of built-in wireless access points. I don't think it's clearly stated on the product page, but the access points support 2.4 and 5 GHz 802.11ac (and below). Mesh networking is popular these days, but it's mostly about convenience, not performance. After all, it's easy to have living space that exceeds the effective coverage area of a single AP (and that's assuming you have the ability to place it in the right spot for maximum coverage). A mesh network gives you the convenience of an SSID and more coverage, but most implementations will cut your bandwidth in half (and more than double your latency) thanks to the number of onboard radios and the fact that the access point acts as a repeater. This kit only has access points that connect to your devices, leaving a backhaul for the (usually) faster and more reliable powerline network. If you can't use Ethernet for your access points, I think you should use PowerLine WAY before resorting to mesh. So the main question about this set is the cost - for that I'd say $290 is about right. There are some really good Comtrend/NexusLink kits and adapters that do the same job for less money. The advantage of Devolo is that it comes out of the box to work with TWO access points.