Club Benefits
There's an effective way to get Wi-Fi coverage throughout your home, and that's with the best powerline extenders. Transforming a house's existing electrical wiring into a high-speed internet network, these handy devices can give your Wi-Fi router the range boost it deserves — without needing a Wi-Fi extender or upgrading to a mesh router.
Unlike other networking devices, the best powerline extenders are incredibly simple to use. You just plug one of two small boxes into an outlet near your router and connect it using an Ethernet cable, then you plug in the other into an outlet where you want to extend your internet. From there, you just connect your laptop, desktop or any other hardwired device using another Ethernet cable. That's an easy win for speedy internet!
Meet our tester
Brian comes with expert knowledge on all things wireless data, testing networking gear to get the best internet coverage, no matter the space. That includes testing and reviewing powerline extenders to take Wi-Fi even further than it's initially meant, making sure they offer a simple setup, plenty of range and a price tag that works. If you're after the best, Brian's got just the recommendations.
The best powerline extenders you can buy today
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The best powerline extender overall
The Netgear PLP2000’s superior throughput makes it an easy choice as the best powerline adapter to grab. You may find another with extended range (TP-Link’s TL-PA9020P further down), but with the ability to move more data, the PLP2000 outperformed the crowd and filled a previously unconnected garage with more than enough data to watch videos, play games and live online.
It may be one of the largest PL extenders available and not include a monitoring utility, but the PLP2000 provides an AC outlet to make up for the one it uses and its two gigabit Ethernet ports provide data for a TV and a computer. While at $110 it’s among the most expensive PL extenders, it includes a one-year warranty and only 90-days of support, while its peers include a year or two of warranty and support.
Netgear’s PLP2000 can push data into unconnected parts of a home at peak performance and is the one to get.
Read our full Netgear PLP2000 Powerline Extender review.
The best powerline extender for value
The Trendnet TPL-423E2K is for those who care more about value and a three-year warranty than getting the top performance, extra range or the ability to service two networked devices. Overall, the TPL-423E2K offers the enviable combination of low upfront price and low operating costs, making it the one for penny-pinchers to get.
What the Trendnet TPL-423E2K lacks in speed and range, it more than makes up for with a handy AC passthrough outlet, a useful utility and a class-leading three-year warranty. At $70 for the set, the TPL-423E2K is a must-have for those who choose low costs and reliability over all-out performance in powerline devices. The Trendnet TPL-423E2K offers affordability and the assurance that it will work for years, even if that function doesn't have the range and bandwidth of more expensive competitors.
Read our full Trendnet TPL-423E2K Powerline Extender review.
The best powerline extender for range
TP-Link’s TL-PA9020P can help fill a big home with powerline data thanks to its class-leading range. It may be off the blistering pace set by the PLP2000, but the TL-PA9020 has the power to push data through more than 1,000-feet of electrical wiring and delivered top-speed to a previously unconnected garage. Its pair of Ethernet ports and AC passthrough outlet mean that it not only won’t hog your home’s outlets but can supply data to two devices, like a smart TV and a computer.
While its monitoring and configuration utility lets you customize your powerline network by renaming the devices and adjusting the Quality of Service parameters of the TL-PA9020P, its thirst for electricity makes it expensive to use and its side-mounted LEDs can be hard to see. Still, the $90 TL-PA9020P can fill a big home with data.
Read our full TP-Link TL-PA9020P Powerline Extender review.
Also tested
Testing results
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Throughput at 100 feet | Total range |
|---|---|---|
Netgear PLP2000 | 81.9 Mbps | 775 feet |
Trendnet TPL-423E2K | 44.0 Mbps | 580 feet |
TP-Link TL-PA9020P | 27.6 Mbps | 1,075 feet |
How to choose the best powerline extender for you
Powerline extenders offer a discreet way to replace long lines of Ethernet cable with the electric wiring that’s already in your walls. This makes them a great option for anyone who wants to stretch their network connectivity to new rooms and rid their home of Wi-Fi dead spots. But is a powerline extender right for you?
There are two other options worth considering when you want to get better connectivity in the furthest reaches of your home. The first is a signal booster, like those in our guide on the best Wi-Fi extenders, which can capture and rebroadcast a wireless signal to help boost the reach of your Wi-Fi router. That’s a perfectly good option when you have continuous Wi-Fi between the router and the extender. If a far room shares electric wiring with your router but the Wi-Fi signal from your router doesn’t reach far enough for a wireless extender, then a powerline extender is the better choice.
The other alternative is upgrading to a mesh Wi-Fi system, which uses multiple units to provide a single seamless Wi-Fi network that can easily cover even the largest homes with a strong wireless signal. However, the switch from a standard router to a mesh router can be expensive, which is why we've also rounded up the best mesh Wi-Fi systems for all budgets. If you want to stretch your network without paying a few hundred dollars, it’s worth trying a powerline extender first.
Need more details on the differences? Check out our guide on Wi-Fi extenders vs powerline adapters.
How we test powerline extenders
To evaluate each of the powerline extenders we review, we test each in a variety of ways. In addition to price and physical design, we also take a closer look and test their throughput, range and bandwidth over distance as well as temperature and power consumption.
Throughput
To measure the range of each powerline set, we plugged the sending unit into a home’s circuit breakers and the broadband modem and the receiver at an AC outlet 10 feet away.
Wired Range
After measuring throughput, we added a series of 100-foot grounded extension cords and measured the available bandwidth. With the system disconnected, we removed the last cord and added 50-, 25-, 12- and up to two 6-foot cords. The range is the total length of the extension cords that delivered the lowest throughput without disconnecting.
Bandwidth
We also set up the receiver in a garage that’s about 100 feet from the sending unit and measured the bandwidth. We finished this round of testing by watching HD videos, playing games online and visiting a number of websites.
Temperature and power consumption
While watching videos, we measured each device’s peak temperature with a Fluke 62 mini IR thermometer. We also measured power consumption (both in use and while idle) using a Kill-A-Watt Edge power meter. Assuming the gear is active half of the day and sits idle for the rest, we multiplied each power-use figure by 4,380 (365 days times 12 hours a day) and added the results together. Then, we doubled the total for the two devices needed and divided by 1,000 to get the annual energy use in kilowatt-hours. Finally, we multiplied this by $.13 (the average price of a kilowatt-hour) to get our estimate of annual operating cost.
Behind the scenes, we used a Linksys WRT32X router, a 200Mbps Internet connection, a Lenovo ThinkPad T470 notebook and the Speedtest app to measure throughput. For all testing, five data points were averaged.
