Vesenet Homeplug 3-port Ethernet power strip

Homeplug AV is a great solution if you live in areas where Wifi is too congested. Solwise’s range of easy-connect units support connections at up to 200Mbits/sec and to set up encryption you just push an ‘easy connect’ button.

The three-port strip, called the Piggy 6, provides more than just Ethernet. It’s a six-way power adapter, with surge suppression and filtering on the mains sockets, which are arranged around the hexagonal unit. In the centre is a power button that turns all the sockets off, while at the base are three Ethernet ports, plus a set of lights and buttons to control the Homeplug side of things. Annoyingly, the buttons need to be pressed with a paperclip through a hole. That said, we didn’t need to press anything to add the unit to our existing Homeplug network.

The filtering on the mains sockets provides cleaner power to your devices and it stops those with cheap power supplies from interfering with the Homeplug AV network. In our tests, the Piggy 6 performed well at that; plugged into a problematic mains spur that supplies all the AV gear, it was able to stream standard-definition video without a hitch, whereas the standalone unit we tried kept losing the connection – ­ though on our noisy ring circuit, we only managed a connection at 40Mbits/sec, and HD was still juddery.

Connecting directly to the ring main boosted that speed more than threefold ­ – so adapter placement is obviously very important with Homeplug AV, and the filtering in the Piggy 6 won’t solve every problem.
With TVs, set-top boxes and games consoles all having Ethernet ports these days, the Piggy 6 is a great way to network several pieces of equipment easily ­ and at about £40 more than a six-way filtered mains strip, it’s pretty good value too.