Company Profile
AirLive is a brand providing Innovation, Solutions, Reliability and Technology. AirLive's R&D department continuously focuses its efforts on developing the right products including AirLive WISP and Outdoor solutions, AirLive SMB and Security solutions and AirLive Small Office and Home products.
Features
- 200Mbps PowerLine Ethernet adapter
- Cover network unreachable area
- Zero installation plug and play
- Simply to using utility for password setting
- Support push button for easy network setup
- Package includes two adapters
- Fast and affordable way to connect your PCs at home
- Using existing electrical wiring
- High speed Internet connection
- Expand a wireless network into a "dead zone"
- There are no cables to run and no wireless signal falloff
- Just plug it in, the device will work without any configuration
- Operate in 110 volt to 240 volt global range
- Switching design provide much better protection against voltage fluctuation
- Enable to connect gaming consoles to the internet
- QoS support helps prioritize data, smooth video streaming & lag-free gaming
Specifications
Package & Contents
AirLive HP-3000E comes with a small and compact white packaging box (225 x 35 x 95 mm). The features of AirLive HP-3000E are stated in both front and back packaging while the specification are stated at the back in Multilanguage (English, Spain, German, Republic of Hungary, Hellenic Republic, Portugal, Czech Republic, Japan, Poland and Slovak Republic).
After open up the packaging box of AirLive HP-3000E, you will able to see two Homeplug Powerline adapters which are located securely inside the box and packed with plastic bags to avoid getting scratches. The rest of the accessories of AirLive HP-3000E are user's manual, driver/software CD and two network cables.
The user's manual of AirLive HP-3000E is not only in Multilanguage form but also provide very detail information about this device such as package contents, physical layout details and installation procedure. The softcopy of this user's manual can be downloaded from AirLive website and you may get a copy from there if you would like to understand more about this product before purchase it.
Two 5 feet standard CAT 5 network cables are provided which should be long enough as the purpose of HP-3000E is to cover network unreachable area. Besides that two universal fused socket adapters are included as well for both of the HP-3000E adapters as the HP-3000E adapters are 2-pin adapters.
AirLive Homeplug Powerline HP-3000E
Before we proceed with the close look on the AirLive Homeplug Powerline HP-3000E, let us have a brainstorming about how this device works as we believe there are certain of people are still not really clear what is this device for. For normal networking setup, we will connect the PC directly to the modem with a network cable or wirelessly but for AirLive Homeplug Powerline, users are required to connect the modem with one of the HP-3000E adapter while for another HP-3000E adapter will be used to connect to the computer. The data/signals will be transmitted through the electrical wiring so both of the HP-3000E adapters are required to be powered. With this, users can access the internet without any network cables or wirelessly connected between the computer and the modem.
HP-3000E is not a totally new product from AirLive and the major improvement of HP-3000E over the previous models is the speed; 200Mbps which is much greater than previous models; HP-2000E (85Mbps) and HP1000E (14Mbps). Homeplug Powerline HP-3000E contains two identical adapters where the adapter size seems a bit bulky (105 x 75 x 35mm) but it is considered smaller than those older models and we believe AirLive will continue to improve its size so that it will be much convenient to be used. For the weight, the HP-3000E adapter is really light where it should be just around 100-200grams.
At the back of the HP-3000E adapter, there are serial number, MAC and password. While for the bottom of the HP-3000E adapter, there are two switches (security & reset buttons) and one LAN port (RJ45). The reset button is used to clear all the data and restore back to factory default value while the security button (128-bit AES Encrytion) is used to connect the device between two systems. HP-3000E adapter has an auto switching converter inside as it can be operated in 110V to 240V without any manual adjustment and the switching design provides better protection against voltage fluctuation as well.
On the top left corner of the HP-3000E adapter, there are three LEDs for Power, Link/ACT and Ethernet. The power LED will light up if the device is powered up and same for the Ethernet LED too; On means connected, Off means no Ethernet connection and flashing means data is being transferred. For the Link/ACT, it has quite number LED colors; flashing blue (when receive data rate bigger than 80Mbps), flashing pink (when receive data rate bigger than 50Mbps), and flashing red (when receive data rate is smaller than 50Mbps). If you look closely on the HP-3000E adapter, you will find that there are plenty of ventilation holes which are used to dissipate the heat of the device to avoid overheating.
Installation, Testing & Performance
For the installation, the HP-3000E adapters can work instantly once both of the HP-3000E adapters are connected correctly; it will just take around 10-20 seconds once the devices are powered; plug & play feature that AirLive claimed. However in order to enhance the networking security, it is required to install the driver and software.
For those who are interest to connect between two systems, users need to press the security button for less than 3 second for system A and do the same again for system B. After that the power LEDs will start to flash and follow for On state for the Power and PLC if the configuration is successful. The setup process will be the same for more than two or more systems which is pretty simple and quick setup.
The driver/software CD is autoplay once it is inserted into system optical drive and the CD also contains other documentation such as user's manual, quick setup guide and Acrobat Reader software as well. The software installation is very quick which just take around 1-2 minutes and no system reboot is required. Second picture above is the AirLive HP-3000E software GUI. For the first tab of the HP-3000E software, it will display some basic information of the networking setup like MAC address.
Users can set the remote device access key by enabling the Set Encryption for remote device and it will prompt users to key in 24keys password that is stated on the back of the adapter. Besides that the Network, Encryption, About tabs, AirLive include another feature of the software for upgrading the device's firmware but we wish AirLive will include live firmware checking & update rather than update manually.
Test Bed 1
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
Heatsink: NorthQ Siberian Tiger Water Cooler
Memory: 4GB 800MHz DDR2 Memory
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: OEM Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB
PSU: In Win Commander 1200W
Optical Drive: DVD RW HLDS
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2
Benchmark Software: Speedtest.net
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius
Test Bed 2
Notebook: Dell Inspiron E1720
Processor: Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T7500
Memory: 2GB 666MHz DDR2 Memory
Hard Drive: 120GB 2.5" 5400RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS
Optical Drive: DVD RW
Operating System: Microsoft Window XP SP2
Benchmark Software: Speedtest.net
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius
For the testing of the AirLive Homeplug Powerline HP-3000E, we conducted two simple tests where the first test is to test the network performance with & without HP-3000E adapter. Left hand side data is the download & upload speeds when setup with HP-3000E and the right hand side data is with normal network connection.
Base on the results above, it shown that the internet speed is greater and better when the HP-3000E is used for both download & upload speeds. To confirm we get the right results, we have repeated the testing within the same IP address but the results are still the same. This is great as first we thought that the HP-3000E will slightly impact the internet speed performance compare with normal internet setup but it seems that it does not.
For the second test, we compare the HP-3000E performance with the different wall socket distance. Left hand side data is where both of the HP-3000E adapters are connected within the same socket extension which is shown at our test setup above. For right hand side data, we connected one of our HP-3000E adapters in the next room so that we can verify whether the internet speed will be impacted with the electrical wiring distance increase. The results told us that the internet speed is slightly affected if the internet data/signal requires to travel longer electrical wiring distance.
There isn't any noise generated by the HP-3000E as it doesn't have any active cooling but during our testing, we found that the adapters were quite hot so it is advised to ensure these HP-3000E adapters are not placed in some closed environment which has bad airflow and may reduce the device lift span.
(All the tests above were done within the same internet service provider and the download & upload speeds are really dependant on the limitation of the service provider)
Conclusion
This is the first time that we heard and review such innovative device; AirLive Homeplug Powerline HP-3000E where it convert an existing electrical wiring to be a network area by just plug & play the HP-3000E adapters. This is really amazing as most of us will never thought or believe that it will work but in fact it really does. Furthermore base on the test results, its performance is even better than normal networking setup. However the disadvantages of this device are costly just for these two adapters compare with other cable and wireless networking setup. If you really having a hard time to access internet at some network unreachable area then you may really look at this great device from AirLive; Homeplug Powerline HP-3000E which supports up to 200Mbps.
Pros:
* Great, innovative device & support up to 200Mbps
* Convert an existing electrical wiring to be a network area
* Unexpected good performance
* Compact & light weight
Cons:
* Only comes with two adapters
* Not so cheap compare with other solutions
Thanks to AirLive for providing this sample for us to review.
