devolo Magic 2–2400 Wi-Fi 5 Next: Starter Kit | 4k/ 8k
devolo Magic 2–2400 Wi-Fi 5 Next: Starter Kit | 4k/ 8k UHD Streaming | Stable Home Working (Up to 2400 Mbps Powerline, Mesh WiFi 5, G.hn, 3x Gb LAN ports)
Compatibility
To date, only devolo Magic uses the innovative G.hn technology, which offers the highest transmission speeds.
Magic therefore only takes advantage of full output in a pure G.hn environment.
The simultaneous use of other PLC adapters – even those of the outstanding devolo dLAN devices – impairs performance.
Technical Data
| Standards | Wi-Fi 4/5 (IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/k/r/v) |
| Radios | 2,4GHz + 5GHz Dual Band Dual concurrent |
| Range | 500 m |
| Data rates | 2,4 GHz up to 300 Mbps 5 GHz up to 867 Mbps |
| Weight: | 940 g |
| Dimensions: | 23.6 x 19 x 9.4 cm; 940 Grams |
| Brand: | Devolo |
| Model: | 8724 |
| Colour: | White |
| Manufacture: | Devolo |
| Dimensions: | 23.6 x 19 x 9.4 cm; 940 Grams |
These are a game changer. I live in an old cottage with thick chalk walls so Wi-Fi was only available in 2 rooms. All the other signal extenders we tried couldn’t solve it. But using these, running through the electrical sockets we now have Wi-Fi everywhere!
I’ve been a fan of powerline networking products for many years now and the Devolo MAGIC 2 – 2400 Mbps Triple LAN Kit is the fastest I’ve ever used. Setup is super easy – plug everything in, turn it on, and it just works. I use this to extent the home network in my flat to areas that the WiFi signal from my broadband router doesn’t reach. I have even plugged a wireless access point into one of the triple LAN ports to get both wired and wireless network access. Worth every penny.
It gives pretty good WiFi – guess I was unlucky in getting a dodgy uni
Thank you very much for a great product.
Easily installed it after a couple mins of effort and now the other end of my house that previously just lost signal completely from my wifi box, has full signal and the speed loss is essentially 0.
I tested both spots and got 71mbps in both locations.
Great product that solves the problem perfectly.
This was excellent! We have an old house (very thick walls) and even with a different device the WiFi was poor in most of the house.
These have fitted it – full WiFi throughout.
They were a little tricky to set up but now are excellent!
This system is excellent for a large house. I have had Wi-Fi issues for a long while, this has solved the problem. Totally recommend.
Powerline connectors are a cause of, but also are affected by electrical noise in your home powerlines and they are unlikely to reach the stated speeds. Microwave and washers etc reportedly affect them as well as power cable length between them but my signal seems quite robust.
I have five Magic 2 powerline adapters in total (Including 1 distribution unit) fitted in my home ranging from 300mb/s to around 850mb/s actual speed range throughout the house. My system is also supplemented with a WiFi mesh loop from the internet provider. It provides data signal to TVs, security cameras and computers etc. and also helps to boost the WiFi connectivity in the house.
This is an expensive but ideal buy for houses that are not suited to running network cables and where WiFi has difficulty in passing through the walls.
I’d also mention that when more units are added they can steal bandwidth (Speed) from each other as they use the same powerlines. I’d say four or five of these are possibly close to the working limit when also connected to WiFi in the house but for longer wiring distances a repeater may be needed to boost their data signal. This is why I fitted the Consumer Unit module which also very recently passes internet outside to a shed via a CAT-6 Cable. If you fit them and combine them with WiFi you may need some trial and error to setup the network to avoid conflicts between the networks leading to network dropouts. I’m not an IT expert hence I’m learning how to setup from YouTube/Google.
In summary – Nothing beats hard wired connection with WiFi as a second options, but for a house like mine where these are not really options I’d recommend the MAGIC 2 2400mbs Powerline connectors.
eally easy to set up with clear instructions. My only slight gripe is that this purchase was to replace the previous one which died after 3 years. I’d expect a little more life than that.
Replaced a TP-Link powerline system with Devolo and the speeds are much better, but more importantly it’s stable & reliable 24/7.
Easy set up straight out of the box less than10 minutes and ready to go.
I had no idea if these would work as the master wouldn’t be on the same circuit as the secondary unit, not even on the same consumer unit.
My shed / garage is on its own circuit, it’s on a different consumer unit to the house. the common point is the meter tail junction box at the meter.
Master unit is in the house hooked up to the router and powered by the house ring main. Secondary unit is in the shed running off the ring main in there.. However it seems to work like a dream, took a minute or two to sort itself out and then white lights and full wifi. 36Mbps in the house, 30Mbps in the shed. To say I’m happy is an understatement…… Recommended !
We’ll see if it lasts !!…..
Update. A number of days later and this is still working well.
Having had a Magic 2 system already, but with speeds poor in one particular location, I decided to buy this DIN Rail module to centralise the powerline data source and it has been so worth while.
Speeds to all devices more than doubled and we can now stream 4k in all locations without buffering or any glitching at all. Even the unit in my workshop, remote to the house (0ver 40m from building and on its own consumer unit) now achieves superb speeds. For reference, our source is a 1gb fibre broadband service.
Super worthwhile investment and now I have a happy household with no moaning about broadband and no more congested wi-fi either.
I brought a cheap netgear plp1000 and when I done an Internet speed test I was getting an average of 55mbps. After a year I thought I would go for a faster one. Plugged in waited 15 seconds and wired it to the router. Then plugged the second one upstairs waited 15 seconds then plugged it to my pc. Internet straight away. Done a new speed check and it went from average 55 to 110 mbps would 100% recommend
These are easy to install, plug them in and away you go. Set up for me was a breeze and no disconnection issues in the first few months (tp-link would have disconnected at least twice in the same time. Rated at up to 2400Mbit/s I get 330Mbit/s which is a little slower than the tp-link which hit around 500Mbit/s on the same install points. I guess my house wiring eats the rest of the bandwidth, in both cases, but at least it’s a stable signal.
I got a set of these to wire up an Aruba Instant-On AP22 at the other side of my house. Theys show a connection speed of 650 – 800 Mbps. They are more than adequate for maxing out my BT 80 Mbps FTTC connection with the Aruba AP. They do run hot, initially I was getting CPU temperatures of over 95C. I then enabled power saving and this reduced the temperature greatly and they now idle at around 60C. It did say this can increase latency but I’ve not noticed any difference. You can also easily update the firmware of the homeplug in the management interface. Devolo support them well and release regular updates. The built in VDSL frequency mitigation also seems to work well and I haven’t noticed any problems or reduction in sync speed with my broadband. Overall pretty happy with them, only downside as mentioned earlier is the hot cpu temps when power saving isn’t enabled.
My problems began when I tried to update the firmware. Both adapters were set up with static IP addresses. One worked, but one failed. It took me some time to figure out what was happening because the manual is too dumbed-down to troubleshoot anything, and factory reset from the Cockpit software was producing an error. Somewhere in the Cockpit software device description was record of the devices IP address. This specific device set itself up with an IP address outside of my subnet range during the firmware update process, which is why I could not access its web interface. To change the IP address you need to access the web interface on a different subnet, and this device is no longer on the same LAN. If you are not technical, you would never know that you need to hardcode an IP address in the TCP/IP settings of a wired connection to a PC such that you are on the same subnet of the device. It is way to technical for most people, and it is definitely not covered in the manual or on the manufacturer’s website.
I managed to get into the web interface and managed to do a factory reset there. I set up the IP address within my subnet range, and it is working perfectly now. I find it strange that there isn’t a physical way to do a factory reset like most devices (at least nothing I was able to find). I also find it strange that it randomly assigns itself a different static IP instead of going back to DHCP or keeping your settings intact. I found the manual very difficult to read or understand with multiple translations for simple steps that weren’t even clear.
I hope that helps you decide whether it is right for you. It performs well, but you have to pull up your sleaves and know a bit about networking.
Install was easy just waiting for them to sync on nearby plugs. Once happy – move to the right locations. They didn’t want to out of the box – I used the sync button. That worked.
Note these are note compatible with older standard powerline as it is new standard so you need to be mindful what extra plugs you add.
Note, YOU MUST NOT PLUG ANYTHING ELSE into the socket next to your plug to give it the least interference. Plug an extension/splitter into the plug pass through socket instead.
My virgin Wi-Fi from the room above the router is 300/60mbit down/upload (1gb virgin). On the old devolo 500 plugs I used to get 15by10 mbit in the attic wired and 8by2mbit on other side of the house Wi-Fi via another router. Both with nasty subjective latencies and the latter dropping often. Clearly limited by powerline.
On magic2 I now have 50by40mbit in the attic and 60by40mbit on the other side of the house with what feels like no latency subjectively as websites just jump onto the screen – it feels as good as direct off virgin router right next to it. I’ve not done any NAS tests as my use case is internet. But it is nearly order of magnitude faster for me. It is night and day vs the old powerline so if you have tricky wiring highly recommended.
I would not get multi-socket or Wi-Fi enabled ones to reduce possible problems. Each product should do a job it excels at and not aspire to be jack of them all. Need extra LAN sockets get a switch for a tenner and plug it in for extra 6-7 sockets. Need extended Wi-Fi – get an extra router which almost definitely will outperform integrated plug solution.
The overall product is great and works really well! The setup however was slightly complicated as I was adding them to an existing lot of extenders of the same type. Once it was set up, it has been working great! The signal is reliable and strong. It works very well for my video calls and streaming.
I upgraded to a Magic 2 system because it has a new chipset and a higher speed rating. Devolo cockpit said the connection now ran at 1,100Mbps (46% or its ‘perfect world’ maximum of 2,400). Speed tests now indicated a download speed of 136-137Mbps. A big improvement. It’s now compatible with WiFi-6 speed and is faster than my service providers quoted speed.
Upload speed has not changed. It still is 21Mbps (service providers limit).
Setup was dead easy, just followed the instructions. Then opened the Cockpit app and let it download and install some firmware updates.
I have read some moaning’s that one of the adapters in the starter kit has only one socket – That’s the one that you attach to the router. Most routers have more than one output socket so you don’t need extra sockets near the router.
I did not get the WiFi-6 DLAN kit because my routers WiFi-6 is a good signal throughout the house anyway. My old DLAN 500 v new Magic 2 tests were conducted within one hour, using the same plug sockets, the same speed test site and the same speed test server, on both a Win-10 desktop & Win-11 Laptop. So the jump in download speed from 62-69 to 136-137Mbps is definitely due to the new Devolo kit.
If it is reliable as the old kit then I’m happy.
I’ve had a cabin installed at the end of the garden, about 40 metres from the house, and needed an Internet connection there. After a little research the Devolo was added to the planning list. I left a message with the tech support and had my call returned about 10 minutes later. I wanted to confirm the Powerline devices were suitable for use with the way my electrical circuits are laid out, and was able to get that confirmation. I have a 50metre 10mm armoured cable running from a mcb on the main consumer unit, to a smaller consumer unit in the cabin. My concern was that the two Devolo devices being either side of two different consumer units would prevent connectivity or diminish the performance.
My concern was totally unfounded. I had the units up and running in about 10 minutes with a perfect wi-fi signal at the remote location. How it works I don’t know, but it does. I haven’t tested/compared throughput in the main and remote locations, but everything I’ve needed to do has worked so far.
Very impressed !
These are excellent adapters, but be aware that they use the G.hn network standard and are not compatable with dLAN Powerline adapters and other HomePlug AV products. If a network of these adapters is used on the same power circuit as a network of adapters running the dLAN standard, they interfere with each other. Both networks will run slower and all adapters will need regular resetting.
However, the G.hn standard easily supports 8 compatible adapters on a single network, rather than the dLAN standard which only work reliably with 5 adapters. My house has 0.5m thick stone walls, so I need a large number of wi-fi transmitters to get good coverage. Now, for the first time and after 15 years of trying different products and network configurations, I have a single network of the Magic 2 adapters with a powerline backbone that provides excellent WI-Fi, as well as LAN, coverage thoughout.
In addition, to reduce local electrical equippment interference, I followed the installation advice and use the interference filtering in the passthrough socket, if necessary with an extension lead, to connect all other electrical devices plugged into the same socket outlet block and I no longer plug anything into immediately adjacent power socket outlets. This has significantly boosted the powerline LAN network speeds.
I had the significant expense of replacing all my top of the range dLAN adapters, but now, my entire LAN network runs more than 10 times faster, I hardly ever have to reset the adapters or router, and I finally have full Mesh Wi-Fi coverage throughout my house.
I have a huge backlog of reviews yet to be completed (some of which I might never get to review), but this one had to be done now. I recently purchased the tp-link AV1300 3-Port Gigabit Powerline starter Kit (TL-PA8033P Kit) to provide network connectivity to our study room and it worked well for the first two months, after which it started causing connectivity issues. After some troubleshooting I was sure it was the tp-link kit causing issues. I then started looking for a replacement kit. After doing a few repeated searches online (to filter out bogus reviews), I decided to try out the devolo Magic 2 LAN 1-1-2 Starter Kit. I made this decision despite some of the reviews saying that the devolo option is a nightmare to install. Surprisingly, it was pretty easy to install. I did not even have to press any buttons for pairing – pairing happened automatically. I even managed to download the mobile App which helps with monitoring connectivity status etc. It’s been three days working extremely well so far (I installed it on Wednesday the 2nd of March 2022) and I have no doubt it will continue to work well till the end of its natural life cycle. And if that doesn’t turn out to be true – I’ll update this review immediately. I would highly recommend this option for your powerline network extension needs in the home.
Reading the instructions I was initially under the impression that I would have the system up-and-running quite quickly. The instruction book is a flimsy affair, giving the impression that there isn’t much to the setting up process. Unfortunately NOT so!
It has taken me several attempts to set things up, each time becoming increasingly frustrated when I could manage to get the system only partially working.
Eventually, after reading and re-reading the instructions (and finally locating the correct oassword, – which WASN’T where the instructions said it should be) I have two adapters working.
I have a third adapter but I won’t bother trying to install it until I have calmed down a bit.
The resultant signal strength, – in an old house with thick walls, is strong and is what I purchased the Devolo kit for.
But beware that it may NOT be as easy to set up as you would like.
I have had a problem for a long time getting a good (or any) signal to my garden studio which is about 25 metres from the house with its own circuit breaker. I had an older dLan system which seemed to work initially but in the last couple of years ceased to function. After a lot of thought, I decided to but this Devolo system and I am so happy that I did. It couldn’t be easier to set up and I have full speed in the studio and everywhere else in the house. Most of the set up was automatic. I just plugged the first box into a wall socket and let it do its thing for a couple of minutes and then connected with an ethernet cable to the router. The other two nodes just needed to be plugged into wall sockets and left for a couple of minutes while they connected. The wifi part was set up just by pressing a button on one of the nodes and the WPS button on the router. Then the nodes can be moved wherever you want in the house and switched on and off as you wish to save power. If it proves to be reliable then it is well worth the money. I should say I am on a maximum internet speed of 70Mps as there are no ultra fast connections in my area. However I am now getting the full 70Mps throughout and even in the studio. In fact the wifi from the nodes provides this speed so I have no need of ethernet cables to the nodes. My PC works exactly as expected at these speeds as does my iPad whether attached to the charger or not. We also have a Surface Pro which behaves a little oddly. Via wifi alone it gets maximum speed but if it is connected to its charger then the speed drops to about a third as it does if the ethernet cable is attached. This has to be something to do with the surface pro as this behaviour does not occur with any other devices.
Hope this is of some help.
Now the LAN and and wifi units synchronise fine.
On to where I needed them – we have an outside building about 50 metres away and has an armoured underground power cable to it. The outdoor store has it’s own consumer unit and a ring main off that. So the I was nervous in moving it to the new location it would lose conductivity. However all was ok it connected across my home consumer unit on to the outside building and consumer unit and on to the ring main the wifi unit was plugged into. End result it works perfectly.
Initial wifi speed test on the unit gave me 20 MB up and 12MB down. My main house router speed is 70 down and 18 up, but for the outflow building the speed I got was fine.
Over the next few days i will check the speed linking via ethernet cable to the plug and do a proper check on speed. Also early days on reliability so will see on that. Very worth while downloading the app to rename the units and in particular updating the units firmware which was out of date on the units I received. Yes units are a bit more expensive but I needed the best I could get connectivity wise, and hopefully adding wifi modules with mesh will be easy for weak wifi spots in the house.
I would have given 5 stars but I wasted an hour trying to find out what my initial connection problem was, so 4 stars.
To be clear, I bought a Devolo Magic2 LAN Triple. This contains ONE triple port, and ONE single port adapter. I think the box art on this is very deceptive. The triple port adapter is slightly bigger than the single port, both are bigger than AV2 and both run much hotter – for better or worse. Also, I ordered an Amazon Warehouse deal, and the first one Amazon sent didn’t actually have any triple port Magic2 in the box (just two single port ones) , so I had to return and re-order.
I’ve discovered they’re happy to run in parallel to AV2 adapters without any noticeable loss, and bizarrely the Devolo Cockpit software even spots AV2 and Magic2 adapters. There’s also web-page access to the adapters via their ip address, and the ability a set password if you don’t trust people on your network. The iPhone Home Network app is okay – but it doesn’t display any link speed information despite telling you it will.
In tests at range I discovered a few surprises. AV2 is in the same location for reference, tests using iperf3:
– TP-Link AV2 600 Two-Port ~16Mb/s (appears to split bandwidth across both ports rather than share it)
– TP-Link AV2 600 Single-Port ~32Mb/s
– Magic2 Single and Triple Port ~80Mb/s
If range is reduced, speeds jump quite quickly up to 200Mb/s and then on to about 350Mb/s if distances are close. As a rule, expect 150 to 200Mb/s in a new-build four bedroom, but be prepared for slower.
You’ll still beat an AV2, but it might only be on range, or a factor of two. And in some cases, I suspect AV2 1300 will beat the Magic2, but not necessarily if you have older AV2 kit mixed with new stuff, which is why I was testing the Magic2.
Will I keep them? Well that depends on whether they’re stable. They solved my problem and increased my setup by speeds by about 7 or 8 times. I’m concerned about the temperature they run at (50C on the back, 35C on the front, 0.3A@240V = 7W), but they do have a three year warranty in case they melt down though.
Note – if you’re looking for adding WiFi Access Points to parts of your house, I wouldn’t recommend the Magic2, simply because you’ll be crippling any broadband gains you may be looking for, go for WiFi Mesh and Access Points with a dedicated third back-channel, or run Cat6 cabling (budget vs effort).
The Magic2 is about easy of use, and getting the best out of something while doing very little. It does achieve this very well. Better than AV2 600 for sure, but it’s not a “magic” bullet (sorry – groan now).
This product is very good, but you need to follow the installation instructions to the letter. Even then, it does not always work. You must have the Devolo App, without it you are blind. It takes a bit of getting used to, and if you are changing settings, you need to know what you are doing. Once set up, using the mesh, then all is good.
Another weakness is that if your power sockets are close together on a ring, then the WiFi units suffer from propagation reflections, causing interference on the Power Line Network. Consequently, speed is reduced, or the WiFi unit in question loses connection with the LAN unit. Best to connect all units to single “Spur” sockets for best results. This makes a big difference. Do not connect any of the units via an extension power strip. This has the same effect. Often just trial and error if your house is wired with only a ring main to find a socket that is far away enough from others to prevent interference. Otherwise, all good. Good product, made with solid materials, but time will tell.
D.
In Summery my experience of the Devolo Mesh WiFi is:
* Great WiFi
* Great Functionality. The browser setup and features such as the “guest” network are excellent
* Poor phone App
* Setup was a little more complicated than expected.
POST INSTALLATION UPDATE.
The powerline connection on one of the three nodes kept failing (2-3 times in a 24 hour period) and needed to be turned off and on again. I referred the problem to Devolo technical response and got a fairly patronising RTFM response. I believe the issue was happening because I have 2 electrical distribution boards in my house, one for the kitchen and one for the rest of the house. The adapters do not seem to be able to establish a robust connection unless all the nodes are connected on one board.
My Virgin Media hub 3 router is in the upstairs study in the corner of my house. My Hi Fi system is diagonally opposite in the downstairs corner of the house. As I didn’t want to ‘hardwire’ from router to music streamer using ethernet cable I decided to try an over the mains system. I am pleased to say this works very well, and to my ears the sound of the music coming through on ‘Tidal’ is very good. There is no signal break up so far.
Wifi on phones and tablet was weak or non existent when away from the router. (The hub 3 is not that good anyhow). I looked into wifi mesh systems and wifi extenders but decided on the Devolo system because;
a) this can be set up as a mesh system; same SSID, password as the hub 3 so don’t need to change when moving around the house,
b) over mains data transmission which works well for my Hi Fi,
c) don’t loose the use of an electrical socket, although Devolo do state that you shouldn’t plug the unit into a mains extension cable. (The mains extension cable can however run out through the Devolo socket). Also on this point, if you put the Devolo plug into a double wall socket shared with some other appliance, this has the same effect as using an extension lead. They say it can effect the wifi signal.
d) Fairly easy to set up.
Main downside: expensive.
Wifi speeds around the house vary from day to day, hour to hour. I am on the VM 300 mbps supply, and sometimes I get that around the house but more often than not I get between 120 to 250 mbps. I think the fluctuation is more to do with Virgin Media than the Devolo sockets. Also the two wifi plugs are hidden. One behind the television in one room and the other in a corner behind my hi fi gear in another room.
One other thing, I live in an oldish house and mains electrical system for the power sockets is a single circuit upstairs and downstairs. I do not know how this would effect powerline data transmission on most houses with at least 2 separate circuits.
I ordered from AMAZON on Saturday 20th Feb , delivered to Northern Ireland on Monday 22nd Feb, great service. Currys’ delivery quoted 3-5 working days.
Working & Schooling from home has a 4 laptops, 4 mobiles & printer in one room so I upgraded from Devolo 500 to Magic 2 WiFi home kit. Thankfully I read previous comments warning of enclosed instructions and to down load instructions from Devolo support UK. but I found I had to read both and fill in the gaps. If Devolo had explained the correct sequence and Mesh/Cloning features much clearer! it would be 5Stars!!!
The supplied instructions start with plugging in both WiFi Adapters , then LAN Adapter connected to Router. Conversely the downloaded instructions start (3.3.1) with Plugging in and connecting LAN adapter to router then both WiFi Adapters. Both instructions explain the system will automatically link & setup. This I suspect would leave you with 2 separate WiFi networks, one for your original WiFi Router and one for the Devolo WiFi adapters, each with their own passwords/Keys. The downloaded instruction then go on to explain (3.3.2) Expanding an existing Magic 2 network. Then the supplied instructions introduce Mesh Technology, whereas the down loaded instructions refer to the WiFi Clone function at (3.3.4) under ‘Integrate the WiFi Adapter into an existing WiFi network’. At this point ONLY the Supplied instructions state ‘Only Connect one Magic WiFi Adapter for the initial setup process’.
Reading between the lines, I proceeded as follows:- As per connect sequence of downloaded instructions, I powered up and linked a LAN & a single WiFi adapter. I checked and had a Devolo named WiFi which I could connect to using the Wifi Key of the Devolo adapter. I then pressed the PLC button on the WiFi Adapter and then the WPS button on my existing WiFi enabled router. Letting the adapters & router stabilise, I found I now had only one WIFI network name which was that of my original router and password of the same. I then went on to add the 2nd WiFi Adapter, noting when I plugged it in, it had its own Devolo Wifi signal. I then followed the down loaded instructions (3.3.2) ‘Expanding an existing PLC network by adding another Magic 2 WiFi Adapter’, which was to press the PLC button on the first WiFi adapter I had twinned with the LAN adapter. Presto — the 2nd Wifi Adapter linked, all devices stabilised and had a single common WiFi signal name with password of my original WiFi Router. I can now move around the house with a network from three WiFi devices but with a single common Name & password.
Getting excellent performance, happy with 3year guarantee. It is expensive but YGWYPF!!!!!
Ok, first some history, i live in a 16th century old building, it has thick walls and is L shaped and i have an office that is 50m away, i have a 40MBs download speed from my provider. I have tried every thing, Powerline adaptors, wireless extenders, Netgear orbi units, ubiquity mesh finally settling on 6 tenda mesh units for the past year. I have had all sorts of issues, low speeds some days ok somedays useless, mostly useless, at best 8-10 Mbs my office was mostly unuseable, yhe best i could ever get was a wired connection to my router then 36 mbs but around the house really rubbish, i could not run cables due to the layout, anyway after reading a review of these i gave it a go.
Well setting up was not straightforward, ignore the app and do it manually worked first time. So plugged the lan near my router in tthe middle of the house, arggh its rubbish, up and down speeds and random dropouts, the office was 2mbps, its going back. Then i moved the lan and router close to my distribution board on the first socket of the ring main and wowser…. i have wireless everywhere, not only near the router but all over, i have 1 wireless in the lounge and 1 in my office, i have 37mbs everywhere, even in my office , my cameras work brilliantly ( they never have before), i keep testing as i cant beleive it, but as of today its been perfect, no dropouts, no glitching when streaming, So with selective positioning of the lan unit it can be the magic answer, im not sure why moving it close to the dis board worked but it did,so pair the units manually then if your router is not in the ideal position, run a temporary lan cable and try the lan unit in different sockets to get the best, ignore the mobile app and run the devolo cockpit app to get the speeds between units, also make sure you use at least cat5E cable from the router to the lan unit. Also you can clone your existing wifi so you dont have differing ssid, just 1 seemless network.Well done Delovo
Firstly the positives. I purchased the Devolo Magic-2 2400 whole home to replace a set of ageing AV-500 adaptors. What a difference they have made to our home network! On our home computer which is the furthest machine away from our router the old adaptors used to give us around 8-9Mbps per second on a speed test. When first plugged in the new adaptors were showing 55-59Mbps per second. Even during busy times I regularly see high 38Mbps – 41Mbps per second. My Son’s home computer which is closer regularly sees low to mid 60Mbs per second.
We have also seen large improvements to our WiFi signal upstairs where the two satellite units are located. Again regularly seeing mid-high 40Mbps where would may see 20 at most being connected to the router.
Now for the negatives, they are very expensive but I would say worth it based on what it has done in our home.
The worst aspect for me though were the installation instructions were inaccurate and the associated iOS app woefully poor. The written instructions supplied and the App tell you to do two different things – in my case the App was correct which would be great if it didn’t keep crashing, hanging or refusing to ackknowledge you had two adaptors on the network. Everytime I tried to join the WiFi Adaptors to my existing network it kept telling me they were not detected.
It wasn’t until I decided to use them as just home plugs and downloaded the Devolo Cockpit software that I could then see they had in-fact been configured on the network and were working as expected. The Devolo Cockpit Windows app is perfectly adequate and does the job – the iOS app is not and I can understand why it gets such appalling reviews. Please Devolo Fix it now.
Overall summary – installation was far more torturous than what it should have been but now it is up and running I am extremely happy with the performance of the hardware.
I bought these to replace some Netgear 1200 poweplugs that were driving me up the wall. Namely the Netgear models would occasionally drop connection and “go to sleep” now and then. An issue which I just couldn’t fix as they didn’t have the function to turn of this power saving feature.
Anyway concerning the Devolo Magic 2-4000. What can I say… a bit like a well oiled machine they’ve not missed a beat in 2 months (and counting).
The install software wasn’t “Apple level” friendly but after a few clicks and attempts I managed to set them up to my preferences with no issue (turned off power saver mode), and once done you don’t need to ever really go back. So solid stable connection.. tick!
Speed wise in fairness they’re not much quicker than the old Netgear 1200 models. I am getting about 140-150MB so quicker yes than the Netgear which did actually give me 120MB. However the Devolo connection is solid and stable so I’m as pleased as punch. So speed… tick!
Additionally this model has three outputs on the “output” plug which is incredibly useful in this new age of home working as it means I can have multiple devises plugged in at once without having to resort to the dreaded Wi-Fi or having to purchase additional expansion units. Perfect for a small home office!
So in conclusion if you are after a solid stable powerplug solution then they come really recommended, night and day compared to the old Netgear ones I had. No they probably wont give you a 240MB connection and yes they are a tad expensive but I guess you get what you pay for.
I use the devolo magic 2 to to extend the Wifi and lan in my home. Easy to install with initial pairing to existing devices quick and easy. All done within a few minutes of unpacking. I use the develo app to change settings as needed along with the develo cockpit software on my desktop. You will not get the speeds mentioned but you will likely get better performance than any other powerline ethernet device. The devices connected to the same mains ring main as the router device get 1100Mbs. On different rings and depending on other kit plugged in that may cause interference I get 200 to 400Mbps. The devices are up all the time, at least 100 days uptime and no issues or degradation in performance. No restarts required. Devices all auto update firmware without issue. I personally have Virgin fibre so set the comms to MIMO 17a which markedly improved transfer speeds. My home was rewired 8 years ago with a relatively new consumer unit. All in all I am very pleased with these devices. Easy to setup and once running you can just forget about them and let them do their business.
I’m a less than competent IT technophobe! So when it comes to IT kit nothing is ever as easy to instal as it says on the pack or the geeky online reviews say, so if it says plug n’play I allow at least an hour. I wanted to upgrade my old Devolo 500 system which has served me reasonably well for more than 5 years in anticipation of finally getting fibre broadband installed. I live in a large old property with very thick walls and geriatric electrics and to make matters worse the broadband entry point is at the opposite end of the house to where the family need a decent wifi signal to use a smart TV, wifi assisted iPhones & iPads etc. Years ago when I installed the Devolo 500 I had to rely on Devolo’s excellent telephone support, so I was again prepared for the worst. BUT … it took me only about 20 minutes to install this ‘Magic 2-2400 Wifi next Whole Home mesh’ version and successfully clone it to my Vodafone broadband router. Lots of reviewers say the in-pack instructions are poor but if you read them thoroughly (5 minutes!) and follow exactly, it’s easy. Most important thing I found (which felt a bit counter-intuitive) is to plug in both Magic Wifi adapters first, before you plug in the Lan adapter &/or connect it to your router. Then just follow the instructions. I only had 1 glitch when one of the Magic Wifi adapters didn’t automatically pair with the Lan adapter, – easily resolved by pulling out the one that had paired (ie was showing both solid white lights) and follow the simple instruction for manual pairing the other. The result 3 days later is a solid fast reliable wifi throughout the house, albeit not 2400 mbps, but pretty damn quick and no buffering. Happy days!
I was using a cheap set of unbranded 200 powerline passthrough unit from about 10 years ago. Whilst they worked fast enough relative to my broadband connection, I’d often have to restart them when trying to troubleshoot weird network dropouts. I decided the best way forward was to update the powerline units to something more modern.
I needed three endpoints and wanted passthrough adaptors with WiFi on at least two of them so the Devolo units seemed like a good match.
The network dropouts have gone, so they have solved that issue. Speed-wise, connectivity to one of the units is only a little above the speed of my old 200’s but as much as ten times faster between the other two. These figures are just from the monitoring software supplied with the units. The wiring in my old house was renewed about 20-30 years ago and is quite meandering on route to the area in which the powerlines show the least speed connectivity, so I’m not surprised at the performance differential.
Wifi wise they have been a little disappointing. I had hoped to replace a pair of router/access points I had connected to the old 200s, but the devolos don’t have enough range. I did manage to replace one of the old routers and turn of the wifi on my ISP provided router, so part of my goal has been achieved. I guess I was expecting too much from little units plugged in down near the skirting boards compared to full-blown routers with external antennas. My house does have 18″ thick stone walls, so its a challenging environment for WiFi.
Setup was not difficult and they have worked without need of a restart for a few months now. The supplied monitoring software is adequate on both windows and android.
I’m happy I bought them and would choose the same brand again if I had to repurchase. The unique challenges of my old house would stretch any powerline/WiFi tech. At some point, I may run an ethernet cable to the area with the worst connectivity, but for now, everything works. I can stream 1080p video and browse the web reliably, well as reliably as my crappy 3/4G internet services provider is capable of around here.
If you buy the WIFI ones TURN OFF YOUR MAIN WIFI, it conflicts with the MESH , the 1200’s did exactly the same thing and it degrades the WIFI massively. Our conservatory which is a mega long cable run used to get 30MB and now gets 60-80MB which is plugged into our sky box films now download twice as fast.
If you DONT use the wifi version anywhere IE are LAN only > the app doesn’t work on IOS or Anroid > Only deverlop Cockpit desktop for PC or MAC> its been waiting for a firmware update from develo since September > appears it needs at least 1 wifi point for the management app to function on mobile device> seems they didn’t expect anyone to not want there “crappy” wifi > and it is crappy.
I initially bought the wifi version but the “mesh” wasn’t very good, lots of signal loss , bad handover, no WIFI 6 / AX > so sent them back and bought the LAN version (which is brilliant) and then replaced my router with a Netgear RAX200 WIFI 6 router and hung another RAX200 Netgear WIFI 6 router (set in AP access point mode) off a LAN MAGIC 2 the other end of my house – Net result is rock solid Ethernet Everywhere I need it in the house and mad fast WIFI 6 AX covering the whole house.
What I’d like to see for Magic 3
1- is a 1/2.5GB port on the ethernet LAN port and on the triple – as although the LAN triple can do 2400MB’s it can only do 1GB per port > with routers / Access points now supporting 2.5GB this would save me having run a cat 7 cable in my house to the secondary Access point – which defeats the object that Magic 2 is supposed to avoid
2 – On the WIFI version Wifi 6 / AX with ideally triple band and 6 or 12 streams and work on the “mesh” handover between wifi points and automation around channels
3 – more speed you can never have enough speed 🙂
4 – A less flakey cockpit 5.1.3 it crashes lots on windows 10 , 5.1.2 runs fine > no idea why or the difference
Summary is LAN MAGIC 2 ones are brilliant , WIFI ones are “OK”. You’d probably be better of buying the 1200’s if you just want wifi as I couldn’t see any difference between magic and 1200’s but if you want rock solid LAN performance then Magic 2 is the way to go use your existing wifi and hang a “matching Access point / AP or router in running in AP mode” off the other end and you’ll get amazing matched mesh wifi (assuming your router and AP are decent)