Have given up on these after 1 year of use. Intermittent drop outs of the connection. Loss of connection sometimes for 60-90s, sometimes longer before connection re-establishes. Other times they only way to get a re-connection is to power the home plug off/on. Have used latest firmware and even applied the fix thats meant to disable low activity sleep. This is a known problem which TP-Link are not resolving. I've gone back to using a mixture of Solwise and Netgear home plugs and guess what - zero drop outs.
UPDATE:
I bought these back in March 2015 together with TP-LINK TL-PA411KIT and shortly after almost binned them due to the intermittent connection loss problem which is well reported. I thought I'd give them another go. I've been running them for 3 weeks and had no connection drop outs. Here is what I did to get them working...
TP-LINK TL-PA4020KIT AV500
TP-LINK TL-PA411KIT
I have 4 home plugs in total, this same process should work if you have 2 or more home plugs.
This should work for either type of device listed above, just make sure you download the correct firmware.
Pre-requisites:
Download the firmware for devices from TP Link website (extract to separate folders, there should be 2 firmware files for each device):
TL-PA4020KIT [...]
TL-PA411KIT [...]
Download the power line utility tool (I used the TL-PA4020 KIT_V1_Utility it works for both models):
[...]
Download the SwitchPowerSaveTool:
[...]
Install the PowerLine Utility onto your PC (or download/install the Mac version if you need).
Take each home plug separately in turn (I physically labelled them with a marker A,B,C,D) and do the following:
1/ connect home plug to PC using ethernet cable
2/ run the PowerLine Utility
3/ System tab - reset home plug to factory defaults
4/ System tab - update the firmware for the device (make sure you select the correct firmware files downloaded earlier)
5/ Advanced tab - on the QoS setting, select “Internet” for the simple application mapping. Save.
6/ exit the PowerLine Utility
7/ run the SwitchPowerSaveTool. It should give you the option to turn off power saving and then apply
8/ power off and unplug the home plug
9/ repeat for next home plug
Once the above is done for each device you can pair the devices. I started with device A and took each of the other 3 devices in turn, separately pairing them using the pair buttons. eg. choose a double socket, leave home plug A powered up. Plug in device B and pair. Once pairing is complete, unplug device B and repeat for C then D.
Then locate the home plugs where you need them and power up, they should all connect. You can use the PowerLine Utility to see the speeds they are connecting to each other at and label the homeplugs to something more meaningful if you wish.
| Brand | TP-Link |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 6.5 x 5.2 x 2.85 cm; 170 Grams |
| Item model number | TL-PA411KIT(UK) |
| Manufacturer | TP-Link |
| Series | TL-PA411KIT |
| Color | White |
| Number of Ethernet Ports | 1 |
| Wattage | 2 watts |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Item Weight | 170 g |
