Need reliable Powerline data links or Wireless repeaters

[Flyback]

Hi,
We are installing electrical equipment into domestic houses. This equipment needs to be monitored 24/7 by an internet connection, back to our office. An ethernet port on the equipment allows this internet connection to be made.

The equipment is not usually installed near the household router. Therefore, an ethernet cable from the equipment usually goes to either…

1….a pair of Powerline data links, or
2…a wireless repeater…

….in order to get connected back to the household router.
However, in some cases, the internet connection fails. We suspect faulty, unreliable Powerline data links, or faulty , unreliable wireless repeaters.
Do you know of reputable brands of these devices, so that we can stick to those?
(We already know that we must only use those types of Powerline data links which can be programmed to never to go into “Power-save” mode.)

 

[rjenkinsgb]

TP-Link powerline units seem reliable.
However, only use the high speed ones, eg. gigabit or higher that have gigabit ethernet connectivity.

That allows for more stages of fallback speed reduction (compared to eg. 200mbit ones) if there are interference or signal path problems, before the speed gets too low or the connection fails.

I'd never consider WiFi for anything that needs a reliable connection, there is just too much interference in many places.

You could look at a network monitor system such as Xymon to regularly ping the remote units and alert you if any connection is lost.

Xymon Systems and Network Monitor

Download Xymon Systems and Network Monitor for free. Xymon monitors your hosts, your network services, and everything else. Xymon is a system for monitoring of hosts and networks, inspired by the Big Brother system. It provides real-time monitoring, an easy web-interface, historical data...

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[Flyback]

I'd never consider WiFi for anything that needs a reliable connection, there is just too much interference in many places.

Thanks, thing is, when these internet connections go down, the customers just cant get them back up again...for some reason.....we're thinking its these TP-links (or wireless repeaters, whichever are used)

 

[JimB]

After all the hand wringing and heart searching which you have done here on ETO in the past on the subject of EMC compliance, and here you are proposing ethernet over powerline!
What a horror!
Connecting a system which uses high frequencies into an unbalanced hodge podge of cabling which is a mains distribution system in a building, the EMC leaks out all over the place.

The whole concept fill me with horror.

JimB

 

[Flyback]

Thanks, i actually dont know if its genuinely using ethernet protocol...but the equipment does have an ethernet port for the ethernet cable, which then goes off to the TP links or the wirelss repeater.

 

[unclejed613]

After all the hand wringing and heart searching which you have done here on ETO in the past on the subject of EMC compliance, and here you are proposing ethernet over powerline!
What a horror!
Connecting a system which uses high frequencies into an unbalanced hodge podge of cabling which is a mains distribution system in a building, the EMC leaks out all over the place.

The whole concept fill me with horror.

JimB

that's what killed BOPL in the USA. the devices radiated too much RFI over miles of power lines, especially in the HF spectrum.

 

[danadak]

This is generally applicable but not an answer for your specific problem.

I have a remote system that I periodically connect to to monitor video, T and V, and
other stuff. I found that various parts of system sometimes would hang or not recover
from power fail. So I did a combination of things.

For the hangs I executed code in system to shutdown and then restart/reboot. If the system
was totally hung I also had a timer on it to turn off power and then back on to force a reboot.
Also a "timed" script execution was done to emulate a keyboard "enter" key pressed, in case
system on reboot hung on a needed user entry. That cleared simple system question, accepting
any defaults, to get system up.

Another problem was system connection to internet is wireless, so when sys started up the OS
would auto try various connections until if found a working connection. And I coupled that
with a utility that could "meld" two wireless links simultaneously as another form of backup.

Point is every component in system is suspect on how it recovers from a fault, and not being the
firmware writers you are at the mercy of that devices codebase.

Regards, Dana.