I have a PL1200 setup at home. One connected to my main ISP router, the other connected to another WiFi router at the other end of the house.
That sounds like a wonky arrangement. It is almost designed to make life difficult.
The idea of Powerline Ethernet is to have one home plug connected to a router as the "host" connection. The "guest" plug serves other devices and goes nowhere near a router.
Putting two routers on one network, powerline or otherwise, is a great way of causing headaches.
With the two routers at the remote ends of the property you are also making it hard to get wifi coverage in the middle.
Try this.
I assume that you have one router connected to the internet through a modem. Connect one Powerline plug to that as the host.
Take the plug at one end of the house and put it in the middle as the "guest" plug.
Take one of the routers, the one that is not connected to the incoming internet service, and work out how to put it into access point mode. (Hard to know how you do that to an anonymous router.) Then plug that router into the guest plug. This "router" will not provide wifi to that bit of the property. You should also be able to use its LAN ports for wired devices.
So the 'other' router is a Netgear R88 which has 4 devices hard-wired into it with WiFi being used by laptops and tablets.
If I move this router to upstairs, then my hard-wired devices (TV, cable, Sonos, PS4) are left begging... Am I able to add a 3rd PL1200 and router upstairs in access point mode?
Am I able to add a 3rd PL1200 and router upstairs in access point mode?
Yes. But unfortunately, you won't be able to buy just one plug. They come in pairs. But remember that you need only one connected to the main router.
I'm still having a hard time understanding the layout of your network.
How do these two routers work together? Is there a single internet source? With two routers, you can expect to see problems. Your response does not deal with that.
It may be that the other router is already in AP mode. Depending on how many LAN sockets you need, you could buy a Powerline bundle that includes a wifi access point as a part of the package.
There's a single internet source (My ISP router) in our study. This feeds into my PL1200.
The other PL1200 on the other side of the house (in the living room) then plugs into an R6250. This has multiple devices plugged into it and currently requires a password to connect to a different network (this actually suits us so that we keep one network for business and one for the kids).
So it sounds like I need to ditch the PL1200, go for the PLW1000 instead, buying an additional pack to allow for the WifFi point upstairs... meaning one internet source, and two WiFi plugs doing the business. I suppose I can then try and and put the R6250 in passive mode or buy a bog standard router to accomodate hard-wiring.
This is starting to sound expensive!
Thanks again for your help, appreciate you taking the time to reply!
