Otherwise, the design is entirely unremarkable, in a way only matt black plastic can be. Moreover, the switches are pretty fiddly to use, but as you don’t actually have to do so, we can’t complain too much. We found it curious that the adapters have their own power switches, seeing as it’s as easy to just turn off the wall socket. As such, and unlike many so many single-port adaptors, the WD Livewire doesn’t encroach into the space of adjacent sockets. Rather than plugging directly into a socket, the adaptors are powered over two standard figure of eight cables. We particularly like the design of the WD Livewire adaptors.
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In fact, at a little over £70, it’s significantly cheaper than the Netgear XAVB1004 kit, which only has a single four-way Ethernet adaptor.
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What’s more, despite the extra functionality that those eight Ethernet ports add, the WD Livewire isn’t particularly expensive. Okay, so cramming four Ethernet ports on each end of the powerline section of the network isn’t exactly a Nobel Prize-worthy innovation, but it’s an innovation none the less. While we’ve seen powerline Ethernet adaptors (network devices that use your house’s existing power cables) with built-in switches before, we’ve never seen one with so many ports as the Western Digital WD Livewire – four on each of the adaptors, to be precise. We have to hand it to Western Digital for doing something different in what has become an increasingly stagnant – not to mention crowded – Ethernet-over-power market.