Brite View Powerline Ethernet Connectio User's Guide

PLC Device Utility User Guide

Introduction

The PLC Device Utility is to create a private PLC network or to assign devices into the network. For PLC
devices which have hardware group or encryption button, creating a private network or assigning devices
can be easy done by this button and this utility software is NOT needed. Please see user manual for
group button operation. This utility software is unavoidable for creating PLC network combining this PLC
device with older version of HomePlug AV devices which has no group or encryption button.

Powerline devices can communicate with each other only if they have same Network Name (for ex, device
1, 3, and 5 in Figure 1 has same Network Name), thus belongs to same network group. Devices with
different Network Name can not communicate. A Network Name of HomePlugAV is public to all new
HomePlug AV compliant devices worldwide. Thus data sent over it is accessible to families using a new
HomePlug AV compliant device.

To ensure privacy of your data transmission, use this utility to create a private PLC network by assigning a
private Network Name to the PLC devices. A device password, know as DAK printed on the back of
devices, is needed in order to change its Network Name or add it into a network group.

Remote
devices

Local Device

(Direct attached
to PC)

PC with

4

Network Name:

HomePlugAV

Network
Name:

MyPLCnet

5

Network
Name:

MyPLCnet

3

Network Name:

HomePlugAV

2

Network
Name:

MyPLCnet

1

Ethernet

Communicable
devices 1, 3, 5 have
same Network Name

PLC Device
Utility

,

Figure 1: private PLC network, device 1, 3, 5 has same Network Name, all non HomePlugAV

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Utility Install

Please verify no other PLC Encryption Management Utilities are installed prior to i nstalling this utility. Other
utilities should be uninstalled before installing this utility. To install, click “Installer.bat”, the installation
automatically starts. After asking for install WinPcap, a window similar to the one sho wn in Figure 2 will be
launched. Click the Next buttons to continue and finish installation procedure.

U S E R G U I D E

Figure 2: InstallShield Screen

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Running PLC Device Utility

In order to start the utility, double-click the utility icon on your desktop. There are four tab selectable pages:

Main, Privacy, Diagnostics, and About.

Main page

In Figure 3, the Main page shows status of all devices in the current PLC network. It includes two
subwindows.

The top subwindow of the page is called the Local Device Subwindow. It shows a Powerline device of
HomePlug AV device type connected locally to the PC where this utility runs. The MAC address of that
device is shown. The bottom subwindow, called Remote Device Subwindow, shows all remote Powerline
devices communicable with the device at the top subwindow.

Local Device
Subwindow

Remote Device
Subwindow

Figure 3: Main Page with one local and one remote PLC device

.

Local Device Subwindow
It shows all local PLC devices attached via the NICs (Network Interface Cards) of the PC running this

software. In most cases, only one device will be seen in this subwindow. In situations where there are
multiple local PLC devices being connected via extra USB network card or Ethernet adapter, multiple
device will be seen. In this case, please select one as active local PLC device by clicking on it and then
click the Connect button located at its right hand side. For example, since only one local PLC device is
attaching the PC in Figure 1, the main page shown in Figure 3 describes this case.

The area above Connect button indicates that your PC’s connectivity status and the type of local device,
such as “Connected to HomePlug AV Device”. If no local PLC device is discovered, it shows ‘HomePlug
Adapter NOT DETECTED’. This utility supports only PLC devices running HomePlug AV protocols,

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