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What is a hard-wired internet connection? Good question. You probably ended up here because somebody said you had to get a hard-wired internet connection. That often includes hooking everything through a cat-5 or whatever cable. It makes money for electricians.
The argument is that hardwired connections are better than wireless. And while that’s not always right or wrong, it’s kind of like saying plugged-in headphones always have better sound than AirPods or other over-the-ear headphones without wires. My AirPods with spatial sound are great.
The thing is this:
Hard-wired internet used to be important because people would sit at their DESKTOP computers. Wiring the internet right in made sense:
- The computers weren’t moving
- WiFi internet wasn’t that great yet.
When things started changing
I was actually working at a company that switched from hard-wired to Wi-Fi access points in the early 2010s. As people would take their computers with them, they would mostly stay on the network and just access the different and best access points – wiresslessly. At the time, this was quite a novel concept. Today, a hard-wired connection should really not be needed – assuming you have good internet coming into the office or home.
In a nutshell, a hard-wired internet connection is when somebody plugs the cable into the wall, and then that cable goes directly into the end device.
So, on stationary computers like this Pavillion Desktop, it’s possible to plug that ethernet cable from the wall into the computer.
This mini PC also has two ethernet inputs to hardwire in if you need to or prefer that method.
Ethernet cables
This method of connection relies on ethernet cables.
Firstly, make sure there are even ethernet outputs in your walls. For example, in my home office, there are none nearby at all. There’s one downstairs where the router sits. But nothing in the proximity of where I would actually need them.
So, unless I move my office to the room with the router, a hard-wired connection will not work anyway.
Many newer houses end up with the router in the laundry or some storage room in the basement. So for those kind of homes, an electrician would have to lay cat 5 or 6 cables (more expensive) so you can hard-write devices in other rooms.
Hard wiring could be a waste of resources, considering that MacBooks and iPads, for example, don’t have ethernet inputs anyway.
I’m a fan of using an Eero mesh system instead of laying more cables. That works just fine.
