Any chance of an ethernet version?

Hello.
I was wandering if there is any chance of a new design hardware, but with network and POE ?
Thanks

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the MCU doesn’t have wired capability. An inexpensive Access point could be a solution. If it’s a security concern, perhaps a parallel network for unsecured WiFi.

There’s little demand for a wired capability, and adding that in would be an enormous effort and cost.

I’d welcome ethernet capability for the reliability but two people asking hardly justifies the effort. If the code can be ported over to the ESP32 (I know there are still some shortcomings in the web server libraries), it has ethernet support built in.

Wifi access point is a great suggestion but i’m hoping to use this project to identify and reduce my electric load :wink:

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+1 The only thing stopping me from pulling the trigger on an IoTaWatt is the wireless. Maybe I’m just weird but I hate wireless. It’s probably related to my youth spent as a network engineer, but a wireless connection is just not stable. It will always drop eventually. Why would you build a monitoring solution on a foundation of sand? Just doesn’t make any scene to me.

Anyways, I’m sure I’m an outlier. I won’t even use a wireless keyboard or mouse.

That being said, now I’m investigating emonPi, at least that has an Ethernet port.

How stable is stable enough for you?
Ethernet is not necessarily more stable than WiFi. It all depends on the implementation. A not so good Ethernet implementation is typically worse than a decent wireless one.

I used to have a microcontroller with an enc28j60 Ethernet adapter. It worked great, until … It didn’t, which was about a month or so later. A reboot brought it back to life for another month or so.

Anyway, the IoTaWatt is based on the esp8266 which does not support Ethernet directly. You could get a mini router and put it close by if WiFi is troublesome where you need it.

At the data rates IoTaWatt uses and with the local storage it has, you probably are not more likely to have a problem with it than you would with a system based on the emonpi.

That’s a good point frogmore.
(re-reading that, I can see how it might come off as sarcastic. that’s not my intent)

I get it, nothing is perfect.
If a wireless controller or a wired network switch fails you’re hosed either way.

I understand most people love wireless because it’s much easier than pulling Ethernet cable and crimping ends and then making wall boxes. Why not just use wireless and skip all that?
The truth is, a wired connection will always be better.

Is wireless good enough? probably for most people. Like I said before I’m sure I’m more in the minority here, so I don’t expect to resonate with the majority of people.

I think the best way I could try to explain my frustration with wireless is maybe to compare it to iPhones.
Bear with me, I know that might sound strange at first, but I’ll try and bring it full circle.

Every year a new iPhone comes out and people stand in line to get the next latest/greatest phone.
If they have last year’s phone, is that good enough? sure it is, for most people. Except for the ones who want the best.

That’s similar to how I feel about internet/connectivity. I always want the best.

ohh and one last thing. I have never owned an iPhone, but from what I read about every year I think my above statement is accurate.

Best is a funny word. Best in what way? Wireless wins for convenience and is generally good enough in most other ways. I have a laptop, and at work, I rarely plug in Ethernet because our wireless is good enough, so the hassle of plugging it in is not worth it. At home I never plug in Ethernet, since my wireless is generally better than my Internet. Now if I am going to download tens of GB of stuff I will probably take the time to do it (at work, at home it would days so it would be faster to just wait till I get to work the next day :wink:).

You like wired and have found the emonpi. It has far fewer channels and I don’t believe is any more accurate. But, if the wiredness of it works for you, great. I much prefer the extra channel capacity of the IoTaWatt. I like it so much, I have two of them. I have never had an issue with the wireless on it.

Now, I also have a dozen other devices all based on the esp8266. There have been some releases of the frameworks that caused some reliability issues. My IoTaWatt never saw that, because Bob does a great job of validation before releasing new firmware. He skipped the bad frameworks, because of problems seen during validation and by other earlier adopters.