Using the ESP32 with wired Ethernet

[Andreas]

Continuing the discussion from Using Power-over-Ethernet (PoE):

Hi there,

as we all know running WiFi or other radios near the bees might not be optimal, I would like to shed some light on another option here. We could well use the ESP32 with wired Ethernet and it could even be powered over PoE.

In order to get that ball rolling, I am quickly sharing some resources here.

• Ethernet on ESP32 using LAN8720
• Enabling Ethernet On The ESP32 | Hackaday
• wESP32: Wired ESP32 with Ethernet and PoE | Hackaday.io
• ESP32-POE - Open Source Hardware Board
• Software - wESP32 — Wired ESP32 with PoE
• esp-idf/components/esp_eth/src at master · espressif/esp-idf · GitHub
• ESP32-POE/SOFTWARE/ESP-IDF/ESP32_PoE_Ethernet at master · OLIMEX/ESP32-POE · GitHub

Support for that is also coming to MicroPython for ESP32.

• MQTT on LAN using ESP32 · Issue #4817 · micropython/micropython · GitHub
• Esp32 eth config by MrSurly · Pull Request #5048 · micropython/micropython · GitHub
• network.LAN is missing from the latest official builds. · Issue #5265 · micropython/micropython · GitHub

Cheers,
Andreas.

[Andreas]

Just found this within Pycom’s fork of the ESP-IDF added just recently.

Integrating ksz8851 Ethernet adapter drivers

Apparently, this adjusts support for the Microchip (formerly Atmel) KSZ8851 - Ethernet Controllers within the Pycom ecosystem.

[poesel]

@Andreas

as we all know running WiFi or other radios near the bees might not be optimal

Is that ‘known’ or ‘believed’?

[Andreas]

@poesel

‘known’ or ‘believed’

Let’s relax that to »believed«. However, research is still ongoing in this area and there are publications which point towards negative impacts ^[1][2]. I believe some of them have already been channeled here, but I’m currently unable to find them back.

Nevertheless, bringing power supply to the hive over PoE is a nice thing on its own.

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1. Colony collapse disorder - Wikipedia ↩︎

2. Bienensterben – Wikipedia ↩︎