Hi everybody,
I use many outlets flashed with tasmota firmware and some nodeMCUs running ESPHome (and countless WLEDs, of course 
).
While they work great, they are designed for WiFi and while some (ESPHome) support connecting an ethernet adapter, itād still be a wifi device running through ethernet, not a native ethernet controller.
Do you know of any firmware that can run on regular arduinos with an ethernet port (shield, adapter), or on some dedicated ethernet microcrontoller? I donāt know much about microcontrollers, but I am confident there is some model that comes with ethernet out of the box.
Usually these devices (nodeMCU, sonoff, etc.) work fine. However, some of them (seems like mostly the WLED) lose connectivity on occasion, and then wonāt work until after a power cycle. This has been improved a lot with recent versions of WLED, but thatās not the main reason Iām asking. Itād just be great having the option to run everything that needs to be controlled via ethernet.
Now, I donāt have ethernet in every room of my house, but if this were possible, I would consider running the cable. I could even run the cable room to room and put ādumbā passive switches in between for better availability (server to room 1, passive hub that allows multiple devices to be connected, then room 1 hub to room 2 passive hub, same thing, then room 2 to room 3, etc. etc.).
I had researched this a while back (though before my Home Assistant days), and did not find anything that met my criteria. When I just learned that somebody runs their zigbee2mqtt controller via ethernet (rather than serial / usb), I thought once more how amazing itād be to control whatever possible via ethernet.
ESPHome seems to be the best optionā¦ āJustā connect an ethernet shield and configure accordingly, then run it through ethernet instead of wifi. However, it kinda bothers me that the very device (regardless of it being a wemos d1 mini, a nodeMCU, or similar) itād be running on is still designed to work via wifi and the ethernet is just a workaroundā¦ perhaps there is a way to use ethernet natively without having to āchangeā the original purpose of the device.
Are any of you running something similar, and if so, what hardware and what firmware is it?
Thanks for your ideas 