Late to this thread, but it's worth mentioning here that for at least some use cases, a Pi Zero 2 W in ethernet gadget mode can meet the requirements of wired ethernet. The big limitation is it has to be a pretty short distance from a USB host with suitable drivers that's on the network you want to use. The voltage drop is pretty significant so wire gauge, at least for the power leads, and overall cable length are essential considerations. Also don't even try to patch two together; use one good cable, as short as you can get away with.
I run two of these, in each case connected with a good quality 3 metre 20awg USB cable to a USB-equipped router/access point running OpenWRT, which supports the relevant drivers -- in each case one that I was already using, I didn't need to dedicate one to this purpose. One Pi02W runs my front door camera and its web interface (video is stored remotely to an NFS mount), the other is a routed public-facing personal web/email server. Tested throughput is about 130-150mbps, which beats the fast ethernet of the Pi 3s and below, and more than adequate for these purposes. They've both proven stable with long, uninterrupted uptimes.
What's nice about this is that apart from the distance limitation it's got the PoE advantage: only one cable for both power and networking.
I run two of these, in each case connected with a good quality 3 metre 20awg USB cable to a USB-equipped router/access point running OpenWRT, which supports the relevant drivers -- in each case one that I was already using, I didn't need to dedicate one to this purpose. One Pi02W runs my front door camera and its web interface (video is stored remotely to an NFS mount), the other is a routed public-facing personal web/email server. Tested throughput is about 130-150mbps, which beats the fast ethernet of the Pi 3s and below, and more than adequate for these purposes. They've both proven stable with long, uninterrupted uptimes.
What's nice about this is that apart from the distance limitation it's got the PoE advantage: only one cable for both power and networking.
Statistics: Posted by cheddoline — Fri Nov 22, 2024 9:43 pm