I’m looking for a wired Ethernet solution for Blynk that will be built in reasonable numbers (100s but not 100,000s - so not my own board from scratch!). Ethernet is preferred for the ‘zero setup’ of ‘just plug it in the router’ with DHCP and it works.
What is everyone’s favourite solution that is low cost? I have played pre-blink with some cheap Chinese boards that are essentially a Atmel328 with a WS5100 - but they are constrained on memory and storage. Would prefer not to go the Pi route with all the issues around memory cards etc.
Is there a cheap simple ‘ESP8266 with Ethernet’ board that I have missed? Is actually grafting a WS5100 onto an existing board possibly going to work (SPI I think so not complex)?
ENC28J60 is your goto board if you want ethernet. It’s more or less stable and dirt cheap
You’d still need an Arduino or other MCU to couple it too. I have no idea if there integrated solutions with Arduino-like MCU systems with ethernet. There probably are, just haven’t looked for it. Did you check ebay for terms like arduino ethernet?
I did check ebay - but was hoping there was an obscure little Adafruit / Olinex type company that I had missed that would have something. I could integrate a WS5100 (which has the tcpip stack onboard and thus uses less mcu memory) but was hoping someone else had already!
Not exactly mainstream, or cheap for that matter, and maybe a bit bulky as well.
The cheap WS5100 boards/shields are often very unreliable. I’ve been through lots of Arduino Ethernet shields before abandoning Arduinos and going for ESP8266 instead.
Thanks Pete - I have been lucky possibly and have had a couple of China boards (consistantly the same make) work for literally a year at a time, but they are based on the 328 and so memory too small once you have an entire Blynk like system as well as Ethernet and user code. Sadly they don’t make a version with more memory. The one above wouldnt run the arduino / blynk libraries would it with its processor?
you can also combine the enc28j60 with arduino mega, then you have more memory.
but if you need some 100s of them, i think it would worth designing a custom pcb, with all the stuff integrated on a single board, also a didicated psu for the ethernet.
given that the mega schematic and pcb is public on the net, and the enc28j60 needs only a couple of components + a beefy psu, it wouldn’t be complicated at all to combine the 2 boards.
