Good Afternoon,
I don’t know about anyone else but I would love to see Sense able to be connected to my network via ethernet instead of wifi.
–Harry
2 Likes
Would be nice & probably more stable.
Since the Sense unit needs to be inside the load breaker box, that would mean routing low voltage cabling into a box with 120/240 volt.
So it should be shielded ethernet cable to prevent interference.
And than it should be kept a certain distance apart depending on national & local code.
I think I remember it should be kept 8 inches apart or something.
Ah found some info in search engines:
Believe it or not, but the cable distance is also a factor, in fact, the National Electric Code (NEC) has specific distance guidelines for running power and ethernet cables together. Depending on the cable types, you don’t want them closer than two inches. Any closer and your violating safety codes and risking data loss and induced voltage issues. Here are the main guidelines:
Unshielded ethernet cable can’t be closer than 8 inches to a 120V or 240V household electrical cable.
The lower voltage household cables can be moved closer if the ethernet cable is shielded. But you don’t want to go closer than 2 inches.
I like your idea but in general I don’t think it is practical.
One down side of this idea is that without WiFi, the Kasa integration would not function. This is because that integration broadcasts a request to the Kasa plugs over WiFi, then receives their response via the same channel.
Doesn’t that depend on the setup of the wireless AP?
If they simply bridge the Ethernet it should work [TM]
If they route an extra subnet, it will not.
3 Likes
The only way I could see this working would be to mount the Sense unit to a knockout panel on the box and have an RJ-45 jack mounted there. With the Sense unit on one side of the panel wall and the ethernet jack on the other there would be no low voltage cable inside the box.
It would make the installation a bit more difficult and possibly beyond some users.
I really just want to get as many devices off my wifi network as I can and with ethernet available within 3 feet of the electrical panel it seemed like a good idea. Since the ethernet is bridged to the wifi network I don’t think there would be problems with other wifi based smart devices.
If it still needs to be wireless I wonder if Thread would be an option?
–Harry
Available in the Sense Pro product, but you need to become a Sense Pro - see the following web page for criteria and more information. It’s a targeted variant of the product.
