Ethernet extention fairly expensive

[Cathodion]

Hey folks,

 

I really like the Ethernet extension but the price is keeping me from buying several of them. Especially since you also need a master brick, and the bricklet cables only reach 2m. That means I need about 7 or 8 master bricks spread throughout the house. The Ethernet extension is really great because I can reuse the Ethernet cables already present, but its so expensive that buying a set of raspberrypi's instead looks like a realistic alternative.

 

Could you explain a bit about the reasons for the high costs of the Ethernet extension?

 

thanks,

Geert.

[photron]

The Ethernet Extension supports PoE and the parts required for PoE make up a good fraction of the price. We're planning to offer a version of the Ethernet Extension without PoE support. This one will be cheaper, but we don't have a price or a date for it yet.

[Cathodion]

The Ethernet Extension supports PoE and the parts required for PoE make up a good fraction of the price. We're planning to offer a version of the Ethernet Extension without PoE support. This one will be cheaper, but we don't have a price or a date for it yet.

 

Thanks for your reply. The ethernet extention without the PoE would be less interesting for me.

 

I've successfully used a 20 euro USB-over-Ethernet converter, that allowed me to power and talk to a master brick 50 meters away from the computer. This of course requires a computer with a running brick deamon (but this can be used for multiple usb connections to masters bricks), and you can't combine it with your existing ethernet network.

 

Thanks again for the reply.

[borg]

There is not much we can do here. If you add up the prices of the parts on the Ethernet Extension (with PoE) and apply our "standard formula" to calculate the retail price you will end up at ~50€, or ~60€ with VAT.

 

Why is a USB-to-Ethernet converter or a USB Wi-Fi stick so much cheaper? Thats quite easy: These converters are totally dumb. They now nothing about TCP/IP or protocols or anything. All of that is done in the operating system kernel.

 

In contrast to that: Our Wi-Fi extension has to know Ethernet, TCP/IP, UDP, DHCP, WPA, WEP and so on and so on. The same (without the encryption) applies for the Ethernet Extension.