Ethernet imp

The more I pay with my imp the more I love it. I can think of many new exciting devices to connect to the Internet. The problem is some office locations with WiFi require the device to accept an agreement. Any thought of a version of imp that connects to the cloud service via a hardwired Ethernet connection?

it’s much easier to create you own wifi enviroment. I don’t think anyone thought about this solution only for this purpose

You’ll need an imp’r to give you the official answer but whenever this question has been asked before the answer to a cabled impee has been a definite no .

It’s a pity as I have worked for clients similar to yourself that would only want wired (and would be horrified if you created your own wifi environment)

In a corporate environment rouge WiFi is a big no-no many places consume all available channels and even go as far as deauthorizeing any beacon broadcasts. A hard wired version not only would solve this issue but could pull power from the network via PoE.

I agree, when it was previously discussed I found mini wifi ap that as well as running on poe also presented usb to power the imp, as a hack you could then put all of that inside a metallised box to act a faraday cage (I don’t know if that’d work, I’m just bouncing ideas).

But the correct and proper solution would be a PoE imp that ideally additionally had a universal power supply on board to power your project.

Could one even cable the AP antenna directly to an imp002 antenna connector (via some attenuator) and so avoid radiating?

It’s really tempting for us to make a wired imp - especially because it’s essentially a single chip (plus PHY), but we’ve not had enough demand to put this into production as yet…

You could in theory cable one to an AP (with a big attenuator - I’d put in at least 40dB) but that’s quite expensive as an option!

quoting @back_ache
It’s a pity as I have worked for clients similar to yourself that would only want wired (and would be horrified if you created your own wifi environment)

i have the same environment around me.
People “want to kill me” because i tell them i need a wireless just for my imp.
They say and with some reason, that i´m creating another point of entry in our network.

Ensure the network the imp is on is encrypted, segmented from any other LAN/WLAN traffic (eg using a VLAN) and firewall it so that devices can only connect to the imp port… and it’s really not a security risk.

Even if someone got onto the wireless, they can’t access any local network resources, affect imps, or even do much useful with the internet connection.

sure, but in these type of environments you can argue with them till your blue in the face, it’s easier for a “jobsworth” to dig-in and say no than to understand what you are asking.

I think that why you also see a lot of network attached devices in these environments that need to “phone home” do so by tunnelling over https on 443 rather than negotiate with the company’s firewall person

The funny thing is, their awkardness can lead to them be over-ridden by directors using the magic words JFDI or worse people to setting up “rouge ap’s” without understanding the implications.

Just going back to the original problem, if it is a big issue for the end customer perhaps the customer should get a sim on a IOT contact and bind the imp to a 3g wifi modem, that way it is not touching their network in any way (even then they may complain about causing rf congestion)

Put your access point and your imp in a metal box, and turn the radios on the AP down to where only the imp can communicate with it, and the signal isn’t even readable outside the box. You now have an “ethernet” imp.

MakeDeck neat idea and this fella is the right size for just that and USB supply could supply imp too…
http://uk.tp-link.com/products/details/?categoryid=241&model=TL-WR702N

Blimey, Lawrence, that’d make a good, handy travel router when you’re in a hotel or holiday apartment with Ethernet but no WiFi.

Tony yep also customer has used the 3/4G version which isn’t that much bigger http://uk.tp-link.com/products/details/?categoryid=218&model=TL-MR3020#over

The is the one I found when we were talking about it in Feb, it has the advantage it gets the power from the ethernet cable (poe) and has a usb port to power the imp

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1566811216/AP01_150M_300M_usb_rj45_rj11.html?s=p

http://forums.electricimp.com/discussion/comment/12910#Comment_12910

We have commercial customers (think electric utilities) that abhor WiFi for security reasons. We’re currently using MiFi hotspots at most of our sites except when customers will allow us on their guest networks. I like @makedeck’s idea and have found several “pocket” wireless routers that should do the trick, assuming we can turn their radio power down and shield them sufficiently to satisfy the customers. We would also turn off the broadcast of the SSID so it’s not blatantly visible to all.

Update – one particular electric company absolutely forbids, under any circumstances, setting up a WiFi network, even in a Faraday shielded configuration. Looks like we’re not going to be able to use an EI-based solution and will have to install our previous platform.

Well, some people are like that… if you can find another 99,999 of them then we’d look at doing an ethernet imp :slight_smile:

With imp005, we now have 10/100 ethernet available in imp form, see https://www.electricimp.com/platform/hardware/

!!!