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by wal5hy 728 days ago
Our company is often asked at expos if we supply 2 wire ethernet switches (e.g. Single Pair Ethernet SPE[1]) but the reality is there's little demand (outside of automotive) we see in the Industrial marketplace for this type of product.

The other issue is that there is at least 2 competing industrial connector standards for SPE, the main ones being from Harting[2] and Phoenix Contact[3]. I think this could be a great option for the future and ultimately lead to lower cost cabling and smaller products.

[1] https://www.single-pair-ethernet.com/en

[2] https://images.app.goo.gl/ND9d9x66YNUckS7g6

[3] https://images.app.goo.gl/yWAiUAx4Y5vRmmbZA

2 comments

> Our company is often asked at expos if we supply 2 wire ethernet switches (e.g. Single Pair Ethernet SPE[1]) but the reality is there's little demand

This reminds me of a funny conversation I had in a small town stationers when looking for an item.

‘No, we don’t stock it. People keep asking, and I keep having to explain that there is no demand.’

Though this wasn’t for an obscure Ethernet variant.

ha, true! However at expos often the person asking is a vendor looking to sell SPE components to us, or someone in the industry trying to determine if a technology is popular. Can be a bit of an echo chamber.
Yeah that's the thing: neither of them is really standard, and both are fairly expensive. They are also available in very limited mechanical configurations (angle, mounting). Fortunately SPE does not really require either of them. In our product we're going with our own solution.