Moving from Wi-Fi to Wired for Outdoor Telemetry? Stability vs. Complexity

Hey everyone,

I’ve been lurking around the forums here for a while, mostly picking up tips for some of the DFRobot Gravity sensors I’ve been integrating into my garden monitoring project. I’ve reached a bit of a crossroads with my latest build and wanted to get some "real-world" advice from those of you who have been in the trenches with IoT connectivity.

I was recently reading through a thread here regarding "optimizing power consumption for remote ESP32 nodes," and a specific point really caught my eye. One of the users mentioned that the Wi-Fi handshake is often the single biggest battery killer, especially when the signal has to penetrate thick walls or deal with interference from other outdoor appliances. That really resonated with me because I’ve been struggling with "ghost" disconnections on my weather station for weeks. It’s sitting right on the edge of my router's range, and whenever the weather gets particularly bad—ironically, when I need the data most—the connection just drops.

My personal insight from this hobby is that while we all love the convenience of wireless, it’s often the least "invincible" part of the project. I’m seriously considering ditching Wi-Fi altogether for this specific node and just running a length of Cat5e out to the garage.

To do this, I’ve been looking into using a simple 1-port network module. Specifically, one of those tiny SPI-to-Ethernet breakout modules that I can just hook up to my MCU. I figure if I’m going to go through the trouble of mounting everything in a waterproof enclosure, I might as well give it a rock-solid wired backbone. A 1-port module seems like the most efficient way to get that stability without the overhead of a full-blown router or switch sitting out there in the elements.

However, I’m a bit worried about the library support and potential bottlenecks. Most of these 1-port network devices are pretty straightforward, but I’ve heard mixed things about how they handle simultaneous connections if you’re trying to serve a basic web interface alongside pushing data to an MQTT broker.

Has anyone here made the switch from Wi-Fi to a dedicated network module for their outdoor projects? I’m starting to observe that for mission-critical data, "cutting the cord" might actually be more of a headache than it’s worth.

Do you find that the increased reliability of a wired 1-port interface is worth the extra effort of physical cabling, or are modern mesh Wi-Fi systems finally making Ethernet modules redundant for hobbyist-level IoT?