The ethernet component should support specifying the SPI interface

[rtyle]

Component name

ethernet

Link to component documentation on our website

https://esphome.io/components/ethernet.html

Describe the enhancement

I am developing an M5Stack based project with a CoreS3 and a LAN PoE base. M5Stack supports its devices in ESPHome through its m5stack/M5Unified library. In particular, it supports its display using the SPI2_HOST interface on this platform. This is not configurable. The ESPHome ethernet component supports the LAN PoE base but it also uses the SPI2_HOST interface and that is also not configurable. It should be. Just like the spi component, one should be able to say, for example, "interface: spi3" on an ethernet component to get it to use the SPI3_HOST interface.

Use cases

Such an enhancement is the only way that I can use ESPHome on my M5Stack CoreS3 and LAN PoE base. They both can't use the same SPI interface.

Anything else?

This should be a pretty simple fix. I think that I have something working now with esp-idf. I would be glad to contribute if this enhancement is welcome.

esphome/esphome#10285
esphome/esphome-docs#5252

[github-actions[bot]]

🏷️ I've automatically added the component: ethernet label to help categorize this feature request.

[ssieb]

Why shouldn't M5Stack support changing the SPI interface for its library?
Is the display not supported in esphome anyway?

[rtyle]

I think both parties (esphome ethernet and m5stack m5gfx) should support changing their interface to resolve such a conflict.
I have code that resolves it for esphome by adding an 'interface' option to the ethernet component (similar to the 'interface' option for the spi component).

Independently,

• the M5Stack CoreS3 display is supported in esphome.
• the M5Stack LAN PoE base is supported by the ethernet component in esphome.

... they just are not supported together.

[ssieb]

Isn't the display supported by the built-in components in esphome? Then the SPI would be fine.

[rtyle]

No, I tried that.

[ssieb]

I'm pretty sure that the display is supported, but if you think you have a solution to using a different SPI for the ethernet, you can make a PR. As far as I know, the ethernet library or the hardware requires that one.

[rtyle]

The display is supported but it comes with all sorts of other problems that make it useless.

• It is very slow compared to M5GFX (logged warnings of it taking too long).
• It doesn't work with the m5cores3_touchscreen, which implicitly expects/depends on an m5cores3_display
• There is esphome support for the touchscreen too but polling performance is bad (interrupt pin behind an unsupported pin extender).

I fought ^ these battles for a long time before I gave up.
I spent much less time fixing it by adding the 'interface' enhancement to the esphome ethernet component.
There is already logic in the ethernet component to pick which interface to use.
I just extended this logic to consider whether there was an interface specified.
I don't know what a fix on the m5stack side of the house would be but I cannot imagine that it would be so simple or natural.