Wiznet makers

📌 The ESP32-S3 in gen 2 Has No Ethernet MAC, Which Rules Out the LAN8720

The boneIO ESP Dimmer LED gen 2 declares type: W5500 in its shipping firmware because the ESP32-S3 it moved to has no internal Ethernet MAC. A plain ESP32 has one, which let the first-generation dimmer drive an RMII PHY such as the LAN8720 over MDC, MDIO and a clock pin, and ESPHome's ethernet component documentation lists LAN8720 as "RMII, ESP32 only" against W5500 as an SPI part for ESP32 and RP2040. The same swap repeats across every gen2 product boneIO sells.

boneIO is a hardware company in Łódź, Poland whose About page puts the origin plainly: "boneIO started as a DIY project for Maciej's home and evolved into a complete open source smart home solution." The gen 2 dimmer is the newest device in its ESP line, an 8-channel PWM LED dimmer occupying 7 modules on a 35 mm DIN rail inside an electrical cabinet.

The gen2 dimmer as boneIO shows it. This is a 3D render published by boneIO on its store, not a photograph. Source: store.boneio.eu.

Vendor, Availability, and Price

The seller and manufacturer is boneIO Sp. z o.o., a Polish limited company registered in August 2022 under NIP 7272861352 at Aleja Tadeusza Kościuszki 101, 90-441 Łódź, trading from its own WooCommerce store at store.boneio.eu since March 2023, with support through a contact form, the Discourse forum at forum.boneio.eu and a Discord server. The About page credits Maciej Krasuski with the product idea, Kamil Bożyk with electronics and Paweł Szafer with software; Szafer signs the firmware commits on GitHub as pszafer.

The dimmer is a direct purchase rather than a request-for-quote product. On 27 August 2026 the store page listed EUR 115.13 including VAT and EUR 93.60 excluding VAT under SKU boneio_dimmer_led_gen2, with an Add to cart button, "In stock", 110 units on the counter, "Shipping within 3 business days" and free delivery above 500 PLN. The embedded schema.org offer repeats price: 93.60, availability: InStock and priceValidUntil: 2027-12-31; the page was published on 7 October 2025 and last modified on 27 August 2026.

Botland, a Polish electronics distributor, is the only independent sales channel, listing the device under index BIO-28875 and EAN 5906530114215 at 499,90 zł gross and 406,42 zł net, though it showed zero units on 27 August 2026. No warranty period, return window or CE declaration was found on either page, so none is claimed here.

What Changed Between the First-Generation Dimmer and gen 2

boneIO announced the gen2 dimmer on its own forum on 8 November 2025, writing that this is not a facelift but a completely redesigned device. The store copy names the new processor directly: "Featuring the new ESP32-S3 processor and RS485/CAN buses, the device now offers expanded capabilities for controlling external peripherals." The launch post also records a subtraction: gen2 drops the energy metering of the first generation to concentrate on lighting and the new serial buses.

Generated technical diagram, built for this article from the two configuration files in github.com/boneIO-eu/esphome, the two store listings, and the gen1 and gen2 overview pages on boneio.eu, all read on 27 August 2026.

⚙️ Role of the W5500 on the ESP32-S3 Board

In boneio-dimmer_gen2_8ch-v0_1.yaml on the main branch of github.com/boneIO-eu/esphome, lines 31 to 40 hold the whole ethernet: block: type: W5500, clk_pin: GPIO13, mosi_pin: GPIO39, miso_pin: GPIO38, cs_pin: GPIO12, interrupt_pin: GPIO2, reset_pin: GPIO1 and clock_speed: 25MHz. Line 11 sets the ESPHome project name to boneio.dimmer-led-gen2 and line 27 the board to esp32-s3-devkitc-1, tying the file to the product on sale rather than to a prototype.

The ethernet: block on the main branch, captured 27 August 2026. The file's last commit is 82ec7c0, "fix yaml validation", dated 17 February 2026. Screenshot: github.com/boneIO-eu/esphome.

The ESP32-S3 generates all eight dimming waveforms itself through ESPHome ledc outputs at 1000 Hz on GPIO 18, 17, 16 and 15 for the left section and GPIO 7, 6, 5 and 4 for the right, so lighting timing never crosses the network. The W5500 carries everything else: the ESPHome native API to Home Assistant, an on-device web_server on port 80, over-the-air updates, and the UDP transport on port 18511 that lets a wall switch on one dimmer toggle a channel on another with no broker in between.

Generated technical diagram, built for this article. Every pin number and component name is taken from the shipping configuration file.

The shipping configuration contains no wifi: block at all, so the W5500 link is the only network interface the factory firmware brings up even though the ESP32-S3 has a radio. ESPHome attaches the W5500 through the ESP-IDF esp_eth driver with lwIP handling TCP and UDP, so the chip's hardware socket engine goes unused here.

Eight Inputs, Two Isolated Sections and Two Serial Buses

The eight digital inputs arrive through a PCF8574 I2C expander at 0x38 on SDA GPIO10 and SCL GPIO11, so the configuration file declares each one as a pcf8574 pin.

The labelled connector face. Render published by boneIO, not a photograph. Source: store.boneio.eu.

The store specification table records 12-24 V DC in, maximum 7 W excluding the strips, 24 V DC out at 10 A per side across four channels, 126 x 91 x 57 mm without plugs and 230 g. Each independently powered section takes a 10 A fuse and a 200 W maximum load, a single channel is rated for 50 W, and an LM75B sensor sounds the on-board buzzer above 70 degrees Celsius.

RS485 and CAN appear only in the user manual, revision v2025/10, since the store table lists just "Ethernet 10/100Mbit" and USB-C under Communication. The manual describes the "CAN Port: Used for communication in a tree topology with other boneIO devices or for polling sensors operating with a CAN bus compatible protocol", while in firmware RS485 works out of the box through the uart and modbus components and CAN is only a GPIO35 transceiver standby switch with no canbus: component.

boneIO's cutaway view of the assembly. This is a render rather than a teardown photograph, and no chip markings are legible in it. Source: store.boneio.eu.

Where the gen2 Dimmer Sits in the boneIO ESP Catalogue

boneIO runs two controller families and only the ESP line touches WIZnet, since the Black line runs a modified Debian 13 build rather than compiled ESPHome firmware. The ESP category on store.boneio.eu held eight products on 27 August 2026, and every price, stock count and chip value in this section was read that day from the store and from each product's own ethernet: block.

Generated technical diagram, built for this article. The image adds the exact configuration file name behind each row, for example boneio-dimmer_gen2_8ch-v0_1.yaml for the gen2 dimmer.

Seven of the 22 configuration files on the main branch declare W5500 and every one targets an ESP32-S3 board: the dimmer gen2 in its 8 channel, 4 CCT and 2xRGBW builds, Input24 gen2, and three 8x10A gen2 builds. The remaining fifteen declare LAN8720 and target a plain ESP32, either esp32dev or nodemcu-32s.

The boneIO ESPHome repository's GitHub Actions workflow builds 21 firmware variants from the YAML files a customer can read, and the release tagged esphome-2026.5.3-b1 on 15 June 2026 attaches 42 binaries, among them boneio-dr-gen2-8ch-01-esp32s3.factory.bin at 680,240 bytes, matching the substitutions.name value at the top of the gen2 dimmer configuration.

Setup Without Wi-Fi Provisioning

ESPHome's Made for ESPHome guidelines demand Improv provisioning components so a user can enter Wi-Fi credentials, then note that "these are not required for projects that only provide a physical/wired Ethernet port for connectivity." A device whose only interface is the W5500 plugs into a switch, takes a DHCP lease and appears, which is why the store page can say the dimmer ships with ESPHome pre-installed and joins Home Assistant automatically. Lines 115 and 116 of boneio-dimmer_gen2_8ch-v0_1.yaml carry the matching dashboard_import entry pointing at that file on the main branch.

boneIO's philosophy page states that "boneIO devices are designed to work 100% within your local network", and its Black versus ESP comparison adds a footnote that Wi-Fi in a closed metal distribution board is not recommended because of strong signal attenuation. A 7-module DIN device lives inside exactly that kind of cabinet.

What the Sources Show and What They Do Not

No photograph of this product exists in public, only 3D renders, so no board shot or chip marking has been published. Neither the store specification table nor the 11-page user manual names W5500 or WIZnet, and the only chip name on boneIO's own website sits in a product summary string reading "8 PWM channels for LED strips, 8 inputs, Modbus. Next-gen dimmer with Ethernet via W5500."

The documentation disagrees with itself in one place: the gen2 overview page on boneio.eu lists Wi-Fi with an external antenna, while the store specification table lists no wireless option and the shipping firmware configures none. Independent field reports are thin, with 14 topics in the vendor forum's boneIO ESP category on 27 August 2026 and one published cabinet build, posted in a separate Your Smart Home category by a user named Hubert on 15 June 2026 for a 169 square metre house.

Related WIZnet Maker Projects

KinCony KC868-A2v3: A W5500-Based ESP32-S3 Relay Controller Built for Wired-First Automation is the same transition seen from China rather than Poland: KinCony also moved from a LAN8720A PHY to a W5500 when its v3 boards adopted the ESP32-S3, which makes boneIO's gen2 change a pattern rather than a one-off vendor preference.

ESP32S3 Dimmer Module, DM8 8CH Dimmer is the closest functional twin, another 8-channel ESP32-S3 dimmer for Home Assistant that also carries a W5500, but the DM8 sends 0-10 V to external LED drivers and keeps Wi-Fi beside its wired port, whereas the boneIO device switches the strips directly with PWM and ships wired-only firmware.

OpenKNX REG1: A Bus-Powered DIN-Rail KNX-IP Router on RP2040 and W5500 occupies the same 35 mm rail with a W5500 doing the same job, but through open hardware and the KNX standard rather than closed hardware with open firmware.

❓ FAQ

Q. Which WIZnet chip does the boneIO ESP Dimmer LED gen 2 use, and where is that documented? The W5500, declared at line 33 of boneio-dimmer_gen2_8ch-v0_1.yaml in the manufacturer's own repository at github.com/boneIO-eu/esphome. Neither the store specification table nor the user manual names the chip.

Q. How is the W5500 wired to the ESP32-S3? Over SPI at 25 MHz, on GPIO13 clk, GPIO39 mosi, GPIO38 miso, GPIO12 chip select, GPIO2 interrupt and GPIO1 reset. Those six pins plus the clock speed are the complete ethernet: block in the shipping configuration.

Q. Why did boneIO drop the LAN8720 that the first-generation dimmer used? The first generation ran on an ESP32, whose internal Ethernet MAC can drive an RMII PHY, while gen2 runs on an ESP32-S3 with no Ethernet MAC. ESPHome's ethernet component lists LAN8720 as ESP32 only and W5500 as an SPI part, so an SPI controller is what keeps the wired port.

Q. Can the device work without a Home Assistant server? Yes for local logic and device-to-device links, since ESPHome runs the automations on the device and boneIO documents UDP transport on port 18511 for one dimmer to drive another over the LAN. Home Assistant remains where dashboards, voice control and cross-device scenes live.

Q. What does it cost and can it be bought right now? EUR 115.13 including VAT or EUR 93.60 excluding VAT direct from store.boneio.eu, which showed 110 units in stock and a three business day dispatch window on 27 August 2026. Botland lists the same EAN 5906530114215 at 499,90 zł gross but showed no stock on that date.