It's able to supply power over the same two wires (in the point to point case and the multidrop case), IEEE calls it PoDL (power over data line) and I think it

It's able to supply power over the same two wires (in the point to point case and the multidrop case), IEEE calls it PoDL (power over data line) and I think it supports about 100W in total for one pair. Even in the point to point case, this could offset the demerit of losing multidrop. Multidrop with 100Mbps and 100W of power would be a gamechanger. About 2 years ago I tried to make a prototype using 100baseT1 with PoDL but most of the components weren't on the market yet. I did manage to get samples of some but not all parts, and gave up and kept using this[1] tiny switch. There's also a 1000base-T version. One thing to note about using ethernet in embedded applications, and also the reason why you can't find many small microcontrollers that support it, is ethernet uses a lot of power. About 0.5W per port (meaning 1.0W per line) for 100Mbps, 0.7W per port for 1Gbps, and 4W per port for 10Gbps. There are low-power standards that work by idling when not in use, but I've yet to see any devices that support it. The 2 wire standards are designed for much, much lower power consumption. [1]https://gadgetsmyth.com/product/ethos-lite/ https://gadgetsmyth.com/product/ethos-lite/