7 ms·

Ask HN: How many of you prefer to use Ethernet?

I understand the pros and cons of using Ethernet, but I've never once felt that it would make much of a difference, unless I were to start gaming online again.

Phrenzy 4y ago
"RF is a poor substitute for a wire." -Me
dontbenebby 4y ago
jareds 4y ago
I switched to Ethernet when I started working remotely for my work machine, I found it makes remote meetings have less lag then over wireless. It's possible I could have tuned my wireless network to behave better but it was easier to have an electrician run ethernet when they were already out for some other work.
wolrah 4y ago
Anything that can reasonably be wired should be wired. Anything where consistent performance matters should be wired. Wireless networks are for convenience, not as a default. They're for things that need to be mobile more than they need a perfect network, things that get installed in weird places where wiring is impractical or impossible, etc.
- tmottabr 4y ago
  that.. anything that is not moving around and has possibility to be connected via wire should be wired. Both my and wife laptops while we are working at our home office are connected via wired connection. All the smart TVs in the house are wired, video games are wired. The only things using wifi here are phones, tablets, the kids nintendo switch when it is out of the dock, laptops when out the office and iot stuff that does not have wired options to begin with..
metadat 4y ago
I prefer my ethernet run over 40G fiber.
mattl 4y ago
I love Ethernet, especially in old New England houses where wireless can be great in one room and total garbage in the next.
bombcar 4y ago
Anything that can be wired should be wired. First, it’s faster and more reliable, so if you can why not? And second, the more things you wire the less congestion for things that are wireless. You can even Ethernet an iPad which is useful in some cases.
walterbell 4y ago
USB-C docks allow a single, thin, unobtrusive cable to provide power, speakers, microphone, ethernet and storage, to tablets, phones, mini PCs and desktops.
- g8oz 4y ago
  Any recommendations?
  - walterbell 4y ago
    Basic StarTech USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 dock ($45, https://www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/dkt30ichpd https://www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/dkt30ichpd) works with $4 USB-C gender changer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S292X2V/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S292X2V/), Apple's thin white USB-C cable for dock-to-PC extension and Apple's USB-A ethernet adapter. There are more expensive docks with higher speeds, integrated ethernet, etc.
ninefathom 4y ago
raises hand In the same vein as others have stated, the airwaves are just getting too blasted crowded. In all but the most rural areas, even the 5GHz band in the United States is starting to get quite noisy, and I find the constant frequency hopping and "ghost in the machine" network behaviors on WiFi to be much more vexing than simply running a Cat 5e cable- even if I'm terminating it myself. Edit: directly to OP's observation, bandwidth is not so much of a concern to me as are things like wildly-fluctuating bandwidth and sporadic dissociations.
toast0 4y ago
Token Ring is a poor substitute for Ethernet. ;p I think you mean wired Ethernet vs 802.11 wireless Ethernet though. Wired networking generally gives much more consistent latency, bandwidth, and delivery. For things that are consistently used in a single place, it's worth some effort to have a better experience.
- coretx 4y ago
  Next they are going to ditch TCP/UDP for IPX/SPX XD Give it a couple of more years and "Hacker News" has become consumer electronics & SAAS central. But more on topic; using any radio while you don't have to often is at the expense of other people using radio. It's a shared resource and not infinite. Don't be a dick, use a wire where you can.
drpixie 4y ago
Apart from the physical convenience of absence of wires (for phones and tablets) wired networking just works better.
type0 4y ago
I prefer desktop computers because of the better ergonomics and at that point its stupid not to connect one more wire.
chiph 4y ago
Why pay for a 1gb fiber connection when your WiFi is just going to throttle it?
robswc 4y ago
If its desktop, there's no reason not too unless you can't reasonably get your cable to the PC. If its laptop... eh. I always have more issues with WiFi than with Ethernet, so I go Ethernet when possible.
r24y 4y ago
I work from home, in a home office with no sane way to route an Ethernet cable to, and I've been feeling the crunch during video calls. We have a wifi-enabled baby video monitor in a corner bedroom, and from my experience it's been proving "Rule 10: Your Wi-Fi network is only as fast as its slowest connected device" (see source [1]). My best-practice workflow has been to unplug the camera before an important video call. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/the-ars-technica-semi-scientific-guide-to-wi-fi-access-point-placement/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/the-ars-technica-sem...
- solardev 4y ago
  It's worth trying a good powerline networking adapter if you haven't tried already! I've used a bunch of them and they are much much faster and more reliable than wifi.
  - rasz 4y ago
    moca is another option https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-solution-for-coax-lovers/ https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-s...
    - solardev 4y ago
      That (realistically) requires you to have coax cabling in the walls already, or be willing to snake them through, right? Whereas powerline is where you're working already
skydhash 4y ago
If it stays in one place, it will be wired. Currently, my wired devices are: PS4, 2 Mac Mini, my work laptop, and the Apple TV. Ethernet is just so much better that I just ssh into the mini I'm using as a server to download files.
smileybarry 4y ago
Wherever possible, honestly. I even bought an Ethernet adapter for my Nintendo Switch dock. (And tried to hardwire a HomePod, multiple times)
CharlesW 4y ago
I'll be the token "I'm fine with Wi-Fi" guy. I had my "Ethernet whenever possible" phase, but when I moved my office because the kids got old enough to need their own rooms I was dreading rewiring This Old House. And then I figured out that I could reliably stream Blu-ray movies at their original on-disc bitrate from my Plex server to my Apple TV while everybody else was FaceTime-ing, playing Roblox, etc., and just sort of didn't worry about it again. (Implementation notes: I do have one direct 10GbE connection between my workstation and my NAS, and I did move to a mesh Wi-Fi system to solve a coverage issue in a far corner of the house.)
somehnguy 4y ago
I wire everything that isn’t a nightmare to get wire too. WiFi is for smart home things and when I bring my laptop to the couch.
genmud 4y ago
I use it for reliability of things and the fact that Wi-Fi in my place can be hit or miss, even with 3 APs. As you get higher in the frequency, the smaller the range is before it starts getting unusable or requiring a bunch of retransmission. It’s also dedicated bandwidth to each device rather than shared across multiple systems.
lovelearning 4y ago
I use Borg for photo and document backups to a remote server. To my surprise, I found that my ethernet is about 25x faster than my Wifi network on the same router. 400MB takes just 50s compared to 21 minutes. Though the theoretical mbps of both are comparable (100 vs. 150), wireless technologies always seem to be less consistent and vary a lot. I've noticed it with both Wifi and 4G. It's ethernet all the way now whenever I'm backing up MBs or GBs, which is every week.
simonblack 4y ago
I prefer it. I find that ethernet is much better than smoke signals for reaching the other side of the world. Seriously though, sometimes it's difficult to use a network cable. You could look at Ethernet-over-power-line adapters. I use all of the following in our house: ethernet cables, wifi, and ethernet-over-powerline. I have even used E-over-P to carry an ethernet 'cable' to a far-flung wireless access point in our last house. You could get perhaps something like this: https://www.techreviewer.com/tech-answers/powerline-adapters-vs-wifi/ https://www.techreviewer.com/tech-answers/powerline-adapters...
karmakaze 4y ago
I use the Ethernet on a mesh router so only the backhaul channel. Why not leave the wifi bandwidth for other devices that stream etc. It's also good for the times I do game on the net. Other computers in the same room as the base station are also connected by switch.
- chrisstanchak 4y ago
  Orbi for the win
rchaud 4y ago
I might be old-fashioned but 1080P video is perfectly fine for my eyes, and 4K seems like a waste of bandwidth. Perhaps as a result I haven't had an Ethernet capable device in 11 years.
- chrisstanchak 4y ago
  My Grandma used to tell us to not waste ice.
- solardev 4y ago
  You don't need hardwired for 4k video. That's trivial to do on any modern wifi. And 4k is only helpful if you have a big TV or projector.
glial 4y ago
I move datasets and docker images around and ethernet helps. I plug in a laptop when sitting at the desk.
daveoc64 4y ago
I've just got a router with Wi-Fi 6E and it is just about able to offer the full 1gbps of my broadband connection wirelessly. Ethernet on the other hand just works for high speeds like that, and offers low latency that can't be beaten by wireless.
NoPicklez 4y ago
From my experience if you have a decent WiFi setup, it will work perfectly fine for streaming, wireless speakers, social media apps etc. UNTIL you want to do anything low latency like online gaming. With gaming over WiFi it is challenging to have the best of both worlds being high bandwidth and low latency. If I could I would have most things ethernet being PC, gaming consoles and wireless access points. Anything that roams can be on the WiFi.
magarnicle 4y ago
Anyone had much luck putting M1 MacBook Pros on ethernet? Our office tried a few different docks and adaptors but there were frequent dropouts.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Yes, it’s been fine for us with either an Ethernet-to-USB adapter or any of the 8-in-1 unpowered hubs, like the generic ones Best Buy sells. The Ethernet cable runs to a standard Netgear switch. The laptop types were M1 13” Pro and M1 Max 16” Pro.
- veidr 4y ago
  We use the "PLUGABLE 2.5G USB-C AND USB TO ETHERNET ADAPTER"[1] on M1 Max machines without problem (and I would consider the need to install any extra software a problem). We've used this plugged directly into the Mac, and also plugged into Thunderbolt docks from OWN and CalDigit, and have not had any issues. [1]: https://plugable.com/products/usbc-e2500/ https://plugable.com/products/usbc-e2500/
deafpolygon 4y ago
I like it wired. There's so much going on the wifi in the house (phone, tablet, laptops, IOT) that I'm always getting degraded performance. Wired ensures I get the maximum throughput on my network provider for my PC.
veidr 4y ago
I definitely prefer wired Ethernet, not only because it is more reliable and requires less setup and software configuration than Wi-Fi — but it is also just faster. 10Gbps hardware is still kind of expensive, but 2.5Gbps hardware is dirt cheap nowadays.
solardev 4y ago
I use hardwired ethernet because I've never seen a wifi router that can actually keep up with gigabit internet from the ISP. And I never have connection issues. Wifi is just so unreliable. Even at the office with fancy routers, we have to reset it once a month or so and frequently see slowdowns too.
xs83 4y ago
Me, I work pretty quickly online and Wifi blips are very noticeable to me, even that perceived slowness when something is being retransmitted is obvious to me, it sometimes feels sluggish. Even with a top of the range consumer router it is night and day between that and my wired connection. I think the environment is just too noisy now, I have done site surveys to try and avoid it but apartment living pretty much stands no chance I think. I will install Fibre channel in my new house so I can really take advantage of my NAS throughput
zzo38computer 4y ago
I use wired connections. I think wired connections are in many cases better and more reliable than wireless, and avoids some other problems of wireless. When possible, wired is better.
SteeCee 4y ago
I've found using Ethernet prevents lag spikes during video calls and in general makes download speeds more reliable. Off the job I play a lot of fighting games which use peer to peer connections. Without Ethernet those games are borderline unplayable.
algoatecorn 4y ago
One of the first things we did in our new house was run cat cables to multiple rooms. Specifically, our offices have ethernet sockets right by our desktop PCs so we only have to run a few inches of cable which I spliced into the perfect length to keep things looking clean. We game a fair amount, and it's a nice bit of infrastructure that we value greatly

I understand the pros and cons of using Ethernet, but I've never once felt that it would make much of a difference, unless I were to start gaming online again.

Phrenzy 4y ago

"RF is a poor substitute for a wire." -Me

dontbenebby 4y ago

jareds 4y ago

I switched to Ethernet when I started working remotely for my work machine, I found it makes remote meetings have less lag then over wireless. It's possible I could have tuned my wireless network to behave better but it was easier to have an electrician run ethernet when they were already out for some other work.

wolrah 4y ago

Anything that can reasonably be wired should be wired. Anything where consistent performance matters should be wired. Wireless networks are for convenience, not as a default. They're for things that need to be mobile more than they need a perfect network, things that get installed in weird places where wiring is impractical or impossible, etc.

tmottabr 4y ago
that.. anything that is not moving around and has possibility to be connected via wire should be wired. Both my and wife laptops while we are working at our home office are connected via wired connection. All the smart TVs in the house are wired, video games are wired. The only things using wifi here are phones, tablets, the kids nintendo switch when it is out of the dock, laptops when out the office and iot stuff that does not have wired options to begin with..

metadat 4y ago

I prefer my ethernet run over 40G fiber.

mattl 4y ago

I love Ethernet, especially in old New England houses where wireless can be great in one room and total garbage in the next.

bombcar 4y ago

Anything that can be wired should be wired. First, it’s faster and more reliable, so if you can why not? And second, the more things you wire the less congestion for things that are wireless. You can even Ethernet an iPad which is useful in some cases.

walterbell 4y ago

USB-C docks allow a single, thin, unobtrusive cable to provide power, speakers, microphone, ethernet and storage, to tablets, phones, mini PCs and desktops.

g8oz 4y ago
Any recommendations?
- walterbell 4y ago
  Basic StarTech USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 dock ($45, https://www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/dkt30ichpd https://www.startech.com/en-us/cards-adapters/dkt30ichpd) works with $4 USB-C gender changer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S292X2V/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S292X2V/), Apple's thin white USB-C cable for dock-to-PC extension and Apple's USB-A ethernet adapter. There are more expensive docks with higher speeds, integrated ethernet, etc.

ninefathom 4y ago

raises hand In the same vein as others have stated, the airwaves are just getting too blasted crowded. In all but the most rural areas, even the 5GHz band in the United States is starting to get quite noisy, and I find the constant frequency hopping and "ghost in the machine" network behaviors on WiFi to be much more vexing than simply running a Cat 5e cable- even if I'm terminating it myself. Edit: directly to OP's observation, bandwidth is not so much of a concern to me as are things like wildly-fluctuating bandwidth and sporadic dissociations.

toast0 4y ago

Token Ring is a poor substitute for Ethernet. ;p I think you mean wired Ethernet vs 802.11 wireless Ethernet though. Wired networking generally gives much more consistent latency, bandwidth, and delivery. For things that are consistently used in a single place, it's worth some effort to have a better experience.

coretx 4y ago
Next they are going to ditch TCP/UDP for IPX/SPX XD Give it a couple of more years and "Hacker News" has become consumer electronics & SAAS central. But more on topic; using any radio while you don't have to often is at the expense of other people using radio. It's a shared resource and not infinite. Don't be a dick, use a wire where you can.

drpixie 4y ago

Apart from the physical convenience of absence of wires (for phones and tablets) wired networking just works better.

type0 4y ago

I prefer desktop computers because of the better ergonomics and at that point its stupid not to connect one more wire.

chiph 4y ago

Why pay for a 1gb fiber connection when your WiFi is just going to throttle it?

robswc 4y ago

If its desktop, there's no reason not too unless you can't reasonably get your cable to the PC. If its laptop... eh. I always have more issues with WiFi than with Ethernet, so I go Ethernet when possible.

r24y 4y ago

I work from home, in a home office with no sane way to route an Ethernet cable to, and I've been feeling the crunch during video calls. We have a wifi-enabled baby video monitor in a corner bedroom, and from my experience it's been proving "Rule 10: Your Wi-Fi network is only as fast as its slowest connected device" (see source [1]). My best-practice workflow has been to unplug the camera before an important video call. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/the-ars-technica-semi-scientific-guide-to-wi-fi-access-point-placement/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/02/the-ars-technica-sem...

solardev 4y ago
It's worth trying a good powerline networking adapter if you haven't tried already! I've used a bunch of them and they are much much faster and more reliable than wifi.
- rasz 4y ago
  moca is another option https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-solution-for-coax-lovers/ https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-s...
  - solardev 4y ago
    That (realistically) requires you to have coax cabling in the walls already, or be willing to snake them through, right? Whereas powerline is where you're working already

skydhash 4y ago

If it stays in one place, it will be wired. Currently, my wired devices are: PS4, 2 Mac Mini, my work laptop, and the Apple TV. Ethernet is just so much better that I just ssh into the mini I'm using as a server to download files.

smileybarry 4y ago

Wherever possible, honestly. I even bought an Ethernet adapter for my Nintendo Switch dock. (And tried to hardwire a HomePod, multiple times)

CharlesW 4y ago

I'll be the token "I'm fine with Wi-Fi" guy. I had my "Ethernet whenever possible" phase, but when I moved my office because the kids got old enough to need their own rooms I was dreading rewiring This Old House. And then I figured out that I could reliably stream Blu-ray movies at their original on-disc bitrate from my Plex server to my Apple TV while everybody else was FaceTime-ing, playing Roblox, etc., and just sort of didn't worry about it again. (Implementation notes: I do have one direct 10GbE connection between my workstation and my NAS, and I did move to a mesh Wi-Fi system to solve a coverage issue in a far corner of the house.)

somehnguy 4y ago

I wire everything that isn’t a nightmare to get wire too. WiFi is for smart home things and when I bring my laptop to the couch.

genmud 4y ago

I use it for reliability of things and the fact that Wi-Fi in my place can be hit or miss, even with 3 APs. As you get higher in the frequency, the smaller the range is before it starts getting unusable or requiring a bunch of retransmission. It’s also dedicated bandwidth to each device rather than shared across multiple systems.

lovelearning 4y ago

I use Borg for photo and document backups to a remote server. To my surprise, I found that my ethernet is about 25x faster than my Wifi network on the same router. 400MB takes just 50s compared to 21 minutes. Though the theoretical mbps of both are comparable (100 vs. 150), wireless technologies always seem to be less consistent and vary a lot. I've noticed it with both Wifi and 4G. It's ethernet all the way now whenever I'm backing up MBs or GBs, which is every week.

simonblack 4y ago

I prefer it. I find that ethernet is much better than smoke signals for reaching the other side of the world. Seriously though, sometimes it's difficult to use a network cable. You could look at Ethernet-over-power-line adapters. I use all of the following in our house: ethernet cables, wifi, and ethernet-over-powerline. I have even used E-over-P to carry an ethernet 'cable' to a far-flung wireless access point in our last house. You could get perhaps something like this: https://www.techreviewer.com/tech-answers/powerline-adapters-vs-wifi/ https://www.techreviewer.com/tech-answers/powerline-adapters...

karmakaze 4y ago

I use the Ethernet on a mesh router so only the backhaul channel. Why not leave the wifi bandwidth for other devices that stream etc. It's also good for the times I do game on the net. Other computers in the same room as the base station are also connected by switch.

chrisstanchak 4y ago
Orbi for the win

rchaud 4y ago

I might be old-fashioned but 1080P video is perfectly fine for my eyes, and 4K seems like a waste of bandwidth. Perhaps as a result I haven't had an Ethernet capable device in 11 years.

chrisstanchak 4y ago
My Grandma used to tell us to not waste ice.
solardev 4y ago
You don't need hardwired for 4k video. That's trivial to do on any modern wifi. And 4k is only helpful if you have a big TV or projector.

glial 4y ago

I move datasets and docker images around and ethernet helps. I plug in a laptop when sitting at the desk.

daveoc64 4y ago

I've just got a router with Wi-Fi 6E and it is just about able to offer the full 1gbps of my broadband connection wirelessly. Ethernet on the other hand just works for high speeds like that, and offers low latency that can't be beaten by wireless.

NoPicklez 4y ago

From my experience if you have a decent WiFi setup, it will work perfectly fine for streaming, wireless speakers, social media apps etc. UNTIL you want to do anything low latency like online gaming. With gaming over WiFi it is challenging to have the best of both worlds being high bandwidth and low latency. If I could I would have most things ethernet being PC, gaming consoles and wireless access points. Anything that roams can be on the WiFi.

magarnicle 4y ago

Anyone had much luck putting M1 MacBook Pros on ethernet? Our office tried a few different docks and adaptors but there were frequent dropouts.

1123581321 4y ago
Yes, it’s been fine for us with either an Ethernet-to-USB adapter or any of the 8-in-1 unpowered hubs, like the generic ones Best Buy sells. The Ethernet cable runs to a standard Netgear switch. The laptop types were M1 13” Pro and M1 Max 16” Pro.
veidr 4y ago
We use the "PLUGABLE 2.5G USB-C AND USB TO ETHERNET ADAPTER"[1] on M1 Max machines without problem (and I would consider the need to install any extra software a problem). We've used this plugged directly into the Mac, and also plugged into Thunderbolt docks from OWN and CalDigit, and have not had any issues. [1]: https://plugable.com/products/usbc-e2500/ https://plugable.com/products/usbc-e2500/

deafpolygon 4y ago

I like it wired. There's so much going on the wifi in the house (phone, tablet, laptops, IOT) that I'm always getting degraded performance. Wired ensures I get the maximum throughput on my network provider for my PC.

veidr 4y ago

I definitely prefer wired Ethernet, not only because it is more reliable and requires less setup and software configuration than Wi-Fi — but it is also just faster. 10Gbps hardware is still kind of expensive, but 2.5Gbps hardware is dirt cheap nowadays.

solardev 4y ago

I use hardwired ethernet because I've never seen a wifi router that can actually keep up with gigabit internet from the ISP. And I never have connection issues. Wifi is just so unreliable. Even at the office with fancy routers, we have to reset it once a month or so and frequently see slowdowns too.

xs83 4y ago

Me, I work pretty quickly online and Wifi blips are very noticeable to me, even that perceived slowness when something is being retransmitted is obvious to me, it sometimes feels sluggish. Even with a top of the range consumer router it is night and day between that and my wired connection. I think the environment is just too noisy now, I have done site surveys to try and avoid it but apartment living pretty much stands no chance I think. I will install Fibre channel in my new house so I can really take advantage of my NAS throughput

zzo38computer 4y ago

I use wired connections. I think wired connections are in many cases better and more reliable than wireless, and avoids some other problems of wireless. When possible, wired is better.

SteeCee 4y ago

I've found using Ethernet prevents lag spikes during video calls and in general makes download speeds more reliable. Off the job I play a lot of fighting games which use peer to peer connections. Without Ethernet those games are borderline unplayable.

algoatecorn 4y ago

One of the first things we did in our new house was run cat cables to multiple rooms. Specifically, our offices have ethernet sockets right by our desktop PCs so we only have to run a few inches of cable which I spliced into the perfect length to keep things looking clean. We game a fair amount, and it's a nice bit of infrastructure that we value greatly