Especially the Ethernet-over-UART/SPI/whatever part is quite interesting. It's incredibly obvious in hindsight, but it's of course a great way to create affordable wired IoT devices. You could just talk Ethernet over RS485, and be able to communicate to a bunch of devices with a single $20 translator and a $0.15 transceiver per device!
Yes, that's a great example of the "mixed-media" use case for SatCat5. If you have an Ethernet switch where some ports are Ethernet-over-RS485, and others are Ethernet-over-10/100/1000BASE-T, then the switch doubles as a sort of media converter. Using a common transport layer means it's easier to link sensors, actuators, and compute resources.
Especially the Ethernet-over-UART/SPI/whatever part is quite interesting. It's incredibly obvious in hindsight, but it's of course a great way to create affordable wired IoT devices. You could just talk Ethernet over RS485, and be able to communicate to a bunch of devices with a single $20 translator and a $0.15 transceiver per device!