With the development of Power over Ethernet, more and more devices support PoE power up , which can greatly save the cabling difficulty for most projects. But at the market there are various brands for choosing, how to make the decision?
Firstly you need to know where will be used the PoE switches? If it is for home using, for example in your apartment or house, then maybe an unmanaged PoE switch is enough for you. If it will be used in a big scale site, then managed PoE switch maybe a better optional, since it would be much more convenient for management.
Secondly we need to check the ports information. For home or SOHO using, a 4 or 8 ports unamanged PoE switch maybe enough. For big porjetcs maybe we need to choose 8, 24, even 48 ports managed models. The other important spec is bandwidth. The PoE ports should be 10/100M speed, or 10/100/1000M speed or even higher 2.5G, 10G copper?
Thirdly we need to check the total power and power of each power to meet your front-end devices’ power consumption. Most of the PoE switches support standard IEEE802.3.af/at PoE output, but some PDs require more than 30W ,such as WIFI 6 APs. In this case a BT switch will be your best option. The following picture shares
Fourth the warranty and after sales services. Some models require strong technical supports to configure. Please confirm before buying.
Last some special functions, such as PoE PD-Alive, VLAN , Extend(250). These functions are not standard, but it helps in actual project. PoE PD-Alive can reboot the frozen PDs, it greatly reduce the maintanence difficulty. Extend ( also called 250M or CCTV mode) can make the PoE power up to 250M, but the bandwidth will slow down to 10Mbps. It is enough for most IP cameras, but if there is wireless AP in the network, then it is not suggested.
These are the most important things when choosing a PoE switches. If have any inquiry, contact us without doubt! Our specialist will give you the solution based on your situation.