We are probably going to get rid of Vivint. Their outside cameras use POE Ethernet to WiFi adapters in the attic. I’m looking at options to replace them and I’m sure I’m going still need POE. Right now (and it’s not even Texas Summerer part3 yet, the attic is hitting around 113 degrees. Can a POR switch work up there with temps that high and higher?
So there is a single ethernet drop going to the attic with a wifi bridge attached to it using PoE power right now? And the outdoor cams connect to that bridge.
You are asking if you could replace that Wifi bridge with a new PoE switch located in the attic, and then run new lines to each cam?
I suspect it would be best if you could get the switch inside the envelope of the home so it stays a little cooler, but I imagine there has to be some out there that can work in higher temps, cannot be the first time someone wants to put one in an unconditioned space.
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Check out Cisco second hand switches, not expensive and built like tanks. The specs list 113F as an upper limit, but could likely withstand much higher. Check resellers on ebay with decomissioned switches
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Google something like "industrial network switch". I had an Antaira non-POE unmanaged switch in an attic south of Houston for several years. Summer temps in the attic reached 140 deg F daily. Never had any problems with it. Most of the industrial switches spec 70 deg C to 75 deg C.
Most of these require external power supplies. I was able to put the power supply in the conditioned living area and run DC power to the switch in the attic.
Here is what is up there now
My thought was to run a line up there from the router or my current POE switch. My house wasn’t exactly pre wired (built 2019). There are.no media panels anywhere. But there are three cat6 cables (yes cat6 cables note phone lines) running from one end of the house. But none are connected to anything on either end. There is plan to run some additional lines and find a place to add hard connections in the most used rooms. That’s a grander plan. I figured there’s cameras may be an easier small project to start with.
I have 3 UniFI Flex switches in my TX attic. How many POE ports do you need? You can feed the Flex switch with a 60W POE injector in conditioned space. But the Flex only has 4 output ports.
Right now, only 2, but if I'm going to do this, I'm figuring it would be a good d idea to have at least 4 to 8 incase I want or need to add anything in the future.
We use these at work in our control cabinets. Their high temp units are rated to 75C/167F.
I use one of these and it works well. It's a POE splitter, turns 1 POE connection into 2, without external power
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As I was going down a different rabbit hole, I stumbled across this. Could I use this? And does it need to be used with a Unifi gateway or router or can I use it with my current router? I may be going down the Unifi rabbit hole eventually anyway).
Switch Flex - Ubiquiti Store United States
Prob not it need a poe ++ to power it ..
At least thats what is says in the video ..
