It’s true that most of us here can't because we don’t work for Hubitat. Hubitat developers also participate in forum discussions, although I don’t remember if they’ve commented specifically in this one.
They definitely have said in other threads about PoE that it simply isn’t a priority for them. It’s an extreme, niche edge case request from power users.
ETA: Some people accept that and work out their own solutions. Some people don’t.
Thousands of Posts. I never even bothered to search the forums for "PoE hubitat" but I just did and it returns hundreds of of threads with thousands of posts. Extreme niche edge is a nice way to say "its just you" though... Ill remember that next time I want to marginalize an unpopular opinion.
Great, you’ve made your point, in this thread that someone started because they decided to work around the hub’s lack of built-in PoE support.
You think it’s absurd. Anything else?
There are definitely things they could/should/are working on to make the product better. They've got limited resources and need to decide which things to work on.
IMHO, POE support isn't one that will aid many of their customers.
1 ) The way a message is delivered is just as important than the message itself. 2 ) No one called you an idiot or anything close to that. 3 ) It has been "suggested" many times before, they are clearly not interested.
I would imagine they don't want to sell an official adaptor because then there is an expectation of support being provided. What if the adaptor they pick changes specs and then suddenly does not work right anymore?
Didn't take me too long.........
I'm curious about the "Need" for powering the Habitat hub via a PoE cable.
Its more obvious the need for PoE for remote cameras etc. But why is it so important that many folks complain the lack of PoE.
For me, I prefer having PoE in order to simplify management of the hub. PoE allows me three benefits:
Note: My HE hub has not locked on me over the past 5+ years at this point. 
None of these are NEEDS, though. They are very nice to have. I simply use one of the recommended PoE splitters that were thoroughly tested to provide proper power to the C8/C8Pro hubs.
I would love it if Hubitat added PoE support to their next generation hub. However, I do not feel that Hubitat "must" add this for me to remain a customer.
I would not say no to POE, I'm already using it for other devices, understand it reasonably well, already have POE capable switches and injectors.
I would also say that it's a feature that most users don't know about/need, and don't have equipment to support it.
Majority of my friends (undergrad/grad degrees, white collar careers) barely know how to manage basic functions/settings of their router, much less being aware of and using the magical powers of POE. They mostly have a basic router, (usually the one their ISP gave them) have no switches (POE or otherwise), and no POE injectors. And that includes w/EEs or MEs, and other advanced degrees, folks you'd think would be more techy.
As we've discuseed before, the members of this forum do not make a good proxy for an average HE user. Maybe more on the Home Assistant side, but not here from what I've seen.
So to use POE the majority of our users would have to buy a new POE switch or injector, increasing the complexity and cost of setting up the hub (What version of POE?, Will this injector/switch work?, Why isn't my POE working?! etc.). And HE would be expected by users to support their POE issues downstream to the POE switches/injectors that they are trying to use w/the hub. Not sure why HE staff would want to get into that.
Currently, people who "get" POE can set it up and tend to not need much help. And the community has stepped in (via things like Denny's amazing work) to help fill in some of the blanks.
If I was part of HE staff not sure why I would want to prioritize it. Lots of other higher priority/broad impact areas to focus limited resources.
Curious as to how POE provides/enables this?
Here is the thing: I have dozens of IoT devices powered by POE (splitters). They all just work. No problems whatsoever. Ever. Even Hubitat until C8.
Only Hubitat C8 didn’t just work. In fact, I literally spent multiple days trying to figure why my ZWave network was mysteriously acting up after upgrading to a C8. The last thing I actually suspected was the POE splitter. Those work for everything else, even recommended by Hubitat in some forum posts. Eventually I realized what was going on and figured out a silly workaround.
I will never get my time back. But I want Hubitat to succeed. I want to make sure other unsuspecting (new) Hubitat owners don’t throw the thing away because of this surprising experience.
If only Hubitat had some official option, and not just some buried forum posts where warnings appear to only use the provided power supply…
AFAIK POE switches usually (not sure how "usual) allow you to power cycle individual ports...Pretty sure most Unifi POE switches do as one example. If you have a VPN/remote access into your network you can do so remotely.
this, exactly! With a UniFi network, you can even manage your home network without using a VPN, assuming you enable UniFi's cloud-based management feature.
Power cycle the switch port
Didn’t realize that you could do this remotely.
As long as you have web or ssh access to the switch you should be able to. If it's a non managed switch you can't
My list is similar:
I was going to buy a Hubitat C-8 Pro to upgrade my C-5, but I decided against it because there is no POE support and my C-5 is still working great. Maybe they will finally add it to the next "pro" version and then maybe I'll upgrade.
It's been a major requested feature for years. I was pretty surprised when the C-8 Pro came out without POE support given how many times a year people ask for it and even say they're willing to pay more for it. So then the "cost more" version came out without it? Weird...
Im not going to pick apart every comment. PoE is not some deep dark-arts networking fu. Its common. Especially to people building automation. Most PoE is Active and auto negotiates the voltage. Stepping that down to 5v from 12v is not a monumental engineering effort either. Its as plug and play as USB now, with few exceptions. 802.3. The argument of no one wants it and they would have to buy new switches etc is whatever. If it gets built in, great. If you dont have a PoE switch, great. Or if hubitat would just step in and say "We offer the following PoE splitter, tested, working with C8 etc" great.
Instead there are hundreds of posts relating to issues with splitters, requests for official support in the next versions, arguments over the virtues of it... discussions abound. I just cannot see it adding more than 20$ to the overall cost of the hardware and we are not poors automating our one lightbulb. The people who cannot fathom PoE are not using hubitat anyways, they are using Hue Hub and Alexa and Google cloud crap. They are way into Best Buy and posting their lunch on IG. No one capable of using a Hubitat to any effect is incapable of understanding the benefit of being able to locate the device in the CENTER of their home, behind a couch or in a drop ceiling or anywhere and needing only a cat5 run to do it. Even with a little injector if they, god forbid, dont have a PoE switch. This is all just silly. No PoE isnt a deal breaker for me either, but the BS about it is just disingenuous. It reeks of Apple elitism.
But... I really think it would be nice to see it run off PoE native. I just want it to be better. It really ties the rooms together.
IMO its ALL about the centralizing the location of the Hub. You can easily run 150' of cat5 to a crawl space/attic/drop ceiling/whatever and stick it there where it will work well. But you need a Plug socket. The horror. Get out your extension cords. Now its a PITA. if only there were a way to send Power over an Ethernet cable...
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