There models that can run tasmota (GitHub - arendst/Tasmota: Alternative firmware for ESP8266 and ESP32 based devices with easy configuration using webUI, OTA updates, automation using timers or rules, expandability and entirely local control over MQTT, HTTP, Serial or KNX. Full documentation at), an open source firmware for esp based devices
Slowdown in the homelab segment
- Thread starter Greg_E
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Yeah, but other than neater cabling on the recipient end, you can do the same with a USB-PD injector and maybe a USB-C hub. Hell, my bench tester/utility box is my HP t640 thin client, and that runs fine off the back USB-C port (PD enabled, but you'll need to specify that you want the USB-C option as it's built-in, even though you can easily buy the option card and build a USB-PD cable for it), so it's just one cable from the e24d G4 USB docking monitor with ethernet (I think I got it for 120 at some ridiculous sale at HP). I just think of it as kinda like a POE injector at the recipient end with a 24" IPS screen+webcam tossed into the deal. One ethernet cable, one AC outlet, everything else neat and clean.Definitely niche use case. It's not for an EPYC or Xeon system of course. A wall mounted TV with a mini PC mounted to the arm to control it is what I'm going for eventually. Could be controllable from a button too. Not for most people, but I think the mini pc and raspberry pi crowd is going to appreciate these new switches as well. Maybe my dislike for dc adapters is showing a little. I have definitely plugged a 24V to a 12V and vice versa before. I've tried plugging 39V ones in as well, good thing they're usually slightly different sized. And I've had lots of power bricks die mysteriously.
I've seen one person use an old POE-in industrial PC in their garage to control garage doors and act as an NVR. He was renting and there were no power plugs in his garage (which apparently doesn't meet the national electrical code). Low power budget can also be perfectly fine for a HTPC if you want low power for the low heat to run with no active cooling, or to minimize fan noise.
There are definitely limitations because of the power budget. There's probably some advantages I'm not thinking of. I've only seen a few people do it. Connecting too far devices to a UPS via managed switch is basically all that I've seen it for so far though. On all these ads for small business switches, I see stuff about POE lighting but I've never seen affordable options. Wiring up actual lights to smart switches seems so much cheaper for the exact same result. I saw a POE powered phone a while back (I think cisco) that needed POE++ for the built in skype (RIP) webcam. Not sure how many people want that... I've largely been shown the failures from friends. Not sure how many people want a phone at home that uses up to 40W. POE-in seems to be getting more popular in industrial deployments, I've seen a few mini-pcs from lower cost vendors in China. Still far more expensive than standard DC input models, but not the 3x the price I used to see.
It's not a reason to upgrade to POE++, but in terms of new things that could be cool for a homelab, I see it as literally the only area where there is improvement now. My first 8 port POE switch (I don't even think POE+, circa 2014?) made a ton of heat and noise. Now I have a 8 port POE++ model that is more efficient and far quieter. Sure it's not going to power a dual socket system, or even the lowest end server now, but cheaper, more efficient poe switches are legitimately better than the used to be and seem to have improved quite a bit the past 5 years. And the pricing is quite competitive when looking at POE+ to POE++ models new.
Efficiency of POE is actually something I wish was tested more. It would be good to know how much worse the efficiency is POE powering w/ poe splitter is compared to DC adapters. Hard to measure tho. It was really bad 10 years ago. Like up to 20% less efficient if I recall correctly comparing to good DC adapters, but it's hard to account for the switch. A lot of the times on specs sheets I see POE using more power than DC as well. I've heard cisco reps claim POE is more efficient than DC adapters also, but I've never seen evidence of it. I know an engineering shop that was using 300W POE continuously controlling all their machines ~5 years ago. More efficient switch may actually make a financial difference there. If it makes a difference to you, it largely depends how much POE you're putting out. I also believe if you use POE power in a industrial context, you have fewer/easier electrical codes to follow.
TLDR, no it's not you. There is basically no reason for this in a home other than it would look slightly nicer with one fewer cable and it would be fun
Technically if you got a nice POE++ switch, you can just buy a POE to PD/data adapter and run a single wire to the USB-C+PD port on a compatible TMM - the problem here is that the only TMM series from the majors that have USB-PD power input built-in is the Dell Optiplex Ultra (those are all EOLed despite being a good idea), the HP EliteDesk G9 Micros (those are fun) and yeah, their lighter thin clients. Otherwise, you will need some kind of POE to barrel jack converter (or some kind of in-chassis mod, which can get a bit ugly, since most TMMs that I know of runs off a barrel jack and an external power brick).
Then there's the question of what that POE++ switch will need in terms of power supply and cooling. In a corporate/enterprise environment where you generally have a climate controlled server room with locks, beefy power feed and general expectations of noise, that's not an issue. At a home lab? eeeeeeeh, if I have that in my living room I am going to get snark from the missus. Then there's the vibe check - do I really want the words "off warranty" and "cheap" associated with something that simultaneously run networking and power for a bunch of gear in my home, concentrated in a single device? eeeeeeeeeeeh. Even for $dayjob, unless the pricing between the regular and POE++ version isn't too much, I would probably either buy a cheap 8-16 port just for the POE stuff (cameras and APs) and the rest on the non-POE switchgear. Hell, I don't even like the idea of leaving ethernet connected boxes unattended out in the office. If it needs to run 24/7 it should be inside a cafe in the server room and locked down/monitored.
Yeah, I was thinking more like ESPHome, which can talk to HomeAssistant Directly. But generally the idea of buying a cheap Amazon special Smartplug like the Ekecity Voltson ES01, busting out plumbing pliers and a solder iron just to flash it with 3rd party firmware gives me the hebby-jeebies. I mean, I am more than comfortable taking apart cameras (like Wyze Cam Pans) to reflash them with 3rd party firmware, but AC outlets? *ugh*. I'll rather just use ZWave instead. I also like the idea of keeping sensor traffic away from the rest of the network. My hub is attached to HA, which is attached via ethernet to the router at home, so if the wifi goes down I can still use HA Cloud to control devices, which goes through the ZWave and its own mesh network setup.
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I have a few mini-pc that I power off of POE+ and one that is POE++ now. Wish I had bought two of the Extreme 5420m switches when they were cheap on ebay, prices now are about half or higher to new, and that puts them out of my lab price range. 48 ports+4SFP28+2 stacking ports that I can configure to 10g, and 90 watts per port, came with dual 900 watt supplies for $400 shipped. While not popular, I use these switches in production and my company uses them everywhere, so it was an easy decision. The 90 watts means I could get a 6 amp POE to 12v and power a 180 uncompressed USB camera and the mini-pc that I use to convert the USB to an NDI stream, and if I get the right POE splitter, have a single cable that switches to both camera and pc. Poor man's NDI camera for the cost of the pieces.
OK, here's a lab question... I'm trying to find small, like single board mini-pc with 6+ cores and hyperthreaded (really want 8c16t) that I can actually afford. I found the closest thing on Amazon last night, with a delivery time of July to August. At some time I'm going to want (need?) a cluster of 3 for Kubernetes and Rancher. I can get two more Pi4 8gb, or double that for three Pi5 16gb, which comes right up against the cost of the AMD 8c16t mini-pc for July.
I know I can't build a Lenovo/HP/Dell Tiny for that kind of money, or I'd be ordering already. The long lead time mini-pc is under $300 each and would be "easy" to find a place in my lab rack, or as a portable to work on in a 10 inch or smaller rack. I'm also wishing I could upgrade the processor in my T740's, those extra 2 cores from the t755 would be really handy right now. Harvester is a big lift for these little devices, 6 cores would be better, 8 cores would be "ideal" for a mini-lab. Also need the PCIe slot for fast networking for the Longhorn storage layer, so the regular mini-PCs are out, going up to 25g when I get time to swap things over, and even that will probably be too slow. I'll just have to live with the slowness after that, I'm not going to go 40+gbps in my lab, because I'm not going to go 40+g in production unless I get hired at a different company. Suse suggests that you want 100gbps per host and run them in an mlag or similar mutli path design for failover. And I think I agree, but not going to happen for me.
OK, here's a lab question... I'm trying to find small, like single board mini-pc with 6+ cores and hyperthreaded (really want 8c16t) that I can actually afford. I found the closest thing on Amazon last night, with a delivery time of July to August. At some time I'm going to want (need?) a cluster of 3 for Kubernetes and Rancher. I can get two more Pi4 8gb, or double that for three Pi5 16gb, which comes right up against the cost of the AMD 8c16t mini-pc for July.
I know I can't build a Lenovo/HP/Dell Tiny for that kind of money, or I'd be ordering already. The long lead time mini-pc is under $300 each and would be "easy" to find a place in my lab rack, or as a portable to work on in a 10 inch or smaller rack. I'm also wishing I could upgrade the processor in my T740's, those extra 2 cores from the t755 would be really handy right now. Harvester is a big lift for these little devices, 6 cores would be better, 8 cores would be "ideal" for a mini-lab. Also need the PCIe slot for fast networking for the Longhorn storage layer, so the regular mini-PCs are out, going up to 25g when I get time to swap things over, and even that will probably be too slow. I'll just have to live with the slowness after that, I'm not going to go 40+gbps in my lab, because I'm not going to go 40+g in production unless I get hired at a different company. Suse suggests that you want 100gbps per host and run them in an mlag or similar mutli path design for failover. And I think I agree, but not going to happen for me.
Well, my usual supplier do have the t755 for ~350, but...eeeh, to be honest, the only benefit to buying them is that they can reuse most of the t740 parts (RAM and NVMe) - they are still kinda pricy for a Zen2 based TMM with PCIe port. I kinda wish that Dell would step up with another Wyse "big" but I think they essentially exited the market along with Igel and Fujitsu.
I have 4 smart plugs that are about 3 years old (I think matter over wifi, been a while since I looked at them) and are no longer able to be activated because the manufacturer doesnt support them anymore, but can still work once activated and connected to home assistant which was how I was running them. But when i moved, I lost IPv6 and had to reset my entire network and I can no longer reactivate them. One somehow was still connected and is still working, and I have absolutely no idea why.
yeaaaaa I run a seperate AP for these with no access to the internet and isolated from everything except home assistant. I have to open it up whenever I add something that needs internet to be activated and I want to stop doing that. It's really hard to trust these especially with no name brands from China. People also tell me just having these on your network and visible to other devices makes it easier for others to identify you.
I will probably get a USB zigbee or z wave antenna at some point to add something a little more open. I recently picked up.
Yep, plus less points of failure. But also if a big vendor pushes out a product that uses POE-in you at least can be fairly certain it's not going to burn your house down due to poor design. So far the industrial one's I've seen have been tanks. I know one is almost 10 years old running 24/7 from POE.
USB-PD still seems a little like the wild west. some% of all devices seem to do whatever they want whenever they want unless you stick entirely in one ecosystem (ie all dell or lenovo).
Yeah, that's probably true for the cheapest ones from the Amazon search page. I posted the search because I didn't want to recommend a specific version or brand. However, there are plenty of cheap plugs that work without connection to the mothership. Wifi, zigbee, zwave connected.
Here is a review for an example
These are cool, but from what I've seen there are two problems. The first is adding USB-PD to a monitor increases it's price tag so much that it makes no sense to not just mount a USB power adapter to the monitor/desk. Second is monitor manufacturers seem to only do this on business class 1080p monitors or super high end 4k+ monitors. The pricing just is just not there and I wouldn't expect the volume to be there for second hand pricing to be good, especially since they dont ship easily.
Connecting that to mains power while it's disassembled for flashing is not a sane choice, mine (Sonoff s31) were all happy to run off usb power to flash (with a 3D printed clip to hold the programming leads instead of soldering.)
Not dead, kind of hibernating. I'm out of kidneys to sell so my lab needs to be what it currently is. Certainly stuff I'd like to get, but when a Pi5 16gb is almost $300, you know you are in another world.
Labbing is taking me to where a Kubernetes cluster would be nice, but the money to buy the extra devices is not available. I may need to tear down my XCP-ng section and use that for Kubernetes/Rancher, but that takes away development on on services. Having a think about this.
Labbing is taking me to where a Kubernetes cluster would be nice, but the money to buy the extra devices is not available. I may need to tear down my XCP-ng section and use that for Kubernetes/Rancher, but that takes away development on on services. Having a think about this.
As an alternative Idea, can you just get some use laptops in your price range to run you new lab?
This seller on ebay has a lot of laptop for example.
Items for sale by pcs-for-people-chicago | eBay
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Well, it's the requirement for PCIe AND TMM AND AMD that would really mess with you. If it's just AMD and TMM, Lenovo ThnkCentre m75q Gen 2. If it's just PCIe and TMM, probably an m720q or whatever Lenovo calls its professional ThinkCentre Minis with Intel CPUs and PCIe slots this week. If it's just PCIe and AMD, probably one of those 4 liter mini desktops like the HP EliteDesk SFFs or whatever the hell Lenovo or Dell call their smaller enterprise boxes this month. I would say that the performance increase from Zen1 to Zen2 is quite worth it if it’s less than 300 - the 18-24% uplift per core, 2 extra cores and the lower idle (20 instead of 30w) does make them more valuable…that and the functional/working PCIe ACS means SRIOV is easier to get going.
I would love to trust one of those Chinese TMMs like Minisforum or GMKTec or whatever, but until I see large enterprises buy a branch office full of them (especially ones in say, some Chinese municipality), I don't think they are a good idea. Basically, if you want a small desktop, buy a small desktop. If you want a small NAS, buy a small NAS.
And for the love of everything good and proper don't buy a box that tries to do everything and half-asses them equally. I am looking at you Minisforum.
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Well, most people aren't about to go that spicy (flash directly off mains power), but even then busting out plumbing equipment to open up an Amazon special "smart" plug (4 for 20) and then soldering in (or clpping) leads just to reflash it is already plenty spicy as-is. For most of us spare time to mess around with things is probably more valuable than just ordering, say, another 10 dollar ZWave switch from the likes of Zooz via Amazon prime. For the ZWave smart plug all you need to do is plug it onto power, press a button to have it announce itself on the network and tap on something on ZWave.js in HomeAssistant to get it to work. If you have a pile of them and don't mind reprogramming it all at a time, it's worth it...I might bust a Voltson open...
Yeah, but you can just buy a 10 year old Dell WD15 dock and it'll wire up fine to any HDMI or VGA monitor, and it'll deliver both USB-PD power and networking to anything that can do USB-PD+USB-C - Those are literally like 10-15 bucks on eBay (hell, when the newer Lenovo ThinkPads refuse to pull power off them I had to sunset a whole bunch of them at my office and was stuck with a large box. Fortunately HP EliteDesks and EliteBooks work fine with them - I also had to swap them because Apple doesn't do MST (multi-Stream Transport) on USB-C so I need one LCD on Thunderbolt and the other on USB-C DP-Alt). USB-C/PD capable monitors aren't exactly rare per-se, but corporate USB-C docking stations have been around long enough that they amortized to the point where you can get them for a song and use them like USB-C power injectors nearly everywhere.
I selected a model that comes apart with screws and a couple clips, takes about 2 minutes to disassemble, flash, and reassemble using a power screwdriver. I don't particularly need another dedicated network type and I like running them on wifi as standalone devices because I don't need another service in between (one day I will have time to figure out HomeAssistant, maybe) I can hit them directly with my Prometheus server or configure them with a browser.
Well, when I bought the Ekecity way back in 2016 not that many people were looking at them with opening/hacking them in mind - well, I did buy my Wifi5 routers with JTAG/reflash in mind, but given how much of a pain most consumer electronics were to bust open and how it was just a silly 5 dollar wifi switch, I didn't really shop around for them...simply whatever the heck Amazon can 2-day ship to my home and I can get up and running. For me at the very least I like the idea of ZWave since it's totally possible to do something stupid to the radios on a wifi router while the ethernet-side is perfectly functional (happened at least once to me on bad DD-WRT builds). I had experiences where a wifi controlled switch got stuck on during a 95 degree day (so the AC window unit ran full tilt all the way until the evening) because the 2.4Ghz radio within went nuts, while I have yet to run into that on ZWave. Somehow ZWave and its mesh design just seem more resilient in this situation.