Powering OAK PoE devices

PoE allows a single Cat5e (or higher) Ethernet cable to be used to both power a device and give it connectivity at up to 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps) full-duplex at up to 100 meters (328 feet).In this tutorial, we will go through the suggested hardware to use with Luxonis PoE devices.The recommended way to use PoE devices (such as Luxonis' OAK PoE models) is with a PoE Ethernet Switch. Alternatively, if you already have a non-PoE switch that you have installed, you can use a PoE injector in conjunction with this switch. But using a PoE Ethernet Switch is advised, as these give you better control, the installation is cleaner, and insights (like power use) and control (like remote device power-down) are typically possible with a PoE Switch.Our OAK PoE cameras support both PoE Mode A and PoE Mode B (more information here).

General specifications

PoE Standard: 802.3af
Max data transfer rate: 1 Gbps (1000BASE-T)
Device power consumption: average ~4W, max 6.25W

PoE Switch or Injector

The advised way to use DepthAI OAK PoE models is with a PoE switch. We have a penchant for UniFi switches*, so we recommend these below, but any 802.3af (or higher, such as 802.3at, 802.3bt, etc.) can power and work with OAK PoE models.PoE Switches range in all sorts of sizes, power capacities, and port numbers. OAK PoE devices work with the lowest power PoE standard: 802.3af. Any 802.3af PoE switch can deliver 12.95W per port, which is actually substantially higher than the max power that OAK PoE models require (which is under 6.25W). So OAK PoE devices work with all standards-compliant PoE switches, including:

802.3af - 12.95W per port
802.3at - 25.5W per port
802.3bt/3 - 51W per port
802.3bt/4 - 71W per port

Below is a quick list of UniFi switches that have been tested with OAK PoE models, starting with the smallest switch and moving to the larger models:

USW-Lite-8-PoE (here). This switch has 8 GbE RJ45 ports, including 4 PoE+ ports.
USW-Lite-16-PoE (here). This switch has 16 GbE RJ45 ports, including 8 PoE+ ports.
USW-16-PoE (here). This switch has 16 GbE RJ45 ports, including 8 PoE+ ports, and 2 1G SFP ports.
USW-24-PoE (here).This switch has 24 GbE RJ45 ports, including 16 PoE+ ports, and 2 1G SFP ports.
USW-48-PoE (here). This switch has 48 GbE RJ45 ports, including 32 PoE+ ports, and 4 1G SFP ports.

The nice thing about using PoE switches is they provide a clean, plug-and-play solution.If you would like to use your existing non-PoE switch, it is possible to do so using what's called a PoE Injector.A PoE injector injects power to the ethernet cable, so it can power various PoE devices (e.g. our OAKs). So, if you'd prefer to use an existing non-PoE switch (e.g. one included in an ISP router/modem/switch combo), you can do so with a PoE injector like this TP-Link injector, which would be used per OAK PoE device.If an outdoor rated PoE switch is needed, one option is the EP-S16.

Powering from a battery

It is recommended to use PoE injectors that meet at least the 802.3af standard. If you are powering your PoE device from a car or solar battery you are limited by its output voltage, which is 12V for standard automotive batteries. In that case you need to find a PoE injector which will input 12V and output the voltage specified by the 802.3af standard.The following PoE injectors were tested on a 12V input:

GPOE-48V-10W: Input voltage: 10-30V, output voltage: 48V. Works as expected.
Solis energy PoE-24 HPI-1112: Input voltage: 12V / 24V DC. Works as expected.
Tycon Power TPDIN-1256GD-BT: Input voltage: 11 ~ 60V. Works as expected.
Tycon Power TP-DC-1248GDX2-HP: Input voltage: 10 ~ 15V. Only starts powering its own LED at 15V, so it is unreliable, even though the IEEE standard is 802.3af.
PoE Power bank IDEA4TEC was also reported to work with our OAK cameras.

Passive PoE

While active PoE adheres to standardized power levels and communications (eg. 802.3af), passive PoE does not. This makes them cheaper and viable option if you know what you are doing, as it can easily lead to overvoltage and damage the device.Our cameras require 48V, but from our testing they power up even at 40V. Note that most of these passive PoE injectors are 10Mbps (some are 100Mbps), which is quite slow, but can be suitable for certain applications, like only streaming metadata (NN results), low-resolution encoded stream, or high-resolution image every few seconds. We have used this PoE injector ($2 from Aliexpress, 10Mbps)

From the image you can see that the power LEDs are on, which means that the camera is getting power. We are supplying 48V and it's consuming about 0.1A, so about 5W, which is as expected. It's (slowly) streaming encoded video stream to the computer.

Ethernet Cables and weather resistance

The OAK PoE models are designed to allow outdoor use, including being weather resistant. As part of this weather resistance, there is a cablegland that provides the sealing around the Ethernet cable. These glands are designed to be used with "professional" installations, meaning that they are designed to be used with cable that is crimped to length for the installation and thus has no "boot".

Cables with boots often will not fit in these water-sealing glands (since they are designed for these professional installations, which are "no-boot" installations). So, if you are installing outdoors, it is recommended to either use a no-boot pre-made cable, or us the "professional" technique of making the cable to length, or find a cable with a small boot that fits in the gland (some do). It is also worth noting that if installing outside, it is necessary to use a shielded Ethernet cable, otherwise wind/rain/hail/etc. will build up a static charge on the data wires in the cable and eventually destroy the PoE switch, the OAK PoE device, or both.For the custom-length cable route, you can use TOUGHCable PRO cable together with TOUGHCable connectors. Our team has used this combination extensively in the past for outdoor installations. (A crimping tool, such as this one is necessary to crimp the connectors to the cable.)

We recommend using Cat5e ethernet cable, as the newer ones are bigger and might not fit properly in the IP67 gland.

Note that we are not connected with any of these products linked, we just have had good experience with them

Powering from USB

If you don't have a PoE injector or PoE switch nearby, and would like to use your OAK PoE camera, you have two options:

Connect the camera via USB-C so it works like the OAK-D (USB-C for power and communication). You need to change the DIP switch to 0x16 (as on the image here).
Power the camera via USB-C while still communicating with it through ethernet as in the image below. You need to set static IP on your computer.

Powering OAK-D-POE via USB-C connectorIf you go with the second option, you will need to set your computer's static IP. By default, the camera will have a static IP 169.254.1.222. So you would need to set your Ethernet adapter to static IP eg. 169.254.1.10 and netmask 255.255.0.0 in order for the OAK PoE camera to be in the same LAN and to be searchable by the DepthAI library.

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