Why would you want that? Where I work the most expensive part of providing a network connection is the cost of the switch port. Using a POE network switch to power & control lights is quite expensive & wasteful, for home use IMHO.
Ha! Not saying I want it, just exploring the options as it would mean cheaper bulbs in the long run. If I can get trade prices on the hardware then things might not be too bad.
Just doing a bit of research that’s all.
Ok so I’m thinking I’m attacking this the wrong way round. Basically here are my requirements…
Lighting fixtures have been dictated by circumstances so no smart bulbs.
- Need to zone up lights either via circuits or controllers.
- Lights need to be able to be dimmed (by zone).
- Obviously controllable by HASSIO
So i guess i’m looking at something like a POE controller like the Luton Grafik Eye (but that is pricey and you have to add a module to make it network controllable) or smart switches.
Lights can be POE (hence the above investigation). Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
I want the same thing - there seem to be very limited options.
Additional features could include adjusting the temperature of the LED fixtures throughout the day, building in occupancy sensors.
https://www.genisyslighting.com/ - these guys appear to make a closed solution, not sure if there is an API you could integrate with.
Cree Smartcast works over BACnet which is interoperable.
LumenCache has a system for PoE lighting that should work with Home Assistant. I’ve been very interested in setting up a lighting system over PoE as well, and I’m looking for setups that have already been implemented that I might learn from, but havent had much luck finding anything other than LumenCache yet.
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I would genuinely be interested in what justify the complexity and costs of having light over POE, rather than plain power grid and wireless (zigbee/zwave)? Reliability of wired vs. wireless?
It seems a bit backward to me that our computers are all wireless, but that we would wire the bulbs 
I’m a complete novice to this and still trying to learn, but my justifications for it are:
Complexity - while this may seem complex due to it not being the standard practice, if i can wire my entire house with Cat5/Cat6 and save having to hire an electrician. It actually feels like anyone could wire the house for lighting, not to mention any other products that can be powered over PoE.
Costs - from what I’ve read, costs associated with started from scratch are similar and possible less than traditionally wiring your house. This is do to cheaper materials from less copper being used, and from not needing an electrician wiring every single box and switch throughout the house.
Wired vs Wireless - wired is always going to be more reliable, and if the internet goes down the lighting is still going to work. Even with wireless, lights will work with the wall switches, but they still need to be powered somehow and if you can combine network connectivity with power, why not?
DC power source - if all the lighting is on DC and you install solar and battery, the lighting can all be connected through DC with no need for an AC connection to the grid. If the power goes down on the grid, the lighting still runs off of the battery pack, with less loss from an AC to DC converter. the system is then more efficient overall, saving more over the lifetime of the house. If you’re starting from scratch, why not just make the entire system DC?
Unfortunately theres still a big opportunity for products/sensors that are PoE. I would like to see CO2 and carbon monoxide PoE sensors, but i havent found any. There are more lighting/fans/switch products coming out for PoE, but its limited. But there is a good market for security cameras and some speakers which could be networked.
If you’re going through the trouble of setting up the network for cameras and some sensors, why not just included everything in the house with low power that could be supported over PoE? Ethernet cables seem pretty standard at this point and arent likely to go away any time soon.
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Makes sense.
I’d still be very much worried that the technology becomes obsolete at some point, and that you’d be unable to find replacement parts, though.
Leaving you with a dark house and a lot of costs to revert it back to power grid, or to upgrade it to the technology of the day 
Makes complete sense to me too. I’m in the proces of designing my new off-grid home in the Netherlands. Preferring a DC network through PoE next to the regular AC network.
I’ve sent an email to both igor-tech.com and moodifier.net that are both manufacturers of PoE lighting hardware and software. I’ve asked them if they would be interested in opening up their PoE LED drivers to Home Assistant. It may be a win-win here, because for them it might mean a great leverage on selling more of their hardware to people that like to use open source home automation software.
Btw, I’m an HA beginner. Just ordered my Raspberry PI 4…
I assume you didn’t get anything back from Igor-tech, right?
I’ve gotten my hands on one of their devices, and it’s not looking like it will be easy to work on without their help. It seems to be an STM32 speaking CoAP and little else. Probably no real path forward without their assistance.
A few days later I did get answer back from [email protected]
today we are focused on the commercial market and have not adapted or developed our product for the home market. I’m sorry we can’t help you at this time, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to in the future. If we adapt our product for the residential market, there will certainly be an announcement making it clear that we support home assistants.
Going to order me a couple of lights from poe texas, and a new mikrotik switch with in built poe.
Actually “ethernet” is 30+ years old, and not going anywhere. Not conduit, all low voltage, ability to sense current, and easy. debug, and direct digitial control makes it a win.
I already know how to interface with MQTT, so lets see. Some of the newer mikrotik even offers containers, so I could even control poe via mqtt if needed with a gateway on the switch.
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Hi, @glennswest I just found this thread. Would you happen to have an update with how the testing went?
It seems like POE lighting and a host of other POE devices are a perfect fit for HA. I’ve been searching for compatible POE lighting as there are now a number of companies that make POE lighting systems. When a typical LED light in a home uses less than 15W and a reasonably priced POE-supplying switch can put out 60W on a line it seems like this is more of a low-hanging-fruit than it was when this thread was started in May '19 and the first response was “Why would you want that?”!!!
I’m a general contractor and as so, I was able to sign up as a dealer for a PoEWit and have access to dealer pricing. Given that no electrician would be needed to install the switches and lighting, the approximate $200 retail cost per light is competitive compared to 110-220V home lighting systems. I would consider pitching this to a client.
However, there MUST BE a DIY solution! If you are in this thread, you know the total cost of a recessed LED light, LED driver, ESP32 board would be less than $20.
So, Have any of you seen solutions for this yet?
Hi all, this is an old topic, but I hope we can bump the topic and see what are the possiblities now in 2024. Who build the POE ligtning network?
I’m taking a serious look now at using PoE + ethernet for a pile of home automation stuff instead of the DMX / Zigbee / 1-wire architecture I had originally envisioned. Compared to when I started my walls-in remodel (more years ago than I would like to admit) the technology has improved a bunch and costs have gone down a lot. Future-proofing has always been a primary objective so I guess now I’ll put it to the test.
I ordered a couple of HASwitchplates ( HA SwitchPlate HASPone: DIY In-Wall Touchscreen Home Assistant Controller ) fully assembled and about a dozen of the bare PCBs as a prototyping platform. It’s fully open source and seems to be designed from the ground up to be integrated with HA.
HASwitchplate comes closest to what I’ve been looking for but I need to make a couple changes before I really deploy it. I think they wil be pretty easy to do.
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Use hardwired ethernet instead of WiFi. Although I’m always hopefulI don’t trust ANY wireless system enough yet to rely on it for critical functions. So I’ll need to tweak the ESP32 firmware and add some grass to the PCB to turn off WIFi and connect to an RJ45 port.
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Use LVDC power instead of mains AC. Since the guts run off 5V and in “development mode” everything works with a USB connection, this should be a simple hack as well.
Put these two together and now PoE starts to make a lot of sense. HASwitchplate uses a high quality 120V->5V power module. It looks like there are PoE modules that could easily fit in the same space. TexasPoE also has some 8-channel PoE injectors for a very reasonable price.
Some other “must haves” such as a failsafe mode that works even if HA or the computer it’s on bricks remain, but I’ll turn back to that once I how the HASwitchplate works.
HASPone dev here! HASPone is designed to be powered from 9-75VDC or 100-277VAC, the PCB design has additional footprints for a line of DC-DC power supplies from MeanWell, details here.
If you have a POE extractor that can source 48-ish volts, grab a Mean Well SLC03C-05 and you can power the project pretty easily.
I picked up about a dozen of the HASwitchplate PCBs, Nextion displays, and the ESP 8266 modules, plus a couple pre-assembled HASwitchPlates. I’m using the PoE Featherwing for the power. It seems it will have enough oomph for the HASwitchPlate.
This is great for some prototyping, but for actual deployment, for security and privacy reasons I’ll be turning off the RF and use wired Ethernet exclusively. Since the PoE Ethernet Featherwing has a Wiz5500 on board I’m hoping I can modify the ESP8266 code to use that instead of the WIFi. Longer term I want to eliminate the ESP altogether and just use the RP2040 to run OpenHASP. I have a feeling the ESPs may become harder to get in the future and want to have a resilient supply chain in case something breaks.
For high power lighting (e.g. 40 watt RGBW panels), as a start, I’m using DMX (via DMXKing Artnet<>DMX bridges) with a 24V Mean Well supply and DMX decoder for each fixture. I may centralize the power supplies and use passive PoE injectors to provide the 24V needed by the lights over the same Cat5e I use for the DMX. Eventually, I may transition this to a pure PoE setup with a DIY 4 channel LED driver that takes PoE and Artnet/MQTT/??? in and delivers dimming CC drive to the panels using Mean Wells $5 57V → CC led drive PWM dimmable modules. The Moodifier seems to come close to being able to do this but it’s limited to 30W, while the panels need 40W when all the LEDS are on full bore. I tried to contact the Moodifier folks but they haven’t been responsive.
I had thought about using the HASwitchplate as the light switch, but an OpenHasp guy convinced me to stick with the “natural” haptic feedback of a real switch. I got about 50 Leviton Decora+ SPDT center-off momentary switches for my wall switches. A PoE Featherwing + the RP2040 shim designed for it can fit on the back of the Leviton switch with enough room left to fit in a normal NA single gang wall box. There’s room for the RJ45 jack and RJ45 plug, as well as a couple of connectors so I can support a couple more switches in the same box using one PoE + RP2040. I’m running two Cat5e cables to each wall box for future expansion.