I know, just saying that people who don’t own a PoE switch, but do want to have their Homey Pro connected via ethernet would need to have both an ethernet cable and a USB-C cable routed to their Homey. With the current setup that would just be a single USB-C cable.
A Raspberry Pi PoE HAT is actually a good comparison, as it contains some of the same hardware we would need to add internally. And an extra $10 on the BOM doesn’t translate to just $10 on the MSRP, the rule of thumb is typically 2–4 times the BOM cost, and sometimes even more (source). So let’s say it would be about an Ethernet adapters worth more on top the MSRP.
With PoE, it gives me more options for placement. A some places in the house I have easier acces to a RJ45 patchpoint than a power socket. And its also easier to make things tidy with PoE.
A PoE on the Portal would make most sense to me. I would really like to have it on a wall with no visible cabling and just a PoE connection in the back.
Besides that I prefer a wired connection over wireless for all Homey devices (including the Energy Dongle!).
Last thing, not that important but I like it that the RJ45 connector has a lock when connected. USB-C sometimes doenst lock that good, and can sometimes gets out. Never had that with RJ45.
Or you could sell them a PoE injector in stead of the USB Etghernet adapter… then it would effectively be the same, a single cable from the Homey to a small box remoetly combining power and data down a single cable (except PoE can far exceed the 2-3 meter limitation of USB data, allowing up to 100 meters).
Still, the expectation of a hub is to have the fastest and best connectivity. And the USB limiting the Ethernet to 480Mbps is a Major sticking point. Plus the cost of the PoE IC controller would be far far less than the cost of the external USB Ethernet adapter.
Exactly; a first-party Homey PoE adapter, similar to the one Ubiquiti sells. It would solve the PoE issue without driving up the price for people who don’t need it, while still making it easy to tuck away a single cable.
For downloading all them updates at twice the speed
Nope, sorry, I have to vehemently disagree there. USB still restricts you to 2-3 meters of data cable, where PoE allows up to 100 meters, so far more flexibility.
I noted from your photo you also have an Aqara M3 hub by the looks of it. I have one of those too, mine is mounted to my landing ceiling and powered by a completely invisible PoE connection in to the back of the unit. That would not be possible with USB.
No, since you made the change to the Homey platform for security camera feeds to be converted by Homey to WebRTC to be viewable both in the app and in the web browser I have 8 4K camera feeds being streamed in and out of that 480Mbps restriction, which at time can cause network connection bottlenecks. Having full fat gigabit networking these days for hubs is a must in my 30+ years networking experience and personal opinion.
So, run Ethernet for the first 97 metres, place the injector there, and use USB-C for the final few metres?
Just place the PoE injector above the ceiling and use a USB-C cable of about 50 cm.
My Reolink cameras use about 5 Mbit/s each for a 4K H.265 stream. At that rate, a 480 Mbit/s connection could theoretically handle around 96 simultaneous streams, or roughly 70–80 after allowing for overhead. You’d need some seriously baller security cameras before saturating that link.
And just to be clear, I’m not messing with you. We need to build products that work for the broadest possible audience, and right now most Homeys are connected via Wi-Fi. That’s where I’m coming from
My girlfriend would kill me as soon as I started sticking “boxes” to the ceiling
This still requires a mains power socket within the 2-3 meters of the Homey to power the USB Ethernet adapter. PoE can transmit the data and power up to 100 meters from the power source, whether that be a PoE switch/router port or a PoE injector. That is not the same flexability of placement by a long shot.
I have some seriously baller security cameras. 16MP Duo 3V, RLC-823S2, RLC-1212A 12MP, several TraclMix PoE dual lens cameras, and a video doorbell PoE. But it’s not just the cameras in, and then also the data out to several dashboards around the home providing multiple streams and multiple times the data throughput. But it is also all the other traffic as well from the literally hundreds of smart devices I have throughtout my home.
I’m not messing with you either. I agree that a hub, especially a flagship hub, should have the best connectivity options it can. That is afterall it’s primary function, to be the central hub of communications. And we are talking about next gen here, as we can’t magic PoE ports on to the back of our existing Homey’s. And going forward things are only going to get more connected and transmit more data. Then the USB Ethernet adapter dongle with it’s bandwidth and length restrictions are going to be a problem.
And I realise that ceiling mounting isn’t for everyone, but as you said yourself:
So surely offering the choice of PoE power and data, or USB, is more in the spirit of working for the broadest possible audience. It allows far more flexibility. The competion already does it. The Raspberry Pi that the Homey is based on already has gigabit ethernet capabilities, so it would only be a small addition of the IC for regulating the PoE power, which is only a small addition. And going back to your previous comment on MSRP:
You have to take in to account that the consumer price of the PoE HAT has already been inflated to MSRP from BOM, and includes a whole bunch of materials you would not need to add the increase in Homey Pro price as they are already part of the circuit boad inside Homey. So the cost difference would be minial. And as mentioned, other manufactuers like Aqara already have gigabit PoE connections and wall ceiling mounting options to offer the most flexibility for the best placement to improve radio performace of the hub.
It wouldn’t. You’d simply have PoE on one end and USB-C on the other, the adapter converts PoE to USB-C, just like this one. That means you can run an Ethernet cable up to 100 metres, connect the adapter, and use USB-C from there.
But this is yet another cost and additional device you have to purchase, for what is meant to be a flagship home hub that is already at a premium price point. The Aqara M3 Hub is a quater of the price of a Homey Pro (if not less) and has this fairly basic connection ability with the option of PoE power or external power adapter. I can not understand why you are so against this most basic requirement of a hub to have proper on-board Ethernet???
On a side note, I’m having to upgrade the CM4 in my Homey Pro (2026) already, as it can’t cope with the amount of automation I require in my home to help me with my disabilities. Having paid 400 quid for the Homey Pro, plus the cost of the official USB Ethernet adapter, plus the cost of the Bridge to boost my Zigbee and Z-Wave networks… to then need to spend more money on upgrades so shortly after is a bitter pill to swallow. And the fact I would have to buy a product from a different manufacturer that isn’t offical Homey device to add PoE, and render my offical Ethernet adapter to e-waste is pretty difficult to justify in my eyes.
Only issue is that (probably) more than half of users use an ISP-supplied router (at least the “regular” users who don’t know anything about tech), which doesn’t support PoE
So instead of a USB Ethernet adapter, they offer a PoE injector as an accessory. But also, you would still need a USB port for local firmware flashing and full image backups, so there would still be the option for USB power. Surely that is the far more flexible offering of choice that the end user can decide how and where they want to use.
Don’t get me wrong! We aren’t against anything, but we need to look at the whole picture here and that’s why we are also asking for your feedback. And good to note, this is about PoE, not just having ethernet on the Homey Pro itself.
I am just being a strong advocate for PoE, because in both my personal and professional opinion I think it is the way forward for low voltage devices. And that it offers the most flexibility, having the choice of USB or PoE to power devices, especially hubs that are all about connectivity. And I have tried to offer as much information and arguments for it from both a personal and professional view.
I would also like to see the possibility of futuer versions having the wall/ceiling mounting options. For radio devices with built in antennas it makes logical sense to have them mounted away from other electroinic devices like amplifiers, games consoles, TVs, routers etc that will certainly interfer with signals. (especially things like routers and games consoles that have their own transmitters and noisy USB ports).
The Aqara M3 hub has both Ethernet and PoE. So do many other hubs. I am extremely surprised that Homey is lacking in this respect.
Almost all of my hubs and bridges are powered by USB (and the ones that don’t all use a regular DC plug).
USB power is very versatile too, I have a Anker Powerport 6 USB power supply to get power to some of my smart home bridges, where I can put multiple bridges on just a single plug because almost all of them use USB power. Though even with multiple power strips, the 24 sockets + 8 USB ports (and I also used up the 2 on the front of my PC and the ports on my NAS) aren’t enough for all the devices in this corner of my house
What makes PoE “better” than just regular USB then? Everyone has USB adapters in their house while not everyone (or almost nobody) has PoE.
It’s a great option for those who have it. As @Drako74 mentioned, it’s particularly useful for long cable runs. It also carries both power and data over a single cable from the source, without requiring any additional “boxes” in between. This can make placement much easier, especially when cable runs are already in place.
I agree that it isn’t as common as USB, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable to some people!
I don’t want to be a repetitive reptile, like a snake going round and round (I think I have already covered most of its advantages). But PoE is very different to USB. USB is a device to device connection only, usually used for and originally intended for computer peripherals.
PoE, or Power over Ethernet, is a protocol for transmitting and regulating power over the conductors withing an Ethernet cable. And depending on the PoE standard being used can either transmit the power over the 4 unused conductors out of the 8 in the cable. Or for higher power devices it can use all the conductors and the data is then encoded on top of the DC power. Similar to how AC power line adapters work by encoding the network data on to the AC power.
USB power adapters and cables sort of just happend. But that’s where confusion can happen too. As not all USB cables are data rated. The longer ones are only rated for power. Data is usually restricted to about 3 meters. Whereas PoE can run up to 100 meters
Since we’re discussing adding an ethernet PoE port and the extra cost; wouldn’t there be a way to really add it?
So; without loosing the “ethernet capability” of the current usb-port with an external ethernet dongle connected?
I have no idea how the CM would have to handle that, but perhaps there is clever way to solve this?
In that case, anyone can choose for themselves to use the ethernet port or the usb port for both network and power.
Just curious; why do you see the Mini more of a tucked away device than the Pro?
It has built-in Ethernet, so it’s intended to sit close to the user’s router, which for many people is in a utility closet. It also has a built-in wall mount, no IR that requires line of sight to other devices, and no fancy LED ring to be gazed upon.
Everything about its design makes it perfectly suited to being tucked away somewhere out of sight.
