PoE+ NVMe beats Raspberry Pi to the punch

[@tbard]

Coil whine is an issue that solves itself with time. At some point you get old enough and don't hear it anymore.

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, old age mixed with kids talking loudly all day will come for my ears sooner or later.

[@dekba7410]

True, it gets replaced with tinnitus 😛

[@NordicDan]

It matches my military grade tinnitus

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

Is the coil whine in the electronics or is it in your head?

[@NordicDan]

@@BrunodeSouzaLino Yes.

[@GabePuhJ]

he has all his fingers, he's real

[@GeoStreber]

Indeed, all 12 of them!

[@PetesGuide]

What am I missing? I don’t get the joke.

[@CU.SpaceCowboy]

lmao

[@gentronicus]

@@PetesGuide I'm guessing that it's a joke about this Jeff not being AI-generated

[@GabePuhJ]

@@PetesGuide another company used his voice to advertise another tech product without Jeff's permission. Not sure if that issue is resolved or not, but since Jeff was talking about specific products in this video, it kinda reminded me of that a bit.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

3:54 that's what we call "a feature not a bug" in the industry. This board will auto-restart the Pi if it powers off. Boom done.

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, I was actually going to say that in the video, a lot of people just want the Pi to always restart!

[@raw_000]

Which is absolutely fantastic... until you need to shut down your server before a power cut.

[@PosiCat]

@@raw_000 turn off the POE port

[@jacobscheit4128]

@@raw_000 That could fix a managed PoE Switch. You just shut it off by turning PoE for that port off. I would call it a feature.

[@W1ldTangent]

I've never encountered a PoE device personally that _could_ be turned off without unplugging it or disabling power on the port. These hats would be the only ones I know of. I've always expected that a PoE powered device will always power on as soon as it gets the proper juice on the port.

[@der.Schtefan]

I was not prepared for the shark costume. Next to what MapMen do, this is probably the most creative way to make somebody WATCH the ad instead of skipping.

[@cv990a4]

Jeff commits to the bit.

[@seanwieland9763]

A fellow MapMen fan! ❤

[@davidpower3102]

@der.Schtefan gotta love the quality of MapMen’s Ads.

[@Berkeloid0]

With the PoE isolation, I had a problem years ago with a cheap non-isolated PoE switch and a non-isolated PoE adapter. Any time I plugged the Pi into a monitor the whole PoE switch would short out and shut off, and I'd have to power cycle the PoE switch power supply to get it to come back on again. The issue was the PoE switch ran off a +48VDC supply, but it reversed the polarity in order to get -48VDC required for PoE. This meant the power supply had bonded DC negative to ground (normal) but the switch then connected DC positive (48V) to PoE ground, so there was a 48V difference between the two grounds, and the Pi's GND would be floating at +48VDC. So when you plugged in a monitor, +48V would travel through PoE ground, through the HDMI shield, through the monitor back to earth, through the building earth wiring to the switch power supply where that +48V would get shorted to DC negative inside the power supply (because DC negative was bonded to earth), causing the supply to shut off. I fixed the problem by inserting a 5V to 5V isolated DC-DC converter between the PoE splitter and the Pi, which worked fine for many years. I have since learned that isolation is merely recommended by the Ethernet standard, so if you have a good quality PoE switch that has isolation on each port (like a Cisco) then it won't be an issue. Having isolation on the device itself will let you use it with a cheap switch that isn't isolated. It's only when both the switch and powered device are not isolated that you can run into problems. You can easily check this with a multimeter by measuring the voltage between the powered device ground, and some other known ground like the unpainted back of a PC case. If it's 0V or very close to it you're fine, but if it's any other voltage then your devices are not isolated and you have to be very careful what else you plug into the Pi to avoid causing a short circuit somewhere.

[@anon-means-anon]

It's always easy for me to forget to check negative reference to ground in the first place, much less whether it changes when plugged into a peripheral. Good troubleshooting, sounds like it was a gray hair inducing one.

[@petermichaelgreen]

The IEEE standard for Ethernet REQUIRES isolation between the Ethernet lines ("MDI leads" in standards speak) and all other accessible external conductors. However, standards are not laws. Sometimes a law may incorporate a standard by reference, or a standard may be used in demonstrating compliance with a law but I don't think any of that applies to Ethernet standards.

[@Berkeloid0]

@@petermichaelgreen Hmm you're right. I'm sure I read somewhere that isolation is optional at the point where PoE power is extracted/injected but going back to the IEEE standards it always seems to have been required. I guess it's just something they don't bother with for low-cost devices.

[@HyenaEmpyema]

someone please register the trademark Edgar Allen PoE

[@0r_1x]

$34.99 and Nevermore!

[@CandyGramForMongo_]

Nerd-sniped. That one is being added to the vocab Jeff! 😂

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh, it happens all too often! "There goes the afternoon!"

[@beejay7665]

I loved it, and immediately went off to research it! I was then enjoying xkcd webcomic (squirrel!) but came back to finish Jeff’s video!

[@devnol]

XKCD 356, absolute favorite

[@ericka.montanez6821]

I laughed so hard with this term. Too real.

[@Jackavatar]

The shark suit got me.

[@sebastian_harnisch]

The coil whine is what made me return the Waveshare POE hat, removing one of the selling points of RPi 5 vs. mini PCs for my intended purpose. My ThinkCentre Tiny cluster uses active cooling and has a certain amount of coil whine, but still manages to be quiet in comparison to this particular POE hat that I ordered. Unfortunately, this new hat comes a bit to late for my RPi 5 which now runs on the original power supply and with a NVMe base. I still feel like the RPIs got way too expensive (after considering the "required" mods like a heatsink/fan, the power supply and a NVMe hat/base) coming in very close to what I have paid for my ThinkCentres. Even the power consumption of the RPi 5 isn't all that great anymore. Something that I'd really like to see improved to make it more competitive again - smart phones can do it, why not RPi's*. Idle vs idle (with powertop on the ThinkCentres) they are surprisingly close, actually. Under (partial) load the PI5 wins cleary, but is also slower and is less flexible for server tasks. That being said, I still enjoy content about RPis a lot! * Yeah, more modern chips/nodes are even more expensive to produce that's true, but still.

[@paulstubbs7678]

The trouble with no isolation is when you connect other devices to the Pi, especially the GPIO pins.

[@91795jc]

You probably mean other devices, not powered directly by the Pi (ground loop)?

[@paulstubbs7678]

@@91795jc yes, the Pi's earth could be sitting at any voltage, especially as POE is often at 48V, so tieing it to another bit of equipment on a different earth could have all sorts of strange effects. If it's isolated then the Pi would just assume the earth of whatever your hooking up to the GPIO pins.

[@mattgayda2840]

This should NEVER happen because you would never run Ethernet between two separate structures not sharing a common ground bond. Voltage potential is often the death of millions worth of networking gear from foolish users who know just enough to be dangerous...

[@Monkeh616]

@@mattgayda2840 Even within one building, assuming that 'ground' and 'ground' are the same is a major error. That's why ethernet is galvanically isolated.

[@MiddleB0ss]

Orange Pi 5 watching this is like: "All that to replicate fraction of my power..."

[@JeffGeerling]

Orange Pi 5 and OPi 5 Max are great little bits of hardware. I just don't choose to deploy the ones I bought in production because I have still not gotten to a point I'd trust them long-term (like the 3-5 years I normally keep a given Pi running).

[@Atylonisus]

I too own an Orange Pi 5 (not the 5B or 5Plus, just the basic one). It suffers from a smaller ecosystem of passionate developers + worse documentation. If i wasnt using mine for Batocera I think I might chuck it through a wall.

[@JulesArchinova]

​@@JeffGeerlinginteresting, what is the longest orange pi you've been running and did you have failures yet while testing?

[@JeffGeerling]

@@JulesArchinova I've been testing the OPi 5 Max a bit, hoping to do a video on it soon(ish). The bigger problem I've had is the on-again-off-again support I've gotten for each of the Orange Pi devices I've bought. They throw out a lot of hardware, but don't spend the time (especially after a couple years) to keep supporting it with their software. (See @Atylonisus' comment above).

[@Gergus]

The shutdown thing is a feature, not a bug. You want this. The point of POE+ is that it is difficult to get power into some places, so physical access to the pi isn't that easy.

[@That_One_NB.Girl_OnYoutube]

2:09 Is it just me or the framerates drop?

[@JeffGeerling]

It's not you... my desk recording setup drops frames sometimes, I don't even know why :(

[@That_One_NB.Girl_OnYoutube]

@@JeffGeerling Does downloading more RAM would help?

[@akdm82]

It's a shame that the ethernet port on the Raspberry Pi doesn't support POE by itself. Is that a future possibility?

[@JeffGeerling]

This is a good (and reasonable!) question-the problem is the power circuitry required would take up probably 15-20% of the entire surface of the Pi board (if they keep the same credit card size footprint), and add probably $2-5 in BoM costs... and in practice probably only 5-10% of all Pi's purchased would use the feature. So Raspberry Pi offers the four pin header to allow HAT makers to add on the capability, which is an okay compromise in my book!

[@marcogenovesi8570]

PoE isn't something you can just "enable" it requires physical power components to work, and some of those are pretty large (like the coil) and won't fit on the board. The best they can do is design it to allow installation of PoE HATs so people that need it can get a module to do it.

[@concinnus]

As you can see from the amount of circuitry on any PoE hat (especially the coil), adding that onto the Pi PCB ain't happening. At least, not without dropping current features.

[@akdm82]

Just for clarity, I wasn’t expecting that it’d be easy. I’m just curious if you think that it is a future possibility with innovations you see on the horizon. Thanks

[@tcurdt]

What would make much more sense to me: Have a NVME slot on the Pi and no ethernet. Then have a hat that adds ethernet with PoE. 🤷‍♂

[@beejay7665]

Third. I’m working on my cluster winter project, and PoE will cut down on cabling. My poor, poor credit card!

[@rajniszp]

One thing I was waiting for: whether you can plug both POE and USB-C PD power to this one hat and have redundancy. If yes, what power supply does it prefer and can what happens if one of them gets disconnected?

[@JeffGeerling]

The HackerGadgets _might_ have that redundancy, but honestly what I do is plug my central PoE+ switch into a UPS-so far after about 7 years in this configuration, I've never had an unplanned outage, even when power went out in my house.

[@vileerdeng]

​@@JeffGeerling@JeffGeerling Our hat has a power backward protection circuit on both the PoE and USB PD sides. So, plugging in the PoE and USB PD simultaneously wouldn't be a problem. I only use the PoE+ for power, too. But I found that it's useful when I move the Pi5 from one rack to another rack; I can plug a power bank into the PD port and unplug the ethernet cable without breaking the uptime or any jobs running in the Pi, although I got no jobs on it, LOL.

[@onecircuit-as]

7:19 I heard "deployed in IRAQ" and thought "Wow we're back there again??" 😅

[@dirtyd1398]

I am using both of the waveshare you mention at the end of your video, and i have zero issues with either one. the POE + M.2 is nice, and recommend it personally, it does reqire more mountng space due to the hight of the hat Pins.

[@killymxi]

When PoE hat prohibits the 5v power, it might be nice if manufacturer throw a port plug into the package and installation instruction. Would serve as a reminder to prevent misuse

[@CGW11]

I wish that all of them came with indication diodes for PoE power and which PoE mode.

[@D9ID9I]

Would be nice to see PoE as an integral part of any SBC without needing HAT.

[@JohnR31415]

PoE&nvme is the perfect combo - being a base would be great for passive cooling solutions.

[@notsonominal]

A transformer is a coil (sometimes two or more) but you'll get coil whine with inductors in switch mode power supplies as well. And on that note, I'll go get some cheese with my whine..

[@dshack4689]

I've gone down a different path than POE hats as some of my remote pi's are really really really remote dusty regions of Australia and I didn't want a spinning fan failure - I ended up getting a $17 POE extractor/splitter (not to be confused with POE splitters that are actually passive POE injectors) and using the DC 5volt output I wired the DC cable to a USB plug into the Pi - instant POE pi with no fan! And with remote switch access I can hard reboot the PI by configuring the port POE down then up again. Only current catch is that its 5.0volts - the Pi fortunately is just powering a webcam, so it gets by despite Pi onscreen warning low voltage - butmy next mission is to pull apart the POE extractor/splitter and see if it can be modded to be 5.1volts output instead (as the extractor has a mechanical switch to select between 5volts, 9volts and 12volts so I'm sure there will be something moddable) Hope that helps if anyone in the same use-case as me. Cheers =)

[@Waveshare_Ruan]

Thank Jeff Geerling for putting so much effort into creating and sharing this video with everyone. This is the most comprehensive and objective horizontal comparison involving the largest number of products that I've seen online. It provides a wealth of information for POE M.2 HAT users.

[@gruvinnz]

Great vid as always. Couple things you missed; The cable off-center isn't so. The entire board is mounted off kilter. Clear in your close-up photo, where the IDC headers are "bent". 🙂You probably also noticed in editing. ;-)

[@sunhawk1104]

It is nice to have both function in one HAT, but then you have one point of failure. Can also make it harder to trouble shoot any issues you might have in the board.

[@concinnus]

Each function has a single point of failure even if it's on its own hat. There is zero redundancy regardless. Troubleshooting doesn't really change, either.

[@sunhawk1104]

Yes, but one can fail while the other still works and you only need to replace one of the two. Also, if there happens to be any kind of improvement to one of the HATs you don't need to hope that there will be a new combo HAT Trouble shooting most certainly does. With a single Hat with multiple functions, something can break in one of the functions needing to be narrowed down to which function. Unless you just say, "Oh well, throw the whole thing and and replace it." And although they "shouldn't", the functions when malfunctioning can have unforeseen interactions, hiding the root cause and provide hours of frustration. Granted, for something at this low of a price point, it likely doesn't really matter. Personally, I always like having the functions separated as much as practicable. But I'm odd that way.

[@concinnus]

@@sunhawk1104 There are applications where the all-in-one devices are unreliable enough that separating functions into different boxes is a good idea, like home internet modem and gateway. But there's no reason for these combo hats to have reliability issues other than the ribbon cable and fan bearing, which will be the same to troubleshoot regardless.

[@hotairsaloon]

"And no bulky type c power adapter" >drops 20 lb PoE injector onto table

[@robina.jensen6114]

The official RPi case's always had a bad thermal design. So I always used the ones from RS Component. Much more airflow trough the case.

[@Cha0sNicr0]

It's a small detail, but every time a hat has extra leds, I want to know if they are addressable through /sys/class/led/. Having an off-switch for leds during normal operation is just a good feature to me.

[@kubburdigital]

this should honestly just be a integrated part of the pi, a hat for 2 resistors, a cap and a small ic is preposterous

[@Striker9]

This video has given me so much nostalgia! I really don't know why but I'm reminded of my childhood and reading encyclopedias and seeing circut boards, while my uncle worked on his old radios.

[@marcosalano7769]

Thank you. That was an amazing video. I want to use PoE but also SSD, so I don't have to compromise because of these multifunction HATs.

[@MachFarcon]

PoE! But seriously, it is rad that we are getting more options for PoE with the Pi 5. I have a full 6 Pi 4s running in my network rack as appliances/redundant docker appliances over PoE, but storage wasn't really a useful fit minus mini-SD, which is fine given I do back them up, but it would be nice to use the increased hardware of a Pi 5 and not having to use an SD card. Hopefully this fall I'll get to test stuff myself, and then 3d print a multi-pi rack mount like I have with my Pi 4s. Thanks for testing and sharing the new tech!

[@mme725]

Love the shark installation lol

[@JeffGeerling]

🦈

Having less cables is always good, but for the price of these HATs I can get another separate power supply for the Pi, so I find them expensive. Also the transformer circuit produces more heat, which is again something you have to handle as you have shown. The non-transformer hat was actually my favourite because of this. I wonder how really an issue is that it's missing the transformer, especially if you plan to use very short Ethernet cables, and a decent dedicated PoE router to power just your Pi-s connected to it.

[@thetinkerist]

Thx for all your work testing these out!

[@Chris-bg8mk]

“You don’t need a power adapter anymore “while showing a picture of the SBC next to a power adapter ;-)

[@tasa4904]

I get that the cooling fan often isn't needed, but is it okay to run the pi without the cooling fan at all since the AIO POE hat seals off the vent hole? Then again, this is probably just encouraging the running of a much larger cooling fan from the side.

[@spyboy_]

Looks like it's time to upgrade my PoE hats. BTW: Ever mix PoE & Home Assistant? I've got 4x RPi 4's w/ Waveshare PoE Hats (E) in a UCTRONICS U6261 1U rackmount. They're connected to my Unifi Dream Machine SE, and that's controlled from Home Assistant. I can pick up my phone and toggle on/off each POE port to control which Pi boots up.

[@vmx200]

Why do all these devices always require some sort of compromise? 4.5 amps why couldn't they just make it to meet the specs of the pi?

[@EeroafHeurlin]

The isolation transformer is required for very good reasons. You might get away without one when using very short ethernet cables but generally not having one is going to end with sómething losing the magic smoke sooner or later.

[@MegaManNeo]

My router doesn't have PoE ports and buying a splitter for that purpose sounds overkill since I need to feed power to my Pis anyhow. But I love the idea especially since the Pi usually looks like a mess anyway if you plan to use it in a more traditional desktop scenario. So having at least one more side being covered in cables is a good thing. Another option is to buy the Argon One case for instance but that too doesn't come with PoE.

[@640kareenough6]

How do these hats work with the integrated Ethernet jack? I always assumed POE hats would need their own spearate ethernet connector so they could handle 48 volts being shoved down the cable and the extra POE protocol the pi isnt used to. So how do they do it? Somehow the 48 volts need to go from the integrated jack up to the board, so are there reserved gpio pins for that?

[@BineySaurus]

That 4 pin header near the jack is where the PoE is passed. Each pin connects to a center tap on the plug side of the isolation transformers in the jack.

[@JeffGeerling]

This ^^ :)

[@640kareenough6]

@@BineySaurus Ooooh so the pi is already prepared for POE

[@MarcHoekstra]

I've successfully been using PoE splitters for some time now. PoE in -> USB-C Power Delivery jack and gigabit RJ45 (ethernet) jack out. It's not pretty, but it works! No obstruction, heat generation or whine created by a hat, and the splitter is not Raspi specific, so it could also be used for other devices or Raspi models.

[@zahirkhan778]

Would have preferred if you also included some sort of temperature benchmarks with all the HATs

[@r0bst4rl1ng]

I assumed the shark costume was about testing ESD protection :) Fans + nylon = static electricity fun.

[@franks_9254]

About "Coil-whine". Not all of this actually comes from the coils, but from the ceramic capacitors (MLCCs). There is some documentation out there and how to prevent this. You are welcome. :) There is this piezoceramic microphone effect, which also works in reverse, like a buzzer does.

[@vileerdeng]

Guess I learned something today and may dive into it later.

[@Mr.Leeroy]

I'd argue that most of 'coil' whine in modern design comes from cheap or underrated MLCCs, especially in relatively low current converters (not 100W+ multi-phase microprocessor PSUs)

[@EmyrDerfel]

One of my main blockers for current projects is building up my home infra. I need to choose a PoE switch, APs, IP cameras and ideally a point to point wireless bridge. A single vendor should make managing it all easier, but so far I'm only seeing TP-Link's Omada range (weirdly they also have another range that isnt cross compatible with Omada, why oh why oh why).

[@PaulLittlefield]

Where did you get those beautiful and thin network cables?!

[@kacper746]

bump

[@drtbantha]

Looks like the Monoprice SlimRun maybe?

[@kacper746]

@@drtbantha asked Jeff via email and you're 100% right

[@FreihEitner]

I was fine watching this video for a while, but then I think I had a brain episode and believed that I saw a man dressed in a shark costume assembling a computer. I'm wondering if I've been working too hard recently.

[@nutsandbolts432]

How many hats / bases can you stack at once?

[@JeffGeerling]

Technically infinite... though at a certain height the signal integrity for the buses you might be using would be poor. Also some HATs require exclusive use of certain pins, so you'd have to stack them in a way that the higher HATs can still have access to the pins they need.

[@nutsandbolts432]

@@JeffGeerling time to make the most ridiculous raspberry pi setup ever. I got one now that uses 4 stories, but I know of at least 2 more hats I need (maybe more). I’m building a custom chart plotter for my boat. I have a 2TB NVME base, Macauthor hat for signal k networking, dAISy hat for AIS communications, and still need to add a hat for autopilot. Additionally I’d like to be able to add security cameras to the boat that I can view remotely, but I wonder how much I can ask of 1 little raspberry pi 5? I’d love to see you construct the leaning tower of pi just to see how crazy things can get.

[@randycny]

They should build in PoE. I prefer PoE to having to use another cable to power it. Would also be good to build in NVME support. The board isn't $35 anymore so a few $ for these features standard would be worth it.

[@rufmeister]

5:20 "So you could use a 9V or 12V USB-C PD adapter that's more common like for laptops and things". Not a laptop charger, but any regular phone charger. A somewhat modern USB-C (PD) charger for phones these days is easily 25W or at least 20W, so would have no problem powering the Pi5 (or pi4 for that matter), but because the RPi specifically wants 5V only, and 5A of it, it's difficult to find a charger outside the official OEM one. Allowing 9V or 12V to supply that wattage suddenly makes almost any regular phone charger (or indeed laptop charger) able to easily and happily power the RPi, which should have been the case in the beginning. (Yes, I understand this would make the RPi a tiny bit more complex.)

[@leggysoft]

I've used a PoE to USBC (only 5V2.4A) splitter I got for $12 ok if you don't need much power it's useful since my poe switch is on a UPS, no need for UPS on other room. I charge my phone with an extremely overpriced ubiquity one.

[@Ender_Wiggin]

You really do not need isolation if the application is all on an indoor rack. If we were running Ethernet to a remote pi (edge pi) then I would use an isolation for that one. Remember if you are powering your PI with USB C there is no isolation also. For indoor small rack applications non isolated is the way to go.

[@briangoldberg4439]

They really, really need to make an updated "official" Pi5 case that allows for the NVMe and POE hats.

[@pinsandscrews6459]

I am very sensitive to coil whine. Something about the pitch/frequency of the sound lets me hear it when other people around me can't.

[@JeffGeerling]

Yeah; I've actually had to return a few chargers and other devices that had really bad coil whine because it's too distracting for me!

[@JorgeALXNDR]

Why are the top modules called HATs and the bottom ones not called SHOEs?

[@o0shad0oo]

The big problem with the hats is they block airflow, or add a tiny fan that's annoying and a maintenance issue. Get a PoE splitter instead.

[@chaosfenix]

So features I would like to see for the raspberry pi 6. 1. Drop the microSD entirely and put a 2230 m.2 slot in its place. NVME drives are a lot more resilient than the crap flash you get with a microSD. 2. Integrate POE by default into the board. 3. Get rid of the micro HDMI ports on it and just use 2 USB C ports on it. The nice thing with this is that you should be able to fit the power circuitry for power delivery over USB or through POE in the same area.4. The rest would just be the miscelanous make it better stuff. I wouldn't turn down faster networking and a faster chip powering the PI 6 but I honestly don't feel that those are as necessary.

[@Squirrel765]

So now the Pi will cost $100+ with all those features. Very few people need POE Not everyone needs a m.2 drive. MicroSD is more than fine for most people. 1Gbit is good to keep costs down too. I like where the Pi5 went. I'd say the next goal would be flesh out the new stepping and focus on keeping power consumption/heat down.

[@ETG168]

Disagree on some points. 1: Many ppl who use RPis dont use PoE, so it would be an unnecessary cost for them - examples being robotics clubs, universities, etc. 2: I'd imagine the DP over USBC circuitry would take more space than a full sized HDMI connector, so rather just get a proper video connector

[@chaosfenix]

@@Squirrel765 As for the m.2 it really isn't an increased cost. You can get a 128Gb 2230 ssd for as cheap as $16. It isn't like the costs are really higher compared to a microSD card. I can see the logic with POE but again most people have to purchase a separate plug and cable for power anyway so having to get a POE injector instead of a USB C power cable doesn't really change much. With all of this I guess the biggest thing is that I know that the margins are increadibly thin on a device like the Pi. I just think that especially with the Drive it is one that most people actually want anyway.

[@Monkeh616]

SD cards are convenient for a lot of users of the Pi - they're low cost, easily changed when experimenting, and easily removed and overwritten if you break the OS on them. Having an M.2 slot by default would be great, but removing the SD slot isn't going to work for a lot of users. The vast majority of Pi users do not need or want PoE, making that a waste. Fixing the power input to just use 9V or 12V via PD needs doing, though. The Pi has been excessively picky about power supply for too long.

[@sebastian_harnisch]

@@chaosfenix Imho you make some good points. With all the things you "have" to buy RPi's get expensive really fast anyway and an onboard SSD connector would reduce the cost for all those, who want a NVMe SSD and now don't have to buy a separate hat/base. And cost would likely be similar. Not so sure whether the same is true for POE since many people don't even have a PoE switch. Then they would have to buy a power supply/injector/PoE switch. I pesonally think this would be one of the best features they could add... I would like to see USB C instead of this annoying micro HDMI port. It's really rare to find devices using it hence most people likely have to buy a new cable. A lower power consumption would be my other main concern.

[@W8RIT1]

I've never really heard a transformer whine... I've heard many that hum. That's because of the hysteresis causing mechanical motion in the transformer coil windings.

[@collectorguy3919]

If a board lacks isolation, a PoE splitter (male eth, female eth, barrel jack) may work as an in-line isolation transformer? That depends on the circuit design, and whether the isolation covers the female ethernet port.

[@CGW11]

10:39 Is the plastic on the isolation transformer partly melted?

[@vileerdeng]

@@CGW11 No. It is epoxy glue used to fill and fix the coils.

[@CGW11]

@@vileerdeng Ah! Thanks

[@PosiCat]

I just got one of these it works beautifully with an M.2 SSD ... I've also tried an M.2 Oculink adapter, but it hasn't been able to detect the same M.2 SSD on an Oculink to M.2 adapter, or a PCIe card on an Oculink to PCIe adapter ... I've had the exact same problem with my desktop PC, nothing detects over the Oculink which makes me think perhaps my cable is bad, so I ordered the same cable you used with your GPU with hopes that at least that way I'd know I have a cable that's worked for someone else.

[@thecatofnineswords]

How do the various POE hats actually extract the power from the ethernet socket? I would have thought that the Pi's board itself would require the POE circuitry to work, and thus POE is built-in. How does adding a hat actually make this work?

[@TheOneKEA]

The four pin header on the Pi provides an electrical connection to the far side of the isolation transformer that links the physical Ethernet socket to the PHY. The DC current can be extracted from this four pin header and handled by the PoE hat.

[@JohnDoe-bd5sz]

Still looking forward to the official PoE HAT, because i hope it will include the ability to use the active cooler fan. I already invested in the Pimoroni bottom hat so dont really need a dual use HAT like this, and the 2 hats available with only PoE does not support the active cooler and from memory, they have a fan that is not speed controllable.

[@rolandrohde]

It's just a pity that there currently isn't a 2.5Gbit Ethernet + POE+ NVME Hat...

[@GordieGii]

@7:32 the I/O header is also a little off, so maybe it is the mounting standoffs or holes are off...

[@FrenziedManbeast]

Jeff - is there a pico-poe injector out there? Seems wild to use a poe injector that has a larger volume than the entire Pi!

[@Cynyr]

Normally you'd buy a poe switch and not need a separate brick.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

Mikrotik's RBGPOE (that requires an external normal sized power brick)

[@JeffGeerling]

Yeah; there are a few good ones that just do PoE+ and are a bit smaller. The one I have is quite overkill, but its performance is *very* good and adequate for a lot of test case I have. I have another cheap PoE injector that is about 1/2 the size, and would be adequate for most Pi use cases.

[@FrenziedManbeast]

@@JeffGeerling Thanks for this answer, and of course the video. Have a great weekend!

[@purplemonkeydishwasher5269]

I've been using a $5 PoE adapter from Amazon for my Pis for years. I have always thought it's a feature thats desperately needed for a device that you want to be able to run without having a tonne of wall adapters. The NVMe attachment is a good feature though.

[@S1xZDev]

Hey, Jeff unrelated question to the video here. Since It's almost a year after the PI5 release now, I wonder would you could share what type of workloads you put on your PI5 at your homelab. I've been consider getting the PI5 for quite a while now, but I just don't really now what kind of usecase would it excel at. I've had my PI3 since I was in high school and have been doing countless prototypes on it, but putting it on my rack is a different matter. Thank you in advance, Love your videos.

[@JeffGeerling]

Honestly I'm mostly running Pi 4's in my homelab right now. I have one Pi 5 running Frigate (since the extra CPU power and PCIe lane makes it much better for that), and I've been testing another Pi 5 as a networking router, but am still not fully satisfied with it (I'll do a video on it when I am, heh). At the studio, I have a Pi 5 running as my little utility server; I've thrown a few Docker containers on it, I have remote access enabled, and it is used when I want to run a quick test against a Pi or arm CPU and I don't need to run one of my Ampere servers.

[@DaHaiZhu]

Nice review of the options. My Pipe-Dream is for the Pi 6 to have PoE and NVMe natively on the board - no hats required.

[@unrealzocker]

The reasoning behind the compatibility with .bt sounds strange. Doesn't it require transformers/isolation too?

[@Natepwnsu]

I'm mainly here for the shark costume.

[@MatterMage]

What do you use the SDR for? I did a search on your channel and it doesn't look like you have ever covered it.

[@jasonhughes3932]

Jeff, have you ever played around with PTM7950 thermal pads on various PI components/areas to dissipate heat? I generally consider temperature over time a factor to product longevity/stability and would love your opinion (a video?) on if that product has a definite benefit for the pi and in which use cases.

[@beejay7665]

Having broken off those same three heatsink fins for the radxa sata hat, can RPi just omit them? 😂

[@JeffGeerling]

Heh maybe v 2.0 will just not have those three fins in place!

[@dshack4689]

I was thinking I don't see the POE reboot as automatically a bug - I kinda prefer the shutdown to result in starting up on POE again because otherwise this would be a trap if operating the pi remotely. My most remote pi is a 1994kilometre drive away and if I want that pi off then I simply remote into the switch and configure the POE off, knowing that if I re-enable POE it will boot up fine. But that's just me, my situation may not be for everyone

[@avenuex3731]

That Dalek poster is only a test print awaiting approval. Not for public display.

[@tcurdt]

Just wondering: What makes the hats Pi5 only?

[@JeffGeerling]

These HATs rely on PCIe connections, which only works through the PCIe FFC connector on the Pi 5. Unfortunately older Pis don't have an external PCIe connection.

[@michaelthornes]

@@JeffGeerling ​​⁠you mentioned gen3 speeds a few times in the video - I assume you mean gen2 (x1) for the Pi 5? but I could be missing something. 7:33/10:16

[@JeffGeerling]

@@michaelthornes You can set the speed to gen 3 (still x1 of course) in the /boot/firmware/config.txt file. For *most* HATs I've tested, it works fine. YMMV and it's not *officially* supported by Raspberry Pi!

[@dave_dennis]

Cases are a big problem when you add a POE hat. I wish there was a standard POE form factor so that the case manufacturers could allow for this.

[@JeffGeerling]

A few companies are making 'Tall' cases for the Pi that fit HATs inside quite nicely. But there still isn't a ton of standardization.

[@milescarter7803]

🤣 that shark suit, I'm dead 😂

[@Jdvc-yd5tx]

That hp Aruba power supply is 56 volts ! I believe most phone lines use 50 volts so that figures.....

[@Jdvc-yd5tx]

When you think how much electricity it takes to power a shopping mall, yet this thing runs on the voltage supplied by a standard telephone land line [which powers the electric bell inside]. It's very humbling. 🖋

[@ZeeshaanAli]

I just can't wait "until next time".

[@RechargeableLithium]

It's. Scam. He never changes the name.

[@sebastien79a]

I use a PoE to USB-C splitter which is a great cheap way to get PoE to a Pi but it seems to cause some under-voltage errors so something like this is a great fix for the hacky solution :)

[@cjlowe1650]

No link to Aruba poe 60u???????

[@JeffGeerling]

Oops! I'll get that added - I think it's this one, but I had ordered through the HP online store: amzn.to/4gXalIL

[@cjlowe1650]

Thanks

[@Reedith]

So which one did you choose?

[@JeffGeerling]

HackerGadgets for the time being, going to probably buy a couple extra and upgrade some more of my Pi 4s finally.

[@Reedith]

​@@JeffGeerlingdo you have a recommended m.2 drive to use with these hats to boot your OS like home assistant?

[@stefanlodders9521]

What is the transparent base you install every Pi to?

[@TechHut]

I bought this last night to make a video about it 😭😅

[@JeffGeerling]

Ha! It's a great HAT though, plenty of extra stuff you could cover, like backfeeding USB-C power to see if it explodes :)

[@garfius]

Good guy Jeff tests weird stuff you might need. Thanks👏👍💯

[@usagold8]

I personally would not recommend 52Pi. I received a PCIe 1x converter board which arrived damaged and could not get a response from any of the email addresses I tried. Unfortunately they’re the only vendor I can find which makes that specific kind of board.

[@RuschGaming]

What kind of mini rack is that?

[@Saturn2888]

Does this work with a Pi4 or do I need a Pi5?

[@MarkWinchester-m3g]

Will any of these hats work with the official raspberry display?

[@AlexHerlan]

i've been rocking the black one for my main RP5 for months now and its very nice and reliable. I might have to look into that Aruba device, because I haven't had luck with anyting but the beefiest PoE++ switches getting these dual purpose hats to boot off LAN alone, consistently... idk whats wrong. You are correct about the height being an issue for me, attempting to pack 4 of these into a purpose built RP5 cluster rack.... but you can't win them all. I'm considering getting a legit rack now, like the GeekPi one you had, and finally go legit with a "real" rack now. the second hat you talked about looks like it might be just what the doctor ordered to complete my setup

[@johnbaldwin143]

To be completely honest I have used Pi's for years and with all things considered I would really like to see a native pi with an NVME and POE built in. I understand that this would and should be at a different price point. It's just a natural progression seeing the associated hat sales!

[@ny4i]

Do these all have a set of capacitors to provide enough power to perform a fast shutdown when they lose POE power?

[@marcoschirrmeister]

25°C office temp, Jeff likes it nice and cozy! 😀

[@JeffGeerling]

Usually that in the summer, 21°C in the Winter.

[@GabrielLuna81]

what's your smart outlet model?