Power-over-Ethernet or PoE, put simply, is the ability to provide a certain amount of power to drive local peripherals over existing network cabling removing the need to provide separate power supply units adjacent to those devices.

According to Dycon, this is good news for the security industry because it can make installations easier and more cost effective by eliminating the requirement for 230vAC spur points all around a site simply to power the PSUs that are required just to power peripherals such as intruder detection devices, CCTV cameras, access control readers, in fact, anything that needs 12Vdc or 24Vdc. When running a network cable to a device installers do not need any other power, the same network connection can provide up to 35W, more than enough to power most cameras and many other devices.

There are other additional benefits with PoE as well.  For example if there is a requirement to move a device because of building alterations, or because the risk has changed, with PoE all the installer needs to do is move the network cable - there is no longer any need to search for a suitable location to pick up 230vAC.

Plus, if the PoE is being used to drive Point-of-Sales equipment, like cash tills, then this can mean a rapid refit rather than a point out of commission for days.

There are however, some pitfalls with PoE, as it is possible to select the wrong PoE solution. Many products on the market today, including switchers and controllers, claim that they are PoE-enabled, but it is essential to carefully check the actual power delivered as there may not be enough available to drive all the devices in the system.  According to Dycon, it has been known for installers to find that a system that claims it ‘can power eight or twelve devices’ actually struggles to cope with even half that amount.

As a result, Dycon recommends that to be certain, installers should select a mid-span solution. Equally, it is important to note that standard PoE delivers only 15W per channel, and consideration needs to be given to whether that is sufficient to drive all the devices to be connected to the system.

Higher-powered, mid-span PoE units, ones that conform to IEEE802.3af and IEEE802.3at PoE Plus, including all Dycon PoE units deliver a useful 35W per channel, more than adequate for most security applications.

All Dycon advanced power supply units, including the D1800 PoE range, use switched-mode technology which is one of the greenest solutions available offering over 85%-90% efficiency as opposed to less than 30% with many traditional linear power supply units.

In real terms this means that on a 1A 12Vdc power supply, saving of nearly 121KW per year could be achieved by using a switched mode equivalent. For the end user that could mean a meaningful saving on electricity charges, particularly if you multiply that by the number of PSUs being used and that figure will continue to grow as energy costs rise.

The Dycon D1800 PoE range uses the same advanced switched mode technology as the Dycon stand-alone PSUs so these cost savings can also be achieved across networked devices.