Need advice for my chicken coop router

[D0T-C0M]

I have run a cat6e cable and a 120v feed to my chicken coop. The cat6e is coming from my poe managed switch in my garage (which is directly connected to my home router in my home). At the coop I have 2 cameras installed, one is a dahau poe camera outside the coop and an amcrest 1051 ptz camera inside. The amcrest is not a poe camera so i presently have it connected via 2g wifi to my router in my home.

I've connected my cat6e cable directly to my dahua camera and that works fine and for now and I have the amcrest camera connected via its 2g wifi. This works but its at its limit in terms of signal strength and I get occasional drop outs and lag.

My eventual goal is to automate my coop using a 3 esp32 boards connected to my home assistant server in my home and have 2 cameras going to my blueiris server. I am going to need a WiFi AP router at the coop for my esp32 boards but I'm looking for a cost effective wifi router capable of powering poe and non poe devices.

Any suggestions?

 

[Flintstone61]

does the 1051 PTZ have an ethernet jack?
i see it does. hmm wait you need poe....let see....maybe a teensy poe switch, i have one like this in my out building. running 2 cams and a Ubiquiti wireless LAN

https://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Unmanaged-Compliant-Shielded-TL-SF1005P/dp/B076PRM2C5/ref=sr_1_4?crid=U53RO8IB6H2Z&keywords=4+port+poe+switch&qid=1665071288&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI0LjMxIiwicXNhIjoiNC4wMiIsInFzcCI6IjMuODMifQ%3D%3D&s=electronics&sprefix=4+port+poe+switch%2Celectronics%2C120&sr=1-4

 

[Flintstone61]

connect both cameras to that. the Poe switch at the House will auto negotiate and become just a data connection rather than passing voltage.

 

[Flintstone61]

I have one ethernet from the garage, handling the stream from 2 NVR/DVR's through the unrecommended ( hey its a switch back off @wittaj ) Asus router which is just a WAP at this point, to my PC

 

[D0T-C0M]

ok that might work , in addition to the 2 cameras, I'll want to run an esp32. I'll check if I can get one with a POE ethernet port or get a cheap wifi AP. Thx for the reply

 

[tech_junkie]

I would change out the managed switch for an unmanaged switch with two 1Gig uplinks, and put another one in the coop.
plug the coop switch into one of the garage's uplink ports.
POE switches negotiate POE to a device if the device has its blue and brown pairs are shorted. Otherise, it doesn't apply power to the POE port.

View attachment POE-SW811_83fd1303-649a-4e38-82e5-ead3367fbf97.webp

 

[The Automation Guy]

There are many ways to accomplish this. Here is what I would do.......

You don't need to replace the switch in the garage. Simply add a second network switch out in the coop and connect the two with the existing network cable. If one of the switches has an uplink port (or crossover, MDI-X, or OUT port), you'll want to connect the other switch to this port. You might also be able to assign one of the ports on your managed switch as an uplink port if one of the ports isn't set that way by default. However you only want to use one uplink port in the link. Do not use uplink ports on both ends or you nullify the change. If neither switch has an uplink port, you simply need to use a crossover cable or crossover adapter to connect the two devices. Since you have power in the coop, you can use a POE switch or simply power the POE camera via 12v power supply or a POE injector. You should also add a Wi-Fi Access Point out there and plug it directly into the switch when Wi-Fi for the esp32 and/or second camera. This will create a new Wi-Fi network or extend your existing Wi-Fi network depending on how it works and how you set it up. You should not use a router with DHCP service turned on. Your existing router in the house will handle any IP address assignments in this scenario.

As far as actual hardware, you might use a Wi-Fi router in the coop as the Wi-Fi access point and network switch, but be sure to turn off the DHCP service if you do this. If you don't have a Wi-Fi router to use, you will need a separate network switch and Wi-Fi AP.

Hopefully that makes sense!

 

[D0T-C0M]

There are many ways to accomplish this. Here is what I would do.......

You don't need to replace the switch in the garage. Simply add a second network switch out in the coop and connect the two with the existing network cable. If one of the switches has an uplink port (or crossover, MDI-X, or OUT port), you'll want to connect the other switch to this port. You might also be able to assign one of the ports on your managed switch as an uplink port if one of the ports isn't set that way by default. However you only want to use one uplink port in the link. Do not use uplink ports on both ends or you nullify the change. If neither switch has an uplink port, you simply need to use a crossover cable or crossover adapter to connect the two devices. Since you have power in the coop, you can use a POE switch or simply power the POE camera via 12v power supply or a POE injector. You should also add a Wi-Fi Access Point out there and plug it directly into the switch when Wi-Fi for the esp32 and/or second camera. This will create a new Wi-Fi network or extend your existing Wi-Fi network depending on how it works and how you set it up. You should not use a router with DHCP service turned on. Your existing router in the house will handle any IP address assignments in this scenario.

As far as actual hardware, you might use a Wi-Fi router in the coop as the Wi-Fi access point and network switch, but be sure to turn off the DHCP service if you do this. If you don't have a Wi-Fi router to use, you will need a separate network switch and Wi-Fi AP.

Hopefully that makes sense!

Thanks for the detailed response. I bought the 4 port switch Flintstone61 suggested and connected it directly to my existing switch in the garage. DHCP is all controlled through my home router. My router always assigns the same IP to the same mac address so static IPs are not necessary on my network. All I did was connect the 2 cameras to the new 4 port switch in the coop and everything worked flawlessly. It should be noted each camera was previously configured and running in Blue Iris which helped For now my ESP32 reaches my home wifi router on 2G so I might not need an additional router. As long as I can control the opening and closing of the coop door from my phone or through automation through my Home Assistant server is great guys thanks this setup only cost me $50 for the switch and it was all plug and play.