POE switch needed?

X

xSpiffx

n3wb
Dec 31, 2020
12
2
Australia
Hi,

Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere - happy to be redirected. I can't seem to find the answer.

I've purchased
1. 6 x cameras Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS
2. 1 x NVR Dahua NVR5208-8P-4KS2E
3. 1 x Villa door station Dahua VTO2311R-WP

I was looking to get these installed and a couple of installers have told me I need to get a POE switch - in particular for the door station/doorbell camera.
In one instance, I was also told I should hardwire a power supply to the door station to avoid reliability issues with notifications to the phone.

I was going to place the NVR approx 20m/65ft away (from the furthest device), and the NVR is also approx the same distance away to the router/FTTP entrypoint.
I'd assumed I would be able to run POE from the NVR to the cameras and door station, be able to supply power to all the devices that way, and also record all devices on the NVR, without additional equipment.

Is it true I need a POE switch or can the devices be powered by running Cat5e or Cat6 from the NVR?

Thanks
 
That NVR has 8 POE ports, so no, you do not need a separate POE switch for the six 5442 cams.

I have no experience with the Villa, so I can't answer that. I think that @Holbs has one and maybe he can chime in.
 
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You're all set. Justpull the cameras outta the box plug them in 1 at a time and dont futz with any camera settings. Let the NVR Assign Ip's and passwords.
Make sure you get the User:Admin Pass: xxxxxx setup on the NVR before adding cams.
Then the cameras password will be updated to the NVR's password.
 
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Sometimes with an NVR, if you get a camera working on say port 5,,,,on the bench,,,,and then in the real install that camera ends up in Port 6.....Funny things happen.
Sometimes you need to wait a couple minutes for the NVR to decide if will adapt to that change, or in some cases on my amcrest 1179e's i had to hit the Cam's reset button, and then wait to see how it's gonna shake out....
AND THEN....sometimes you still might have to reboot it...and get it in the original port the hardware was assigned to,
I'm not the expert
I'm a button gepushen oder dem switchen flicken mit dem hammer gesmackin tinkerer
 
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samplenhold said:
That NVR has 8 POE ports, so no, you do not need a separate POE switch for the six 5442 cams.
Click to expand...
Flintstone61 said:
You're all set. Justpull the cameras outta the box plug them in 1 at a time and dont futz with any camera settings. Let the NVR Assign Ip's and passwords.
Make sure you get the User:Admin Pass: xxxxxx setup on the NVR before adding cams.
Then the cameras password will be updated to the NVR's password.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
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Spiked said:
What's a POE switch and when would you need one?
Click to expand...
My layman explainer : It's a small powered box that provides power over the data cable in addition to the data itself.

In my case, I've decided on a network video recorder (nvr) instead of a PC + blue iris. My nvr comes with poe ports, so as above I don't need a POE switch to provide power to the cameras etc. If you were using the pc + blue iris, you would need a POE switch in between the pc and cameras so it sends data to/from the pc and also powers the cameras.

The benefit of poe is you don't need a data cable and a power cable/wire/adapter, just one cable that does it all. You'd need to make sure your device (camera, monitor, doorbell is poe capable).

I hope this helps.

(edit) in my use case, I'm thinking a poe switch might be useful if I plan to save the 2ports for additional cameras in future (I hv 6 cameras and an 8port nvr). I'd have to forego recording my door station on the nvr if all 8ports are used but I think the door station I bought supports sdcard recording. In any case, that's not necessary now to get things up and running which is my priority.
 
Last edited:
xSpiffx said:
My layman explainer : It's a small powered box that provides power over the data cable in addition to the data itself.

In my case, I've decided on a
network video recorder (nvr) instead of a PC + blue iris. My nvr comes with poe ports, so as above I don't need a POE switch to provide power to the cameras etc. If you were using the pc + blue iris, you would need a POE switch in between the pc and cameras so it sends data to/from the pc and also powers the cameras.

The benefit of poe is you don't need a data cable and a power cable/wire/adapter, just one cable that does it all. You'd need to make sure your device (camera, monitor, doorbell is poe capable).

I hope this helps.

(edit) in my use case, I'm thinking a poe switch might be useful if I plan to save the 2ports for additional cameras in future (I hv 6 cameras and an 8port nvr). I'd have to forego recording my door station on the nvr if all 8ports are used but I think the door station I bought supports sdcard recording. In any case, that's not necessary now to get things up and running which is my priority.
Click to expand...

Got it, definitely did help.

But if you have 2 spare ports after connecting your 6 cameras, why would you need a POE switch to save the 2 ports for additional cameras when your nvr has 8 ports and you are only connecting 6 cameras? Can't you use those two spare ports on the nvr for another 2 cameras without a POE switch?
 
One thing you should keep in mind is that the nvr is probably limited to 8 cameras total. So even if you power two from a Poe switch and access them over the network, you will not be able to use the other two nvr ports. A couple of other limitations you might run into is the power requirements for your cameras. That nvr can support 130w total and 25.5 w/port. You won't exceed that now but if you were to add high power cameras like a ptz, you might. In that case, an external switch might be required.
 
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Not sure if vth/vto will work plugged into nvr. Think it might need an ip in the same range as nvr not cameras.
 
I have a VTO2211G-WP. Just hooked it up to my POE NVR and good to go. Nice having just one cable to run to the VTO.

I have my NVR, all cameras, VTO and VTH on assigned 10.1.1.x IPs. No issues.
 
Spiked said:
But if you have 2 spare ports after connecting your 6 cameras, why would you need a POE switch to save the 2 ports for additional cameras when your nvr has 8 ports and you are only connecting 6 cameras?
Click to expand...
I was just thinking out loud. The answer is futureproofing, but given my priority now, I might focus on just using what I have.
The futureproofing answer is this: I would consider a POE switch to power the Villa door station Dahua VTO2311R-WP (which i've already purchased) and an indoor monitor VTH... (which I haven't purchased yet) to leave the 2 ports on the PVR free for two additional/future cameras. Both the VTO and VTH are POE-capable devices so can be powered by a POE switch.

Spiked said:
? Can't you use those two spare ports on the nvr for another 2 cameras without a POE switch?
Click to expand...
Yes, indeed I can and most likely will. My knowledge gap at the moment is whether I can run the VTO and VTH off the POE ports on the NVR without issue, or whether others may have encountered issues and if so learn from them.
 
CanCuba said:
have a VTO2211G-WP. Just hooked it up to my POE NVR and good to go. Nice having just one cable to run to the VTO.

I have my NVR, all cameras, VTO and VTH on assigned 10.1.1.x IPs. No issues.
Click to expand...
Thank you! I needed to hear this. Is your NVR same as mine or also a Dahua branded one? Which model VTH do you pair it with?
Do you program your VTO to notify you via mobile apps when someone presses the button? Any reliability issues at all?
One installer I spoke to was quite insistent he'd encountered this problem with clients and so kept advising me to hardwire it. It was going to be about $20 extra to hardwire, so I don't think he was proposing the solution to get more out of the proposed job.
Have you ever heard of any cases where POE alone causes reliability issues with notifications?
 
xSpiffx said:
Thank you! I needed to hear this. Is your NVR same as mine or also a Dahua branded one? Which model VTH do you pair it with?
Do you program your VTO to notify you via mobile apps when someone presses the button? Any reliability issues at all?
One installer I spoke to was quite insistent he'd encountered this problem with clients and so kept advising me to hardwire it. It was going to be about $20 extra to hardwire, so I don't think he was proposing the solution to get more out of the proposed job.
Have you ever heard of any cases where POE alone causes reliability issues with notifications?
Click to expand...

Definitely hardware. I didn't even try wifi as my VTO is located away from any electrical outlets so I'd have to have run power to it regardless. Running a low-voltage cat6 cable is easier than putting a 110v outlet near where it's located. So it was a no-brainer.

Can't remember the VTH model off-hand but it's hooked up to a POE injector which is hooked up to a wifi repeater. I will be running a cable from the NVR to the VTH in the future to get rid of the repeater/injector setup.

I don't use the apps as many feel that they aren't secure.

No reliability issues. I have the VTO recording audio and video 24/7 to the NVR. As it's located at the front gate on the street, I can see and hear what's going on.
 
My VTO has been running off a POE switch since day 1 without any issues (no power cycles, reboots, etc).
Same for all my Dahua IP cameras, including the DC hungry PTZ.
Now the question could come up... is it wise to run IP cameras off a POE switch? My answer...yes. Have I heard people having POE switch issues with POE network equipment? I sure have but that is usually because junky POE switch to begin with or going over the max wattage.
 
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In regards to the DMSS app... I do feel it is very basic and generic. Wish it was more...modern? But anytime someone presses the call button, I get the notificaiton on my smartphone DMSS app 100% of the time and within reasonable time frame (less than 2 seconds). So it does 100% work. With a caveat in my case though... I do not use P2P or any port forwarding so I do not go through external cloud servers for the video/talk communication (forced to use google or iphone server for the initial notification though). Because of not using P2P/Dahua servers, I can not say how other's fair going this route of reliability.
 
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Thanks Holbs. I'm sure I'll come back to this thread re DMSS in a couple of weeks when everything's been installed and I'm tinkering with setups.
 
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