PoE switch for Reolink camera systems: what Reolink requires and when you need one

What the numbers mean

Home Hub Pro: every PoE camera needs a switch or an injector

Reolink’s spec sheet gives the Home Hub Pro one Ethernet port for the WAN and 1 for IP cameras, both at 0.1 GbE (100 Mbps), and lists no PoE; Reolink’s support article states that the camera port does not provide power, whether a camera is connected directly or through a switch. Which means that every PoE camera on a Home Hub Pro takes its power from a PoE switch or an injector, and the cameras behind a switch reach the hub through that one camera port.

Reolink lists up to 12 wired cameras, PoE or plug-in Wi-Fi, on both hardware groups of the Home Hub Pro; the LS108GP has 8 PoE ports and no separate uplink port. Which means one of those 8 ports carries the cable to the hub’s camera port, and one LS108GP takes at most 7 PoE cameras (8 − 1). Give that cable port 8: it is the first to lose power when the budget runs out (see below), so the cameras keep ports 1-7. If all 12 of the hub’s wired cameras are PoE, that is 12 − 7 = 5 more than one LS108GP takes. Plug-in Wi-Fi cameras count toward the same 12 but don’t take a switch port.

RLN8-410: a switch adds power, not wired cameras

On hardware N7MB01, the version in Reolink’s current spec sheet, Reolink lists up to 12 cameras, of which 8 wired; the older versions list 8 cameras in all. The NVR has 8 PoE camera ports of its own. Which means the RLN8-410’s own ports already reach Reolink’s wired-camera count: a PoE switch doesn’t take it past 8 wired cameras.

What a switch can add is power. Reolink’s article says that high-power PoE cameras, such as the OMVI and Floodlight models in the table above, use more of the NVR’s fixed total power budget, which can lower the number of cameras the NVR takes, and that a power adapter, a PoE switch or a PoE injector can power them instead. Take 8 Duo 3 PoE cameras, one on each NVR port: Reolink’s figure for the RLN8-410’s own ports is 5, which leaves 3 to power some other way. For the OMVI X16 PoE, the figure is 3, which leaves 5 of 8.

How far the LS108GP’s 62 W goes

TP-Link’s datasheet gives the LS108GP a PoE budget of 62 W, shared by its 8 PoE ports, with up to 30 W on any one port. Which means:

• with one of the 8 ports on the cable to the recorder or to your network and a camera on each of the other 7, the budget works out to 62 ÷ 7 = 8.86 W per camera on average;
• at the 30 W per-port maximum, 2 devices use 60 W of the 62 W, and a third would take the total to 90 W, past the budget;
• a camera the RLN8-410 can power from one of its ports draws at most 25 W, inside the LS108GP’s 30 W per port; the shared 62 W still applies to all of them together.

TP-Link’s installation guide says the budget is counted on the power the connected devices actually draw, not on 30 W set aside for each port. So the check is simple: add up the maximum power draw on each camera’s spec sheet, and keep the total within 62 W. The datasheet adds that the actual PoE budget is not guaranteed and varies with client limitations and environmental factors, so a total right at the limit leaves no margin.

Which port loses power first

When the connected devices draw more than the budget, TP-Link’s installation guide says the switch cuts power to the higher-numbered ports first. The LS108GP is unmanaged, so the order can’t be changed. Which means the camera you can least afford to lose goes on port 1, and the one that matters least on port 7, next to the cable to the recorder on port 8.

Extend Mode: 250 m at 10 Mbps

On ports 1-2, Extend Mode carries PoE and data up to 250 m, and the datasheet states that those ports drop to 10 Mbps while it is on. Which means a camera on an Extend Mode port gets a tenth of the 100 Mbps (0.1 GbE) of the Home Hub Pro’s camera port or of an RLN8-410 camera port. Ports 1-2 are also the ones that keep power longest when the budget runs out, so a far camera on Extend Mode is also one of the last to lose power.

Where the switch goes

The LS108GP has no fan, measures 158 x 99 x 25 mm, and TP-Link’s installation guide gives an operating temperature of 0˚C to 40˚C. Which means it runs silently on a shelf or in a closet, but it belongs where the temperature stays inside that range, not in an unheated outdoor box next to the cameras.