Ubiquiti brings Power over Ethernet to 800 meters with extreme caveats

Ubiquiti has announced a new switch called USW-LR-Switch-8-PoE (630W). Its specialty is offering Power over Ethernet (PoE up to PoE++) beyond 100 meters. The new switch offers an interesting alternative for temporary installations or situations where running another power cable through the ground or walls is difficult.

But the 8-port switch requires special cables and an endpoint that passes PoE through to the PoE powered device, which can be, for example, a PoE camera or a PoE switch.

One additional port is just for the uplink. Users can choose either the RJ45 port or the SFP port, with a maximum speed of 1 Gbit/s. However, this switch is not intended for data-intensive use cases. The switching capacity is limited to a very low 3.6 Gbit/s and all long-range ports are limited to 100 Mbit/s.

90 watts becomes 13 watts at 800 meters

Using long-range mode comes with some serious caveats. According to Ubiquiti, Power over Ethernet will degrade significantly at higher ranges. Using the official outdoor cable, a PoE sink cannot consume more than 13 watts at the maximum range of 800 meters. That is sufficient for many smaller devices. However, the electricity bill will be significantly higher than with a local PoE switch.

If a device consumes more energy, like UniFi's AI PTZ cameras, the range will be limited. This device requires 51 watts and can be used with a distance of up to 200 meters. Connecting a device with high bandwidth requirements is also out of the question. Ubiquiti says in long-range mode with a compatible long-range endpoint, the switch usually negotiates 100 Mbit/s for up to 400 meters. Beyond 400 meters, the speed is further reduced to 10 Mbit/s. 

Ubiquiti's USW-LR-Switch-8-PoE (630W) is already available for 274 USD. The long-range endpoint UACC-LR-Endpoint costs 99 USD per unit. So, a full setup comes in at 1,066 USD since Ubiquiti does not offer discounts  for ordering multiple endpoints. That does not include the cables. A single TP cable, UACC-Cable-C5e-Outdoor-Pro-305M-W, with a length of 305 meters costs another 149 USD.