Power your Raspberry Pi using PoE

Are you considering to use a Raspberry Pi in one of your projects?  Have you considered using Power over Ethernet (PoE) to power your Raspberry Pi?

What is Power over Ethernet?

Power over Ethernet is a standardized technology that enables powering devices that consume very low power to be powered by an Ethernet cable(Wikipedia). The electrical cable is transmitted via a cable pair that is not used for Ethernet communications.

How does it work?

A PoE enabled device is connected to a network switch that enables PoE capability(Example). The PoE enabled device is equipped with a step down converter (example) to power the device at the desired voltage.

So how to power a Raspberry Pi using PoE?

Silvertel has published a reference design (link) to demonstrate powering up a Raspberry Pi via PoE. The gerber files are available for download from Silvertel’s website. You may download the files, fabricate the PCB and assemble the board for your own use. We are currently working on it and we will let you know how it goes.

There is also a board available off-the-shelf for purchase from Switch Science. This store is based out of Japan. The board has be We will let you know of what we learn from our experiments.