Will this switch power these cameras?

Enter the camera mix — fixed domes, PTZs, heated or multi-sensor units — and either name a switch or let the registry rank every model that matches your filters. The planner adds up the PoE demand, holds it against the switch's published budget with a headroom factor, checks the port count, checks the highest powered-device ceiling against the per-port maximum, and checks that the ports negotiate every camera class's IEEE standard. It returns FIT, FIT WITH RISKS, NEEDS VALIDATION or NO FIT, with how many cameras of each class the switch can hold and the model that would fit instead.

01 · Describe the camera mix

Cameras

Fixed bullet / dome

Custom fixed count

PTZ

Heated PTZ / multi-sensor

Switch

Rating

Any

Industrial only

Uplink

Minimum PoE ports

Any

16+

24+

Model

Loading switch registry…

Advanced

Budget headroom

0.7

0.8 (default)

0.9

1.0 (raw budget)

Longest cable run

50 m

100 m (standard)

150 m

Per-camera watts

Ready — ⌘↵ to run

03 · How this works

Four checks on one demand figure

The node's PoE demand is each camera group's count times the typical draw for its class. Ports holds the camera count against the switch's PoE port count — filling every port exactly is a NEAR LIMIT, not a pass, because there is no spare. Per-port ceiling holds the highest powered-device ceiling in the mix against the switch's per-port maximum. Budget holds the demand against the switch's published PoE budget times a headroom factor. Standard checks that the switch's ports negotiate every camera class's IEEE standard, treating PoE as backward compatible: a higher-tier port powers a lower-tier camera, but an 802.3bt Type 3 camera on an 802.3at-only switch is a NO FIT.

Sourced switches, labelled estimates

Every switch figure — port counts, budget, per-port ceiling, standards, uplink, industrial rating, operating range — comes from the vendor's own page, quoted and linked. The per-camera draws (7 W fixed, 22.5 W PTZ, 50 W heated) and the 0.8 budget headroom are class E engineering defaults and are labelled as such in every result. The IEEE powered-device wattages (12.95 / 25.5 / 51 / 71.3 W) could not be quoted from a reachable vendor page, so they are used as class E nominal figures and the result says so. A figure the vendor page does not publish is UNKNOWN, which is why some switches come back NEEDS VALIDATION.

Full rules, the class E defaults and what invalidates a result: methodology. Raw dataset: datasets/poe-switches.json. Related: Power Budget sizes the whole node's supply; Network Bandwidth sizes the uplink the same switch carries.

04 · FAQ

Why only 80 % of the switch's PoE budget?

The 0.8 headroom is an engineering default (class E), not a vendor figure. A switch that runs at its published budget has no margin for a camera that draws above its class, a heater cycling on, or a port added later — and several vendors throttle or drop the lowest-priority port when the budget is reached. Raise it to 1.0 in Advanced if you want the raw vendor number.

Where do the per-camera watts come from?

They are class E engineering planning figures: a fixed bullet or dome draws about 6-8 W, a PTZ about 20-25 W, and a heated outdoor PTZ or a multi-sensor panoramic camera about 40-60 W. The hard number in the per-port check is the IEEE powered-device ceiling for the class's standard, not the typical draw. Override the typical draw with your camera datasheet figure when you have it.

Will an 802.3af camera work on an 802.3at switch?

Yes — PoE is backward compatible, so a higher-tier power sourcing device negotiates down to a lower-tier powered device. The reverse is not true: an 802.3bt Type 3 camera on an 802.3at-only switch is a NO FIT, because the port cannot deliver the power the camera asks for.

Does it model cable losses?

No. The IEEE standard specifies a 100 m channel and the switch's per-port and budget figures already account for the loss inside it. A run longer than 100 m is out of specification and the result says so, but the engine models no derate beyond that point — use a PoE extender or fibre.