Raspberry Pi PoE HAT+ with New Isolated SMPS

Raspberry Pi just launched a new PoE HAT+, which is an improvement over the older PoE. It's nice to see the Raspberry Pi team improving on their old products, which saves a ton of production cost. In this article, I will give you a small brief about what the new HAT is all about and what is improved from the previous PoE HAT, which was available. If you are new to the Raspberry Pi, head over and read this article. So now coming to the point. I will first get into what PoE HAT is.

What is PoE HAT?

The Raspberry Pi PoE HAT is an add-on board for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (and later boards). It is mainly used to power the Raspberry Pi via an Ethernet cable, provided that power-sourcing equipment is installed on the Ethernet network. The HAT also includes a fan that will cool the processor on the main Raspberry Pi board.

Powering your Raspberry Pi over Ethernet can be very beneficial; it can help you save adapter costs and make the setup look cleaner.

New Feature of this PoE HAT

The new PoE HAT has all the specifications are similar to that of the previous one; there is one small change that the power supply transformer has been changed. It is a fully isolated SMPS, mostly the same as the previous one. It is flat and closed, making it more stable and provides better performance. The Output Power has also increased from 2.5A to 4 A, which is better for the Raspberry pi 4 as it runs on 15W.

The specs of the new PoE HAT is listed below.

Specification of the new PoE HAT+

Standard: IEEE 802.3at-2003 PoE
Input voltage: 37–57 V DC, Class 4 device
Output power: 5 V DC/4 A
Cooling: 25 mm × 25 mm brushless fan delivering 2.2 CFM
for processor cooling
Features: • Fully isolated switched-mode power supply
• Fan control
Operating temperature: 0 °C to +50 °C

Above is the visual comparison of both SMPS on the new & old board.

Final Words

PoE HAT is nothing but a HAT that powers the Raspberry Pi board via Ethernet. The new PoE HAT+ is almost two times powerful in terms of power delivery compared to the older one. PoE HATs can reduce the cost of fan and adapter at the same time. You learned something from the article. Don't forget to comment and let me know your thoughts about the new or the old PoE HAT.