How To Update Firmware Ubiquiti 8 Poe Switch

Tech —

Ubiquiti'due south eight-port POE switch is a solid complement for a abode Unifi setup

Fanless $199 managed device drives Unifi Wi-Fi gear—if you can find it in stock.

The Ubiquiti Unifi US-8-150W.

Lee Hutchinson
Detail on the SFP ports, with rubber dust stoppers removed.

Lee Hutchinson
Rear of the device showing plug and not much else.

Lee Hutchinson
Front size comparison betwixt the U.s.-8-150W and the much bigger (and louder) Usa-24-250W. The U.s.a.-24-250W is rack-mountable, while the The states-8-150W is not.

Lee Hutchinson
Meridian-downwardly view of the US-viii-150W against the US-24-250W. The eight-port switch is longer front-to-back than a typical desktop switch, but non as long as the rackmount 24-port version.

Lee Hutchinson

Information technology's been a bit over half-dozen months since I made the switch from consumer-grade Wi-Fi at home to a more sophisticated setup, tossing out my old Apple Airport Farthermost base station in favor of three linked Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-Ac-PRO access points. The alter from consumer to enterprise gear (or "enterprise lite," as a lot of folks have due east-mailed in to tell me) has been very positive, and aside from a bit of management overhead and the pain of actually crawling effectually in my attic to run cables for the things, I don't believe I accept encountered any real downsides.

1 major difference with the Ubiquiti Unifi APs is that they run on Power Over Ethernet (POE) rather than direct off of an electric outlet. You don't accept to have a POE-compatible switch to use them, since the APs come with small POE injectors that can tap power from regular outlets, but having a POE switch simplifies setup and too (assuming you connect the switch to a UPS) gives y'all an piece of cake way to keep your Wi-Fi powered in the consequence of a power outage. After getting my Unifi gear installed, the offset affair I looked for was a POE switch and so I could ditch the little POE injectors.

Ubiquiti sells Unifi-compatible POE switches, merely until recently the available models have been more than suited for the data center than the habitation—even the smallest 24-port model has a loud fan that wouldn't do well sitting in a home office (and I know because I tried one out for a few weeks!). Fortunately, the company has just expanded its line of Unifi switches with two more models meliorate suited for home use: the 16-port United states of america-16-150W and the fanless eight-port US-8-150W.

I've had a US-8-150W running here for a couple of months, and information technology's been an excellent addition to my Unifi APs. It'due south silent, unobtrusive, and information technology integrates into the same Unifi Spider web interface as the APs and the Ubiquiti router/gateway. And, fifty-fifty better, it'southward not just a dumb switch—it's got management features that aid justify its $199 price.

SPECS AT A GLANCE: Ubiquiti US-8-150W
SWITCH PORT	Layer two, managed Ethernet west/Power Over Ethernet (POE) and VLAN tagging
SUPPORTED POE	802.3af/at, 24VDC passive
1000BASE-T PORTS	8x (8P8C)
OTHER PORTS	2x SFP (1Gbps)
BACKPLANE BANDWIDTH	20Gbps (10Gbps FDX)
SHARED PORTS	None
LINK AGGREGATION	802.3ad LACP (dynamic)
MAX PER-PORT POE Draw	34.2W
DIMENSIONS	204 10 43 x 235 mm (viii.03 x 1.69 ten 9.25")
WEIGHT	ane.7 kg (3.75 lb)
RACK MOUNTABLE	No
MSRP	$199

Out of the box

The The states-viii-150W is a fleck larger than a standard home switch would exist, mainly in the "length" category—it'due south nearly every bit long as information technology is wide, stretching dorsum a flake more than than 20cm. In that location aren't any provisions made for mounting the thing anywhere, unfortunately—it'south got rubber feet to keep a pocket-sized amount of space gratis beneath it, but the lesser is otherwise featureless, without any holes for wall-mount screws or brackets. It as well lacks screw holes on its face up for rackmount ears, and so your options for where the United states of america-8-150W goes are limited to wherever you can stack it. Would-be buyers looking to rack-mount information technology will accept to purchase a shelf and stick it in that location (or, as and so many DIY home network enthusiasts cease up doing, rigging some kind of crazy wall-cradle contraption out of cipher ties).

The device is otherwise unremarkable—it'south got an aluminum powder-coat exterior, eight dual-LED 8P8C ports and ii empty SFP sockets on the front, and a power socket on the rear. As with the remainder of the Unifi family, in that location is a color-irresolute LED logo (square) that lights up in different colors to indicate the switch's wellness.

At almost two kilos (3.75lbs), information technology's heavier than it looks, though nowhere nigh every bit hefty as its bigger siblings in the Unifi switch line. Information technology'due south been perfectly at home sitting stacked atop my other office switch (a managed Trendnet TEG-240WS), and though it's fairly warm to the touch, it hasn't complained or thrown any warnings virtually temperature.

Switch pitch

Obviously, the reason to buy the US-8-150W is to power some Unifi APs, and that'south what I'm doing. Each of the switch's eight 1Gbps Ethernet ports is capable of driving any 802.3af- or 802.3at-compliant Ethernet device, and they also can deliver 24VDC for Unifi devices that utilize Ubiquiti'south 24V passive standard, like the UAP-AC-LR and UAP-AC-Lite. Each port can push up to 34.2W of ability to hungry 802.3at devices, though as indicated by the name, the switch has a maximum combined output beyond all ports of 150W.

This is more than plenty to drive eight Unifi second-gen Pro APs, fifty-fifty if the APs were all cranking along at their maximum ability usage of 9W. After collecting information for a few months on my own devices, it appears that with a mix of 2.4GHz and 5GHz clients, the typical power describe of the UAP-AC-PRO at idle is correct about 3.5W, while under load I've rarely seen the devices go past 6W. For my employ case, with three UAP-Ac-PROs attached, the U.s.-8-150W'due south total ability usage holds relatively steady between 23-26W.

Power usage of the US-8-150W over a few days. Range is between 23-26W. (This data was gathered with another Ubiquiti product: an mPower smart plug, which I'll be writing up in the near future.) — Overstate / Power usage of the Us-8-150W over a few days. Range is betwixt 23-26W. (This data was gathered with another Ubiquiti product: an mPower smart plug, which I'll exist writing upwardly in the well-nigh futurity.)

Assistants of the switch is all done via the verbal aforementioned Unifi controller software (either self-hosted or cloud-based) that runs the Unifi APs. The switch shows upwardly every bit a manageable device, and all configuration tasks are done through the Unifi interface. The Unifi controller software also tracks connection information on other devices on the same L2 cloth—then, if you connect one of the switch'south ports as an uplink to some other switch, all of the devices connected to your LAN show upwards equally clients in the Unifi dashboard.

I've found this very useful—you get some reporting data on every device that connects to both your WLAN and LAN (if y'all happen to have a Unifi gateway, you lot become per-host WAN traffic stats besides).