Aiphone IPW-POE8 - 8-Port Gigabit PoE Smart Managed Switch

The IPW-POE8 delivers PoE on all eight gigabit ports and supports both IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at, so an IX Series IP intercom or door station that draws power over Ethernet runs off the switch with no local supply at the door. The limit to watch is the shared budget: 64W total across the eight ports. An 802.3at device can pull up to about 25.5W, so a full load of 802.3at stations will exhaust the budget before you fill all eight ports. Count the wattage of the stations you are actually hanging on it.

Eight ports, but the power is what caps it, not the port count. With a 64W budget, eight 802.3af devices (up to 15.4W each at the port) will over-subscribe it if they all draw maximum, while low-draw stations will run eight up without trouble. The realistic planning number is to add the per-device PoE draw of your stations and keep the total under 64W. If you need more heads than the budget carries, split them across two switches rather than trusting the switch to power everything.

Not safely with the IPW-POE8. Its rated operating range is 32 to 104 degrees F (0 to 40 C), which rules out anywhere that freezes in winter or bakes in summer, and it is a commercial-rated indoor product. Put it in the conditioned side of the building, in an IT closet, telecom room, or office, and run the Ethernet out to the door station instead of pushing the electronics outdoors.

An unmanaged switch will pass traffic and power, but it gives you no way to segment the intercom onto its own VLAN, prioritize the audio and video, or see which port is drawing what when a station goes dark. The IPW-POE8 is a smart managed switch with a built-in web interface for configuration, so you administer it from a browser with no software to install. On a job where the intercom shares the building network with anything else, that management is the reason to buy this instead of a dumb injector or a plain switch.

All eight are 10/100/1000 BASE-T with PoE, so there is no slow-port compromise and no separate uplink to plan around. Switching capacity is 16Gbps with a maximum forwarding rate of 11.9Mbps and a 1.5Mbit packet buffer. For video door stations, which is what eats bandwidth on an intercom system, gigabit on every drop means multiple streams running at once without the switch being the bottleneck. Auto MDI/MDIX is supported, so straight-through or crossover patch cords both work.

It ships with a 54V power adaptor rated 1.574A that runs on 100 to 240V AC, so it works on standard North American 120V and on 230V without a different unit. Draw is 4.6W with PoE off and 77.9W with PoE fully on. That 77.9W figure is what to use when sizing a UPS for the intercom, and it is worth putting on a UPS, since losing the switch drops every station it powers at once.

Anything that follows IEEE 802.3af or 802.3at will take power from it, and any 10/100/1000 Ethernet device will pass traffic, so it is not locked to one brand. It is sold for IP based intercoms and devices and is part of Aiphone's IX Series lineup, but the PoE and Ethernet standards it implements are the open ones. On a mixed job, the constraint is the same 64W shared budget, whatever brand is hanging off the ports.

Yes, the design is fanless, so there is no moving part to make noise and nothing to fail mechanically. That is the main reason it ends up in leasing offices, front desks, and lobby millwork rather than a back closet. Keep the ambient in its 32 to 104 degrees F range, which a closed cabinet in a warm room can exceed if it has no venting.