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Comment by gtvwill | Hacker News Reader

Been tossing around the idea of Poe Eth to 100w usb-c wall ports. I'd love to see more Poe DC gear. In aus we have laws where if it's <100v and x amperage you don't need a license to work on it. Would make rolling out a house or shop install/fitout able to be done using regular labourers not expensive sparkies.

Hell sneak some data in and you have smart control of all these connected usb-c cabled devices too. Make for game changing smart home rollout.

Gimme lamps, lights, speakers, fans, window motors, TVs all on usb-c power plus data pls.

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Power over Ethernet can't do 100W. The 802.3bt supports 51W (Type 3) or 71W (Type 2). PoE uses pretty small currents, Type 4 is 960mA.

Also, PoE does have significant loss over longer distances. It isn't a problem with low power devices but would be a huge issue for higher power. It is almost certainly more efficient to send power as 120V AC and convert to USB-C.

The alternative is outlets with USB-C ports, or power strips with USB-C.

Places that use 12V/48V DC have much thicker cables. They also have shorter lengths on RV, boat, or cabin.

I think if there was large scale adoption of PoE to power stuff outside of network equipment the regs would eventually catch up and it would have similar requirements line voltage wiring. 100W is more than enough to start a fire. 100W at 100V is enough to kill someone. There just aren’t as many regs because it’s new and not widely used. Building codes and standards are written in blood. One an apartment burns down because a bad RJ-45 connector started a fire the codes will catch up.

> In aus we have laws where if it's <100v and x amperage you don't need a license to work on it

You're the first other person I've seen to point this out. Better even is negotiated power means normally the wire would only deliver 15W which isn't going to burn down anything.

I'm also seeing more and more cordless appliances. A cordless vacuum doesn't need much power when charging.

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