If you own a Raspberry Pi, but want to ditch the power cable, it’s possible using either a battery or a Power over Ethernet (PoE) HAT, which draws power from an Ethernet cable instead. And the official PoE HAT just got a major upgrade without increasing the price.
Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Ltd. and founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, today announced a new Raspberry Pi PoE+ HAT which offers more power, cooler temperatures, and retains the $20 price point of the old model. However, you won’t be able to buy one until June.
The new model has been announced before it’s available due to the global semiconductor shortage. Upton explains, “Unfortunately, the first-gen PoE HAT uses silicon that’s in short supply. The old HAT will remain in production, but we are taking the unusual step of announcing this new product before we have stock in channel, so that industrial customers can consider migrating to the new PoE+ HAT, which will have shorter lead times. The Raspberry Pi PoE+ HAT will be available from our Approved Resellers in early June.”
There are a few reasons why the PoE+ is the better option, and top of the list is more power. The new HAT implements the 802.3at standard, where as the old HAT used the 802.af standard. Adopting the new implementation allows the PoE+ to achieve a maximum power of 25.5W compared to the old HAT’s 15.4W maximum. It means not only can the new HAT provide enough power for a Raspberry Pi 4 at maximum load, it will also cope with “the hungriest USB peripherals” plugged into your Pi.
Heat dissipation has also been reduced by replacing the diode rectifier with a Microchip PD70224ILQ device. So you’ll require less cooling, which could also reduce the power draw of your Pi setup. The PoE+ HAT also uses a slimmer transformer provided by Bourns, which Upton points out looks like “an artefact from the future.”
The Raspberry Pi PoE+ HAT will be available from June for $20 and is compatible with the Raspberry Pi 3B+ and Raspberry Pi 4 boards. Keep in mind that you’ll also need a switch with support for PoE and the 802.3at standard. If your switch only supports 802.3af, the new HAT will still work, but expect the power to be limited to 15.4W.
