While this is certainly far from the first article on how-to power your Raspberry Pi via POE (Power-Over-Ethernet), I thought I would go ahead and document my setup and the equipment I ordered to pull this off successfully.
First, lets be clear — I am using a real POE switch — so I wanted a real POE solution for the Raspberry Pi, not one of those splitter cable solutions that simply supply a fixed power voltage over the unused pairs in a CAT5/6 ethernet cable. There is nothing wrong with that type of solution … its pretty cost effective, but its not real POE per the IEEE 802.3af (POE) or IEEE 802.3at (POE+) specifications.
So to pull this off, we need a POE splitter that can provide the required 5 VDC voltage and an adapter micro USB cable to plug into the Raspberry Pi’s power port. (And a short ethernet cable which you may already have laying around the house.)
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