Whole-home PoE lighting:
one Cat6 cable to every light.

What is whole-home PoE lighting?

It is every light in the house run from the network rack instead of the electrical panel. The general idea of PoE lighting is covered on our commercial PoE lighting page. This page is about a home: what goes where, what it can do, and where it is the wrong choice.

In a PoE home, a Cat6 cable runs from a PoE switch in the rack to a small driver in the ceiling. The driver powers and dims the fixtures around it on short leads, and each fixture is still controlled on its own. The fixtures carry low-voltage DC, not 120 volts. Wall switches and motion sensors are network devices too. The whole system is one thing to program, not a lighting panel plus a control system plus dimmers.

What goes in the rack and what goes in the ceiling

The rack holds the PoE switches and a UPS. PoEWit recommends its NS-8B, a Layer 3 switch with eight 90-watt PoE ports and a 500-watt total budget1. Those ports are 802.3bt Type 4, which guarantees 71.3 watts at the far end of the cable, so every design is planned at 71.3 watts per port, not 902.

The ceiling holds the drivers, one per cable. A driver's size is set by channels: a fixed white light uses one channel, tunable white uses two, and a color light uses four.

Whichever limit comes first wins: channels or watts2.

Which lights go in the ceiling?

Four recessed families cover most rooms, all IC-rated for insulated ceilings with CRI above 90.

Sources: the RX-13, RT-14 and RRM-15 product pages and the lighting catalog.

The beam angle matters more than it looks. The tunable and color fixtures throw a narrow 24 to 36 degree beam, which is good for pools of light on an island or art. The 120-degree RX-1 washes a room evenly. A kitchen designed only with narrow beams needs more fixtures, and that is where a lighting count grows.

Outside, the same system runs PoEWit's wall lights and security lights. The MV-1 driver runs third-party landscape lights and LED tape from 12 to 30 volts on two channels6.

A worked example: 56 lights in a 2,800 square foot home

This is an illustration built from PoEWit's published limits, not a quote. Your plan will differ.

Say the house has 36 fixed white 4-inch RX-1 lights in the bedrooms, halls and baths. It has 16 tunable white 4-inch RT-1 lights in the kitchen, living room and office, and 4 color RRM-1 lights over the bar.

• RX-1 at 8.5 W: eight fit a 71.3-watt port, so 36 lights take five UPD-4 drivers.
• RT-1 at 17.8 W: four fit a port, so 16 lights take four UPD-4 drivers.
• RRM-1 at 12 W: four color lights fill one UPD-4 on channels, at 48 W.

That is ten drivers, ten Cat6 runs and about 640 watts of planning load. Two NS-8B switches carry it with room to spare, and splitting the rooms across two switches means one failure never darkens the whole house. The wall switches and sensors take a few more ports or ride on a UPD-1-PT's pass-through ports. Planning watts are the maximum; dimmed lights draw less.

What happens when the internet or the power goes out?

The internet is needed once. PoEWit uses the cloud for the first setup, then the lights, wall switches and sensors run on the home network with no controller in the rack4. If the internet drops, the switches by the door still work.

Power is where PoE lighting beats 120 volts. Put a UPS on the switches and the lights stay on in an outage, without a generator or a transfer switch. PoEWit's U-11, U-15 and U-22 units run from 990 to 1,920 watts7. Paired with PoEWit switches, they can shut off the ports you mark as non-essential and keep the hallway, stairs and exterior running longest. Runtime depends on the load, so we size it per house rather than promise a number.

The honest weak point is the switch. One failed switch takes down every light on it. That is why the example above splits the house across two, and why the switches sit on a UPS that conditions their power.

Does it work with Control4?

Yes. PoEWit publishes free drivers for Control4, Crestron and URC6. In a Control4 home the PoE lights join the same scenes, keypads and schedules as the shades, audio and security. Goodnight turns off the house, and the exterior follows sunset.

PoEWit does not document integrations with Lutron, Savant, Home Assistant or voice assistants. We do not promise what the manufacturer does not publish. Without Control4, the free PoEWit app, wall switches and motion sensors run the house on their own.

Who can install it in Washington?

A licensed electrical contractor, and Rivas Technology Group is one. Washington treats Class 2 low-voltage circuits, which PoE is, under the (06) limited-energy specialty8. We hold WA electrical contractor license RIVASGL799DR, active, bonded and insured9.

The (06) specialty does not reach the 120-volt circuit that feeds the rack, and it does not cover any line-voltage lighting the house keeps. That work goes to our licensed trade partners, under a permit, on the same schedule.

Does it meet Washington's energy code?

It makes the controls part easy. The 2021 Washington State Energy Code requires high-efficacy light sources in permanently installed fixtures. It also requires a dimmer, occupancy sensor or similar control on interior fixtures, with exceptions for bathrooms, hallways and safety lighting10. Every PoE fixture is dimmable and can answer a sensor, so the control requirement is met by design. The fixtures themselves still have to meet the code, and the plans reviewer has the final word.

What it costs, and when 120 volts wins

The proposal is itemized per fixture and per driver. What moves it: the fixture count and mix, the beam angles the rooms need, the number of switches and the UPS size, and how many Cat6 runs the ceilings allow. A house already getting a rack, cameras and keypads carries the lowest extra cost, because the lighting cable goes in during the same visit.

PoE is strongest in new builds, full remodels with open ceilings, and homes that want the lights to answer the rest of the house. In a finished house with sound 120-volt wiring, we usually recommend keeping it and adding smart lighting control with Control4 or Lutron dimmers. Tearing out good wiring rarely pays.

Lighting that answers the house

This is the part 120-volt lighting cannot easily do. Because every PoE light is a network device, it can take an instruction from anything else on the network.

• The doorbell rings: the living room lights pulse, for a family member who is deaf or hard of hearing. PoEWit names this use itself6.
• Water hits the laundry room floor: the leak sensor trips and the laundry room lights flash. A PoEWit IP-1 reads the sensor's contact and makes it a trigger.
• The alarm goes off: the exterior goes to full and the entry lights change color. That is covered in detail in PoE security lighting.
• The day ends: tunable white lights warm toward 2700K in the evening. What that can and cannot do for sleep is in circadian lighting explained.

None of it needs new wiring later. It needs the lights to have been on the network from the start.