With a growing increase in crime, perimeter lighting is becoming more and more important. Technological advances in security are par for the course as business owners focus on securing their perimeter and business. When it comes to security, a big buzzword is PoE lighting for indoors. Now, it’s also available for outdoor security lighting.

As we’ve previously written about, a security camera is nothing at night without a good lighting system, which is why we are proud to be part of the conversation, thanks to our PoE lighting solution. It is a low voltage, low cost, long life, easy to install solution that is an IoT (internet of things) and is non-hackable since it only uses four wires of the CAT5/6 power wires and does not connect the data pair.

We’ve broken down some key features that will help you protect your perimeter from intrusion with PoE

Understanding Power over Ethernet (PoE) with LED Lighting:

Power over Ethernet (PoE) is a technology that uses pairs of twisted wires inside a standard Ethernet cable to deliver both data and power from PoE switches. With the CAST Lighting PoE solution, the data pairs are not connected and use only the wires that deliver power. The result is an amazing 60 Watts per port of available power that can cover a whole lot of LED lighting and is non-hackable since there is no data connectivity.

What does this mean for you? The short answer: a simplified perimeter lighting solution that syncs with the equipment you’re already installing.

How does our PoE power supply work? We have partnered with EtherWAN, who wrote custom software to work with our PoE power supply and developed two programming options:

  • Time of day and day of week custom schedule. You control when power is provided to the port. This program replaces the typical photocell or time clock that is used with our standard transformers for dusk to dawn and day of week lighting control.
  • Custom setting. This feature allows you to set a duration for the power to be on and off during a given week, and it gives the ability to activate what we call FlashGlare via a dry contact signal. An example is when there is motion detected from a third party device, a dry contact closure signal is sent to the EtherWAN switch, and it will cycle the power on and off for a predetermined time, say 10 minutes, and within that 10 minutes, it can control the time that the lights turn on and off, say every 10 seconds, which is recommended to disable the intruder’s eyes (if they are crazy enough to hang around that long) so they cannot see to cut, climb, or steal any assets.

Click here to read more about how FlashGlare works.

PoE Benefits

The main benefit to our PoE lighting solution is that no additional power requirements are needed since the PoE lighting works off the EtherWAN network switch, and up to 100’ of perimeter lighting can be used per port of the switch (2 ports can be used for up to 200’ of light coverage).

In most cases, you would be purchasing a network switch to power your computers, cameras, or other IoT items. With the CAST Lighting solution, PoE is protected from short-circuiting and overloading—delivering power safely. Plus, the network manager can control the perimeter lighting as part of their security plan.

PoE Lighting Make Cameras See Better at Night: Color vs. Black + White = Competitive Advantage

The number one fear of intruders is to be seen. By adding lights at night, you put the intruder on notice that they might be seen, and if they still attempt to breach the perimeter, then you want your security cameras to provide the clearest images possible. At night, color images allow you to identify key aspects of an intruder over and above what is provided by black and white images, which is definitely an advantage when it comes to identifying and then prosecuting intruders. PoE lighting can turn those traditional black and white images into full color and reduce the hard drive storage space at the same time. Cameras only require minimal light to switch to color at night, helping your cameras capture a better picture and also deter intruders because, as mentioned, they hate being seen or getting caught. Lighting is your #1 defense to protect your property, and as we say, “If it’s not lit, it is not secure.”

Click here to read more about why lighting works better than cameras alone to stop an intruder

Another benefit to using PoE lighting for your perimeter is the PoE power supply is just another IoT product that plugs into the network switch just like a camera, VoIP phones, wireless LAN access points, network cameras, RFID readers, IPTV decoders, and even wall clocks. It’s just that easy.

In addition to the features above, here are some additional key features:

  • Low price for the power supply and the LED lighting fixtures
  • Easy to install (one technician can install it, meeting the social distancing requirements in today's coronavirus environment)
  • Up to 200’ of lighting powered by PoE (using 2 EtherWAN ports)
  • Long life of lights. CREE LEDs are good for 65700 hours or 18 years at 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
  • Central control of both networking requirements and perimeter lighting
  • EtherWAN coded the ability to control the time of day/day of the week in their firmware to act as the photocell dusk to dawn capability.
  • The network administrator can control the timing for the FlashGlare functionality to work.
  • Allows you to combine multiple items in your portfolio of what you sell to build a stronger solution for the end-user or contractor to buy from you.
  • Sharing ports since it’s partnered with EtherWAN. Recommend EtherWAN which is carried by Anixter and most distributors that you deal with.

If you didn’t know PoE was available, now it is. It is an easy addition to your quote along with outdoor cameras or as a new feature that the competition doesn’t even know about. To learn more, visit our website at www.cast-lighting.com or contact Matt Beausoleil, Perimeter Sales and Support for CAST, at 201-937-5561. We’re here to help you protect your business from perimeter intrusion.