I’ve searched and searched but haven’t found someone with my same situation.
I currently have a Zmodo SPOE 720p system in the interior of my house. I’m looking to switch to all Wyze cameras now that they offer simultaneous viewing in their app (yay!)
My existing Zmodo system had me run a “simplified power over Ethernet” cable to each camera — as many of you know this sends data and power to the main control unit for the Zmodo system. The wires are seemingly unique — Ethernet on one end, and microUSB on the other.
My thought is to use the existing wiring. Hook the USB side up to the Wyze cams and then get something like this splitter from Amazon to plug into the Ethernet side of the cable: Amazon.com
Questions
Would this work
Is this safe using existing wires? As in, would they not get too hot, OK to run through walls, etc.
I assume my Zmodo system is essentially just like that Amazon POE switch but I just want someone to tell me that this is a good idea… or a bad idea.
The TrendNet POE ethernet switch delivers 48VDC to devices connected to the 4 POE ethernet ports. That voltage will surely make your Wyzecams go poof (perhaps with a puff of smoke). They are designed for 5VDC power.
Your existing wiring can be used to feed power to the Wyzecams, but you need to arrange to get a regulated 5VDC supply at each cam. That can be problematic over long wire runs. The most reliable method is to use a DC-DC converter at each camera, and feed the wire runs with 12VDC from the basement (or wherever the mess of wires originate). This topic has been covered thoroughly in other posts on this forum.
The locations id like to use are all interior walls, so I can just find an outlet, run a 7’ 14/2 wire up the wall and connect at the back of the current outlet at the bottom of the wall.
Was hoping I wouldn’t have to patch the holes in the ceiling from the Zmodo cameras, but the new outlet with that attachment seems like the safer alternative.
The challenge for the OP is that the so-called POE implementation used by ZModo is not really ethernet. They call it sPOE, for “simplified power-over-ethernet”. It’s really power-over-4lead-wiring. The pinouts used by ZModo are proprietary. On the camera end, their specialized data+power cable has a microUSB designed to plug in to the Zmodo cameras. In order to use commercial POE adaptors to obtain 5VDC at the camera, the microUSB plug would have to be cut off, and the cable terminated properly on an RJ45 plug. Then a POE-to-5VDC adaptor could be used.
Technically, it’s certainly possible to use the Zmodo wires to get power to a Wyze cam, but it’s certainly not plug-n-play. If the length of the cable run is not too long, one might be successful feeding it with 5VDC (or a bit more than 5V to account for resistive voltage drop). @michaelvesposito might give that a try before cutting into drywall, running new 14/2 wires, installing new 110VAC power receptacles, getting a licensed electrician to inspect and sign-off the DIY installation, etc.
POE is a complicated topic. There are a number of different methods formally specified in the official standard, known as 802.3af. In addition, a number of vendors do their own thing, using different voltages, different pins, different connectors (like Zmodo), and call it ‘POE’. It’s all too easy to plug one ‘POE’ device into another ‘POE’ device, and see a puff of smoke.
See this recent post for another idea.
You could cut the RJ45 plug off the server end of the Zmodo cable, and connect it to the nifty CGTime USB Screw terminal block connector plug cited in the post. Then use a standard USB power adaptor to feed 5VDC into the Zmodo “sPOE” cable. The only trick would be figuring out which two wires in the cable supply power through the microUSB plug to the Wyzecam.
I did something similar for my Nest Hello that had a RJ45 cable at its end point. I used a 16VAC transformer from Amazon and drove power from my mech room on the cat 5e cable - twisted the wire pairs to create a 2-wire situation for the power. Runs fantastic!
I too, like the OP, have a Zmodo system - the sPOE 1080p version. I would change that in seconds if Wyze launched an outdoor POE based solution. Already wired for it in my house…would only need to swap out the Zmodo cameras and connect them to my POE enabled switch.
I may be completely offtrack here in not fully understanding the system that the OP is using.
But, if it’s a matter of running the Wyze cams through real POE, I run mine using this gadget from Amazon. My house is wired with Ethernet into all the places I need cameras. I run Ring cameras that are designed for POE and the Wyze cams using that device at the end of an Ethernet cable being fed from a multiport POE switch. I got the idea of this gadget from a post by someone here right after I got the cams and I don’t know who that was.
I think I figured it out. I”ll try to explain as best as I can. I bought an 8 port poe switch to supply the power. Used the existing zmodo wires (ethernet to female micro usb) and bought a poe splitter. See pics. The challenge was to connect the female micro usb to ethernet for that I needed to make a male micro usb to ethernet cable. Not sure if one exist. Then plug in the male microusb to the camera. It works!! !
