Zyxel GS1350-18HP: review of long-range PoE switch for surveillance

Never in my life have I crimped so much cable as in this test. It would seem that I have always remembered the color sequence, repeating it over and over again as a spell: "orange with a stripe, orange, green with a stripe, blue".

Very often, when implementing video surveillance on an object, the integrator is faced with the task of placing the camera in a place where there is no power supply, and accordingly, you can't put a repeater there. This can be installing the camera on a tree, on a lamppost, under a dome, or in a well. No matter where exactly, it is important that you have hundreds of meters of cable to the nearest point in the network,and there is no way to put a switch or extension cord.

IP surveillance cameras Usually use a 100-megabit or 1-Gigabit twisted-pair connection (category 5 or 5E cable). The same cable often provides power to the cameras (PoE technology), and like it or not, but both technologies (signal transmission and power transmission) are limited to a distance of 100 meters, and even if you break your forehead , you will not transmit 100 megabits over a twisted pair of the 5th category at a distance of more than 100 meters. The fact is that progress in network equipment is moving towards increasing speeds and reducing power consumption, and for everything else there are optics. So even if you transmit power to a distance of 200 meters, the twisted pair signal will not pass.

And now the network operators remembered that at the time when our grandfathers walked under the table, there was a standard like 10 Base-T with a speed of only 10 Mbit / s, and if you conjure, then on a good cable this network can be sent further than 100 meters.

OK, I have two questions. I have no doubt at all that power can be transmitted over kilometers via copper cable: this is not surprising: industrial PoE injectors transmit 14 watts over Cat 5E cable at 700 meters (802.3 at standard) or 450 meters (802.3 af standard). I'm interested in:

What will we see at the speed of 10 Mbps?

In general, a lot. In our test converged storage Huawei Oceanstor 2800 for video surveillance, we measured the flow of the Chinese 1080p Pinetron PNC-IV2E2 camera at a frequency of 19-25 frames per second, and it was from 5.9 to 7.9 Mbit / s. Cameras with a 4K resolution give a stream of about 15 Mbit/s, and if smoothness is not important, reducing the frame rate can bring it under 10 Mbit / s, and in modern cameras like those Hikvision that we use in the test, you can generally limit the maximum bitrate in the settings, and the H. 265+ codec even with a 10-megabit stream gives excellent quality. Simply put, in most cases, the channel speed will be sufficient for video surveillance needs.

By combining long-range PoE with long-range 10-Megabit Ethernet, network equipment manufacturers are talking about long-range IP camera connectivity. Some call this technology Long Range PoE, others-Extended PoE, but there is no General standardization here, and some equipment manufacturers claim to connect IP cameras at a distance of 200 meters from the switch, while others-250 meters, and we will find out how this actually works in our test. Well, of course, the new feature was picked up by both camera manufacturers and network switches, but the most important advantage of this technology is that it works on ordinary IP cameras, not all, but many.

ZyXel GS1350-18HP

For testing, we will use the latest ZyXEL gs1350 series Gigabit switches. These models are designed specifically for video surveillance systems, and the manufacturer claims to connect cameras at a distance of up to 250 meters. In General, GS1350 switches are very similar to the recently tested ZyXel GS1920-8HP. Here you will find support for the nebula cloud management system (starting in 2020), and a modern architecture with VLANs, channel aggregation, IGMP proxying and port mirroring.

The switch we are Considering has 16 PoE ports with Long Range support and 2 combined RJ45 / SFP ports for connection to the stack or to the security gateway.

To work with IP cameras, in addition to Long Range, there are Auto Camera Recovery functions that allow you to restart the cameras on power in case of a hang and Continuous PoE, continuous power supply to the cameras even when the switch is restarted (for example, related to updating its firmware. These features are designed to significantly facilitate the operation of your NVR fleet, but we will not cover them in this review.

As for the quality of manufacture, as befits a brand of the ZyXel level, it is excellent: the built-in power supply uses Japanese Nippon capacitors, the Y. S. Tech fan is responsible for cooling, - the switch seems to be assembled according to old patterns, when they did not save on components.

The Port on which we want to receive long-range PoE must be configured via the switch's Web interface, specifying the LR mode. It will switch to a speed of 10Mbit / s, and now we can go directly to the surveillance cameras.

Security Cameras

With cameras, the situation is simple: I have not met models with support for Long Range / Extended Range, and somehow in General, the documentation for LR PoE switches says that the most common cameras can be used. Well, we'll take three copies: a pair of expensive Hikvision DS-2CD2346G1-I/SL, DS-2CD2743G0-IZS and the cheapest Pinetron PNC-IV2E2.

Please note: modern Hikvision cameras already use only 2 high-power LEDs for illumination, while the old model

The first contact occurred at a distance of 250 meters: the Pinetron PNC-IV2E2 camera has an infrared light! In normal mode, this camera consumes about 6-7 watts, so transmitting power over this distance is great news for the switch. As for the wards of Hikvision, they did not react to the cable connection in any way.

Distance / camera	Hikvision DS-2CD2346G1-I/SL	Hikvision DS02CD2743G90-IZS	Pinetron PNC-IV2E2
200 meters	Not enabled	Not enabled	Enabled, network packets are sent, not pinged
180 meters	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	Enabled, network packets are sent, not pinged
170 meters	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	Enabled, network packets are sent, not pinged

At 160 meters, I ran out of the usual nameless RJ45 connectors from the hardware store, and I had to go buy the same nameless chips in the nearest computer market. At this distance, all three cameras were turned on, but none of them pinged, and after replacing the chips with new ones, Hikvision cameras began to behave very capriciously: the distance decreases, and now they don't even turn on. At the same time, Pinetron does not care: the switch shows that network packets are coming, but the camera is not pinging yet.

Distance / camera	Hikvision DS-2CD2346G1-I/SL	Hikvision DS02CD2743G90-IZS	Pinetron PNC-IV2E2
160 meters	Not enabled	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	Enabled, network packets are sent, not pinged
140 meters	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	Enabled, network packets are sent, not pinged
120 meters	Not enabled	It is enabled, network packets are sent, it is not pinged	Works!!!
100 meters	Not enabled	Not enabled	Works!!!

Pinetron PNC-IV2E2 - our champion, earned at a distance of 120 meters: the web interface opens, there is traffic. We re-connect the cable to the Hikvision cameras - and no response - no greetings. Recrimp cable again - the same situation, write minus and continue to cut the cable.

Distance / camera	Hikvision DS-2CD2346G1-I/SL	Hikvision DS02CD2743G90-IZS	Pinetron PNC-IV2E2
80 meters	Works!!!	Works!!!	Works!!!

At 80 meters, both Hikvision confidently earned, and it is quite natural that Pinetron felt great. In General, if you take the switch "for a fool" with the first cameras and the cheapest copper-plated cable with unnamed connectors - at least 80-meter connection is guaranteed.

Conclusions

Our tests show that the Zyxel GS1350-18HP perfectly transmits power over a distance of 250 meters, but the link depends entirely on what you connect to the switch port. And if the choice of an expensive 23awg or 22AWG copper cable can still be justified, then in the case of cameras, more expensive does not mean better. If possible, of course, look for cameras that support long-range communication, and it is better to test yourself.

Zyxel GS1350 is an excellent example of a modern smart switch for video surveillance systems. Choosing this series for IP cameras, today you will get automatic restart of frozen cameras, continuous power supply and operation at distances exceeding 100 meters. Nebula support will be added tomorrow, and as a result, you will have a single window for configuration and monitoring, accessible from anywhere in the world. This is what a modern network switch for video surveillance systems should look like.

Mikhail Degtyarev (aka LIKE OFF)
19/08.2019