Raspberry Pi's new PoE+ Injector supports all generations of PoE HATs

Power over Ethernet (PoE) is nothing new to the Raspberry Pi. Introduced with the Raspberry Pi 3B+, PoE provides power over a network connection and is handy for installing a Raspberry Pi in a remote or awkward location. The new $25 Raspberry Pi PoE+ Injector may not be the PoE HAT+ that we have been waiting for since the launch of the Raspberry Pi 5, but it is a step on the journey towards it.

The Raspberry Pi PoE Injector is a Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) device that injects power into a non-PoE switch, to a Powered Device (PD) such as any model of Raspberry Pi since 2018 (not including the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W).

Supporting IEEE 802.3af (PoE 13W) and IEEE 802.11at (PoE+ 25W) standards, the Raspberry Pi PoE Injector has enough power for the Raspberry Pi 3B+, 4. With 25W it could also power the Raspberry Pi 5 as it up to the necessary 30W of power.

But all of this power is nothing without a PoE or PoE+ HAT and while the Raspberry Pi 3B+ and Raspberry Pi 4 may have their own PoE HATs, they are not compatible with the Raspberry Pi 5 due to the relocation of the PoE pins. On the Raspberry Pi 4 they are in the top right of the board, next to the Ethernet port. But, with the Raspberry Pi 5 relocating the Ethernet port to the bottom right, the PoE pins have also migrated.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is currently bereft of a PoE board, something that Raspberry Pi co-founder and CEO mentions in the official blog post. Upton claims that the Raspberry Pi 5 compatible PoE+ HAT+ is in the "final stages of development" and is claimed to be "our smallest, most efficient PD accessory" and based on the early prototypes. We eagerly wait for it to be launched.

If you can't wait, and you have a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, then Pineboards already has a PoE enabled board. The Modulo5 IO PoE+ just needs PoE power (perhaps from the Raspberry Pi PoE+ Injector?) and you are ready to go! There are also other third-party PoE HATs for the Raspberry Pi 5 including boards from Waveshare and Uctronics.

The Raspberry Pi PoE+ Injector is on sale now for $25 via the Raspberry Pi approved reseller network.