this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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PoE is 48V. That's high enough to avoid too many losses over wiring distance, but also low enough that it doesn't have to be installed by a licensed electrician.
POE also is point to point, and currently tops out at 30W per link. You could split it off in a socket - but that reduces the available power per device even more.
Or we could use the current AC cabling where we use a single wire over multiple sockets and get a combined 3600W over a standard 16A fuse over 1.5mm2 wire - which with ground and neutral is about the same thickness as a shielded ethernet cable.
PoE type 4 can go to 90W, and this is plenty to power modern lights and charge smartphones and laptops. It has the side effect that smart devices no longer need wifi/zigbee/bluetooth/whatever; they get power and network from one cable.
12/3 romex costs about $200 for 100ft, or the same length of 14/3 for $80. 250ft of solid copper (not copper clad aluminum) cat6a costs around $200. You don't need a licensed electrician for 48V wiring. You may not even need to pull a permit on a retrofit. Very few individual things need more than 90W. We can cut the amount of romex going around way down in exchange for a lot more wired networking ports that have other side benefits than just power.
I've pulled a setup like this in my own house. Fishing a bundle of six cat6 cables through a hole isn't much more difficult than a single romex cable.