I am starting my home lab journey after being out of the game for a while. I have installed PFsense on an appliance (not netgate) I purchased. I want to run multiple VLANS (main, IOT, and etc) I want to use Unfi AP but I am unsure what the cheapest POE Switch that can run multiple vlans. Any help and suggestions would be great. Thank you in advance.
The Ubiquiti USW Flex Mini is probably the cheapest.
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Thank you Tom for responding. This would be enough to run an AP ( without an injector) and do multiple VLANs via one port? I forgot to include that with my question. Pardon my ignorance.
Ubiquiti USW Flex Mini has no poe ports for access points, just one where you can power the device.
You need to look at the poe requirement for the access point, as same will require poe, or poe+ before you decide on a switch
If an injector was included with your AP, and you only plan to install one AP, I would use the injector.
@bb77 is correct if you only have one POE device, you can still just run a single wire to the AP with the injector next to the switch. You should check if the AP comes with an injector obviously.
I basically was trying to keep my wires down but this may be the best / only way along with my cost. I was just trying to run one power for my appliance and one for my switch then use switch to power AP. Thanks again to all for answering.
I am leaning toward the AP U6 Pro. From what I have learned today without an injector I would get Switch Lite 8 PoE. If not I can use AP U6 Pro with a POE+ PoE Adapters and pick almost any switch.
( Even the flex) Am I now on the right track?
To ask another thought, ignore the Unifi switches as it is too easy to configure them with vlans - you do not have to understand pvid , tagged and untagged traffic.
Get yourself a cheap POE+ vlan aware switch on ebay, amazon which has a GUI frontend
Based on my own experience, I started with an 8-port Unifi switch ( Switch 8 PoE (60W), and after a few months, I switched to a 16-port (Switch 16 Poe 150W). If you look around on eBay you might find some good deals.
I agree with Paul. Netgear (for example) handles VLANs differently.
Paul, Get yourself a cheap POE+ vlan aware switch on ebay, amazon which has a GUI frontend
Do you have any recommendations?
Unifi SW lite 8 POE…I have used these many times. Works great for POE and POE+. Switch has 4 POE/POE+ ports and 4 non-POE ports. About $110.