“So, it does the job very well, with the following issues:
1) it does get pretty hot, so the fan is pretty much essential.
2) the fan makes a certain amount of noise - not a huge amount, but enough to mean that when operated indoors, at room temperature, I had to tweak the fan's settings in the software to stop it turning on and off quite frequently.
3) there doesn't yet seem to be the "perfect" case for it available - while it does fit in the official case, it benefits from having the top cover removed to allow air flow through the fan.
4) the pin accessibility issues are already well documented so I won't go into details about that and how to get around it.
5) it would be nice if there was a standard set of GPIO and PoE pin extenders generally available, so it could be used in a taller case with standoffs and therefore allow more space so it would be easier to dissipate the heat generated.
6) it makes a horrible high-pitched whine if the pi is shutdown without the PoE supply also being disconnected or switched off, so that could present a problem depending on your use case - I have verified this via the raspberry pi forum, and it is an issue inherent to the current design.”
“Version 2.0 PoE Hat used with Pi 3B+: (3) Key Benefits of PoE powered Pi's: A) Can power a Pi from cold just by disabling and then re-enabling the port on PoE switch Pi connected to B) Max length of an Ethernet cable is 100m vs 1m for standard Pi mains power cable- can use PoE to power Pis that can't reach a mains socket C) Powers external USB hard drives without the need for an adjunct powered USB hub. Just plug an external HD into the Pi and voila! All your files are there. The PoE switch I use with my PoE powered Pi's is the ZyXEL GS1900-8HP-GB0102F. Did a lot of research on this switch and this is the one you want. -Terrence Houlahan, Linux & Network Engineer”
