For all those wondering about the HomePod. I had an extra that I wasn’t using, it’s speakers have been compromised and it sounds rough playing music. Plugged it in here for temperature monitoring initially since there’s a fair amount of tech in a small space. Wanted to make sure it didn’t get too hot. Bonus now I have Siri in the basement, and I use it.
Nope - been out of the loop for a few years now. I still try to keep up with features etc but always fun to learn new things. Didn't even know the HomePods had sensors for those 2 items.
So you can just use this as a computer with these sensors onboard? No reprogramming or anything?
Interesting.
Is it plugged-in anywhere and monitoring traffic?
> Plugged it in here for temperature monitoring
I monitor the temperature in my network closet but I use a small <$20 Aqara temperature sensor for it. It does a great job.
Yeah but a modern AppleTV costs more than a HomePod mini, right? I guess this would be a perfect situation for an OG AppleTV 3, but I'm not sure how well integrated those are with HomeKit these days.
fine... but you're comparing a current generation product to previous generation. thats not a fair cost comparison. You can buy HomePod minis off eBay all day long for $50 or less, a few have even sold recently for 2 for $75!
agreed... I tend to buy what works best in the situation, along with what will be supported the longest. however, it's a toss-up here since Apple has proven long support for both products. It would be nice if they would make a true HomeKit hub that didn't have to be a device that did anything else... much like the bridge from Hue or Lutron.
If it were me, I would have bought a used iPad off eBay, which can be a hub, mounted it to the cabinet door and keep it plugged in. The put the iPad in guided access mode locked to the Home app. At least its a cool functional hub that can be physically interacted with.
Yeah but that generation is only like a year old the only difference is the new ones cheaper version doesn’t have an ethernet port and has an iphone 14 processsor where that when has the iphone 12 processor. You don’t need that beefy if a processor anyway. Remote and design is exactly the same. Oh and the new one supports hdr10+ which pretty much everything is dolby vision.
Welcome to today. Everything except your toaster could be listening to you… and I’m not even sure about that - your toaster looks pretty sus to me.
- Your friendly neighborhood NSA agent
J/k I’m just a dude. Might want to unplug that toaster though
This looks great. These enclosures aren’t really designed for gear - they’re very tight and usually poorly vented. They’re designed primarily for wiring, terminal blocks, coax splitters, and service loops. So the idea that you squeezed in all this stuff is a testament to your ingenuity and perseverance.
Tbh it's freaking ridiculous that I can't find a plastic one like this that has good ventilation and maybe some fans on the front.
There's metal ones, but they're hundreds of dollars.
Trying to figure out how to keep my cats from playing with the "pretty string"
Wives prefer a closed cabinet door and as little showing as possible.
Often these enclosures are located in the Master Bedroom closet, at least in California.
Our network panel is in the furnace room. I've been thinking about what switch I should put in, but haven't decided yet. I'm worrying that my 6450-48p can get too hot and loud there next to the furnace.
In my area houses do have a "maintenance room". I live in a cold climate so every house has a furnace (takes up lots of space) so there is typically a unfinished room in the basement with the furnace, water heater, water meter and main electrical panel.
My network rack is in the unfinished part of the basement, along with all the other building systems. Easy access to the demarc too. That gives me a lot of room to add and change gear without impacting the primary living space.
I live in Texas, and my house was built with it in the master bedroom closet. It’s annoying, but garage would get way too hot to put it in there. And basements aren’t a thing because of the dense and rocky soil.
I really want a basement…
Central location in the home. I added mine one cable at a time throughout the house. The center of the home had easy access to the attic as it was right next to the hallway attic stairs, and it was center ish to the whole home. Honestly once it is installed, I rarely touch it. All of the data jacks in the house are plugged into the switch, if I need more I’ll have to physically run them.
Because most rack systems are way overkill for the average nerd. Make it fit into that box, be proud of wire management (like PC builders are in similarly sized enclosures) and move on.
Location: I have one of these small enclosures and it’s located in my garage where I’m constantly moving vehicles in and out daily.
Honestly sometimes a rack or equivalent isn’t practical whereas a setup like that presented by OP (maybe sans HomePod mini) is.
I had one of these at our last house, it was behind the master closet door (opened inward). Plenty of clearance to the SMP door, but no room for a rack in front of it.
Not the OP but most people inherit this infrastructure and don't often have a say in it's installation or configuration.
Often these SMEs are installed by builders in less than ideal locations. Usually in hallway or bedroom closets, often without power. I've seen them just on the wall in hallways and people have hung pictures over them because they're unsightly. They're usually wired up for telephony rather than Ethernet, hence the lack of power.
In my home, we have 2 SMEs installed by the builder. The first is on the exterior of the house and provides a place for an ISP to place equipment, it has 2 Ethernet and 2 COAX runs to a second SME located in the master bedroom closet behind the door. All COAX and Ethernet ports in the home terminate in this second SME.
The builder provided minimal specifications, the SME they had in their model home was plastic, the one they installed was metal. They only offered us the option to add additional cable drops at locations we specified and the option to upgrade the size of the SMEs but that was it.
Honestly even if I had the option to relocate an SME, I'm not sure where I would in my home. The storage options are pretty poor and being an open concept design there aren't any secluded places. About the only other option is the laundry room but that's already over crowded.
I've had that before, kept banging my head. But that was when I needed a firewall, VPN tunnels, etc. for my job. New job no longer needs that stuff, so head no longer gets banged. LOL
Racks are expensive, rack mount equipment is sometimes more expensive, rack shelves or third-party rack ears for your equipment that’s not rack-mountable are expensive.
I mean yolo, my goal is a rack eventually just cuz, but it’s not actually worth the money for the look and slightly easier serviceability.
3d printed brackets
sometimes if you can find the brand you can get the oembrtackets but they fairly expensive sometimes
Cable ties or velcro
or just screw stuff onto it lol
I used 3M strips. Cable ties and Velcro strips were just a pain. 3M strips hold nicely, and with the Velcro ones I can take stuff out and put it back easily.
Command strips! That’s such a good idea! I need to get to organizing my networking center but have struggled to find products that seemed like a good fit. I don’t know why I didn’t think of the 3M products!
I would use Velcro (hook & loop). I have some 2" wide stuff, can hold a lot of weight. I've even hung cable boxes on the back of wall mounted TV's with it in certain situations.
I used an enclosure like this at my last house. I actually really liked it. It forced me to make everything look really nice and neat. My new rack…all bets are off.
I have yet to find a surface mount low-profile one where the wires pass through from above and below like the one in the photo. All of the smaller surface mount patch panels that I have come across to date have jacks that are 90 degrees perpendicular to their mounting surface, so they would not fit in they very cramped space where my wiring passes through.
They make 8 port version for ops panel TC-P08C6AS [TC-P08C6AS](https://www.trendnet.com/products/patch-panel/8-Port-Cat6A-Shielded-Wall-Mount-Patch-Panel-TC-P08C6AS)
I have [this one](https://www.allekabels.nl/patchpaneel/6253/1286374/patchpaneel-8-poorts.html), which I believe works the way you're looking for. Not super low-profile but only 4.4cm thick. I'm sure you can find one somewhere near you.
Yeah probably too large for my application. I probably need something no thicker than the panel in OP’s photo, just with fewer ports. It may very well not exist, since physical clearance isn’t a huge issue in most patch panel situations.
My Ethernet cables all terminate behind an access panel maybe 1 1/2” in front of a concrete building column.
I think you did a great job. I have a 9U rack, and yeah yeah I like that I have a networking closet with a rack, but I find the clean in-wall setups to be dead sexy.
It might be the angle of the photo but I'd expect you're teetering right on the bend radius limit of the CAT6 on that lower bend. I'm guessing you're not seeing any issues with any of the runs?
Is it shielded? If not I might be tempted to relocate that power brick to the bottom too if you're able.
Yeah, the loop is a bit bigger than in the photo, but it’s still right on the edge. Made sure to bend them all together, in a bunch, nice and slowly so nothing inside was tempted to snap. No problems on any of the tests, and speeds are good!
I love it! Excellent work! About the only thing I would've done differently is the PoE injector. I would've swapped that out with a switch with PoE rather than use that injector since it looks like you're utilizing a lot of the interfaces anyways. That would've cleaned it up a bit and gave you more room for another peice of hardware in the future.
That's just a preference though! It looks good an seems very functional!
My feedback:
An 8-port POE switch could have saved you a lot of space (and perhaps time and money). Better a smart POE switch that can be managed without having to physically touch it.
Why the HomePod in the enclosure? Seems like the worst place for it.
Not being critical btw, if it works for what you need then it’s great. Nice and clean looking. :)
Nicely done. All patch cables an appropriate length, the feeder cables are velcroed into a nice bundle. The bend in the patch cables going from the panel to the hub reminds me of my old telco days. we'd use bare single-pair cross connect wire to cross connect ther premise cabling to the phone system via 66 blocks. You'd make a little band in the wire to give it a little strain relief, and to give you some slack if you needed to repunch it to a new pair. The meticulous cable guys could make it look really tidy.
Did the holes in the back line up with the keyholes in the back of the switch? Wondering if you had to velcro/2-sided tape them into the rack or if the mount holes lined up.
There's probably not a lot of heat coming out of it, how is the ventilation?
That patch panel is almost exactly what I've been looking for. If it came in an 8 port it would be perfect. I think I can fit it in. Gotta round up the tape measure.
Why the HomePod in a comm cabinet?
For all those wondering about the HomePod. I had an extra that I wasn’t using, it’s speakers have been compromised and it sounds rough playing music. Plugged it in here for temperature monitoring initially since there’s a fair amount of tech in a small space. Wanted to make sure it didn’t get too hot. Bonus now I have Siri in the basement, and I use it.
The answer that I've been looking for! I had forgotten that temp and humidity got enabled with the latest update. A great use for a damaged HP mini!
I used to work for apple and didn’t know about that - cool!
I guess it wasn’t a thing when you worked for Apple.
Nope - been out of the loop for a few years now. I still try to keep up with features etc but always fun to learn new things. Didn't even know the HomePods had sensors for those 2 items.
So you can just use this as a computer with these sensors onboard? No reprogramming or anything? Interesting. Is it plugged-in anywhere and monitoring traffic?
> Plugged it in here for temperature monitoring I monitor the temperature in my network closet but I use a small <$20 Aqara temperature sensor for it. It does a great job.
And now I have to tell the wife we need another HomePod…. I completely forgot about temperature and humidity. Great use!
Completely makes sense.
My guess is just for HomeKit hub functionality.
Yeah but it can do that anywhere, and play music and set timers. Here it does…one of those things?
Honestly that's how I'd want it, not a fan of always on mics
You could just use an Apple TV as a hub instead
Yeah but a modern AppleTV costs more than a HomePod mini, right? I guess this would be a perfect situation for an OG AppleTV 3, but I'm not sure how well integrated those are with HomeKit these days.
Y'all are wrong. It's for jammin' to tunes while working on your network cabinet
Yup
I mean a HomePod Mini is $99, an Apple TV 4K 64GB (2nd Generation) is $80 at Costco
fine... but you're comparing a current generation product to previous generation. thats not a fair cost comparison. You can buy HomePod minis off eBay all day long for $50 or less, a few have even sold recently for 2 for $75!
yeah that's fair, personally if I was in OPs scenario price wouldn't be my determining factor here
agreed... I tend to buy what works best in the situation, along with what will be supported the longest. however, it's a toss-up here since Apple has proven long support for both products. It would be nice if they would make a true HomeKit hub that didn't have to be a device that did anything else... much like the bridge from Hue or Lutron. If it were me, I would have bought a used iPad off eBay, which can be a hub, mounted it to the cabinet door and keep it plugged in. The put the iPad in guided access mode locked to the Home app. At least its a cool functional hub that can be physically interacted with.
Yeah but that generation is only like a year old the only difference is the new ones cheaper version doesn’t have an ethernet port and has an iphone 14 processsor where that when has the iphone 12 processor. You don’t need that beefy if a processor anyway. Remote and design is exactly the same. Oh and the new one supports hdr10+ which pretty much everything is dolby vision.
AND it is Ethernet. HomePods aren’t. If you’re a wire it all snob like me.
I got a used HomePod mini just to get CarPlay garage door integration working. It’s in the network pile and I never use it for anything else.
I bought my Apple TV 4 used for under $40. No remote, but I don’t need a remote for it.
I agree, It's kind of scary that you cant guarantee it being off when it tells you it's off.
Welcome to today. Everything except your toaster could be listening to you… and I’m not even sure about that - your toaster looks pretty sus to me. - Your friendly neighborhood NSA agent J/k I’m just a dude. Might want to unplug that toaster though
I suppose
It’s not even plugged in, nor does it got Ethernet…
It’s plugged in via a USB-C port at the end of the power strip. It doesn’t need ethernet to act as a hub for HomeKit.
Came here to ask the same question. This confused me greatly.
This is what I must know as well.
Remote assistance lmao
🤣
hey, siri, block access to kids computer.
This looks great. These enclosures aren’t really designed for gear - they’re very tight and usually poorly vented. They’re designed primarily for wiring, terminal blocks, coax splitters, and service loops. So the idea that you squeezed in all this stuff is a testament to your ingenuity and perseverance.
They are a credit to themselves and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Networking Service.
Well that’s a really nice comment
Tbh it's freaking ridiculous that I can't find a plastic one like this that has good ventilation and maybe some fans on the front. There's metal ones, but they're hundreds of dollars. Trying to figure out how to keep my cats from playing with the "pretty string"
Nobody puts baby HomePod in a corner!
What’s the HomePod gonna do for you in there?
Probably just using it to access his smart home stuff remotely
[удалено]
Wives prefer a closed cabinet door and as little showing as possible. Often these enclosures are located in the Master Bedroom closet, at least in California.
Why the heck are they in the bedroom, of all places?
The eye sore factor in most rooms
Why not put it in a hallway closet or garage or something instead?
Homes should have a maintenance room. A place for the power and network panels to exist with decent access space.
Our network panel is in the furnace room. I've been thinking about what switch I should put in, but haven't decided yet. I'm worrying that my 6450-48p can get too hot and loud there next to the furnace.
In my area houses do have a "maintenance room". I live in a cold climate so every house has a furnace (takes up lots of space) so there is typically a unfinished room in the basement with the furnace, water heater, water meter and main electrical panel.
My network rack is in the unfinished part of the basement, along with all the other building systems. Easy access to the demarc too. That gives me a lot of room to add and change gear without impacting the primary living space.
I live in Texas, and my house was built with it in the master bedroom closet. It’s annoying, but garage would get way too hot to put it in there. And basements aren’t a thing because of the dense and rocky soil. I really want a basement…
Maybe that's where the cable run is (previously for a TV), and then the cable modem, and then the rest of the network stuff?
Central location in the home. I added mine one cable at a time throughout the house. The center of the home had easy access to the attic as it was right next to the hallway attic stairs, and it was center ish to the whole home. Honestly once it is installed, I rarely touch it. All of the data jacks in the house are plugged into the switch, if I need more I’ll have to physically run them.
Easy to spot and get to compared to most other closets
Over in England we don't have any! You'd be lucky to have any ethernet run.
Install cables then! My '72 house doesn't have any cables either
I have. I drilled through layers of brick from the outside
Because most rack systems are way overkill for the average nerd. Make it fit into that box, be proud of wire management (like PC builders are in similarly sized enclosures) and move on.
Location: I have one of these small enclosures and it’s located in my garage where I’m constantly moving vehicles in and out daily. Honestly sometimes a rack or equivalent isn’t practical whereas a setup like that presented by OP (maybe sans HomePod mini) is.
I had one of these at our last house, it was behind the master closet door (opened inward). Plenty of clearance to the SMP door, but no room for a rack in front of it.
Because I was renovating the basement and had the option. Plenty of room left elsewhere for expansion. Got a long term plan! :)
Not the OP but most people inherit this infrastructure and don't often have a say in it's installation or configuration. Often these SMEs are installed by builders in less than ideal locations. Usually in hallway or bedroom closets, often without power. I've seen them just on the wall in hallways and people have hung pictures over them because they're unsightly. They're usually wired up for telephony rather than Ethernet, hence the lack of power. In my home, we have 2 SMEs installed by the builder. The first is on the exterior of the house and provides a place for an ISP to place equipment, it has 2 Ethernet and 2 COAX runs to a second SME located in the master bedroom closet behind the door. All COAX and Ethernet ports in the home terminate in this second SME. The builder provided minimal specifications, the SME they had in their model home was plastic, the one they installed was metal. They only offered us the option to add additional cable drops at locations we specified and the option to upgrade the size of the SMEs but that was it. Honestly even if I had the option to relocate an SME, I'm not sure where I would in my home. The storage options are pretty poor and being an open concept design there aren't any secluded places. About the only other option is the laundry room but that's already over crowded.
I've had that before, kept banging my head. But that was when I needed a firewall, VPN tunnels, etc. for my job. New job no longer needs that stuff, so head no longer gets banged. LOL
Racks are expensive, rack mount equipment is sometimes more expensive, rack shelves or third-party rack ears for your equipment that’s not rack-mountable are expensive. I mean yolo, my goal is a rack eventually just cuz, but it’s not actually worth the money for the look and slightly easier serviceability.
newbie question: how do you mount devices to float on that peg board? i have a similar enclosure but it didn't come with any pegs.
3d printed brackets sometimes if you can find the brand you can get the oembrtackets but they fairly expensive sometimes Cable ties or velcro or just screw stuff onto it lol
I used 3M strips. Cable ties and Velcro strips were just a pain. 3M strips hold nicely, and with the Velcro ones I can take stuff out and put it back easily.
Command strips! That’s such a good idea! I need to get to organizing my networking center but have struggled to find products that seemed like a good fit. I don’t know why I didn’t think of the 3M products!
I would use Velcro (hook & loop). I have some 2" wide stuff, can hold a lot of weight. I've even hung cable boxes on the back of wall mounted TV's with it in certain situations.
sexy
I used an enclosure like this at my last house. I actually really liked it. It forced me to make everything look really nice and neat. My new rack…all bets are off.
I’ve been looking for a patch panel for a similar sized enclosure in my apartment for a while. Wish they made a 5 or 6 port version.
8-port panels are easy enough to find. Too big?
I have yet to find a surface mount low-profile one where the wires pass through from above and below like the one in the photo. All of the smaller surface mount patch panels that I have come across to date have jacks that are 90 degrees perpendicular to their mounting surface, so they would not fit in they very cramped space where my wiring passes through.
They make 8 port version for ops panel TC-P08C6AS [TC-P08C6AS](https://www.trendnet.com/products/patch-panel/8-Port-Cat6A-Shielded-Wall-Mount-Patch-Panel-TC-P08C6AS)
I have [this one](https://www.allekabels.nl/patchpaneel/6253/1286374/patchpaneel-8-poorts.html), which I believe works the way you're looking for. Not super low-profile but only 4.4cm thick. I'm sure you can find one somewhere near you.
Yeah probably too large for my application. I probably need something no thicker than the panel in OP’s photo, just with fewer ports. It may very well not exist, since physical clearance isn’t a huge issue in most patch panel situations. My Ethernet cables all terminate behind an access panel maybe 1 1/2” in front of a concrete building column.
The home pod is to let him know he did a good job every time he looks at that and ask “hey siri” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
No one mentioned the second black ethernet on the switch. Is it wireless? 😂😂😂 Or it does an extreme bend over under the switch? I'm confused
I think you did a great job. I have a 9U rack, and yeah yeah I like that I have a networking closet with a rack, but I find the clean in-wall setups to be dead sexy.
It might be the angle of the photo but I'd expect you're teetering right on the bend radius limit of the CAT6 on that lower bend. I'm guessing you're not seeing any issues with any of the runs? Is it shielded? If not I might be tempted to relocate that power brick to the bottom too if you're able.
Yeah, the loop is a bit bigger than in the photo, but it’s still right on the edge. Made sure to bend them all together, in a bunch, nice and slowly so nothing inside was tempted to snap. No problems on any of the tests, and speeds are good!
Awesome. Top job 👌
You did good
Good job looks well done to me
Clean as a motherf*****
OP likes to jam while networking leave him be! 🤘
I love it! Excellent work! About the only thing I would've done differently is the PoE injector. I would've swapped that out with a switch with PoE rather than use that injector since it looks like you're utilizing a lot of the interfaces anyways. That would've cleaned it up a bit and gave you more room for another peice of hardware in the future. That's just a preference though! It looks good an seems very functional!
Completely agreed! I'd have put in a POE capable switch vs the injector.
Wow with homepod so you can monitor temperature and humidity inside your rig!
What the HomePod doin? Is it being a thread router, a climate sensor, a speaker, or all the above?
It's 100% better than what the "professionals" did when completing my LENNAR HOME Smart-Home installation! Great job and very organized.
My feedback: An 8-port POE switch could have saved you a lot of space (and perhaps time and money). Better a smart POE switch that can be managed without having to physically touch it. Why the HomePod in the enclosure? Seems like the worst place for it. Not being critical btw, if it works for what you need then it’s great. Nice and clean looking. :)
I guess you need this because you don't have your fusebox indoors?
Why are the mounting holes diamond shaped instead of circular? I have the same type of enclosure and I’m not sure what type of mounting pegs to get.
Cool to know, didn’t know they made punchdowns like that. I envision myself doing this upstairs You can’t shove the rest of that slack up the hole?
Nicely done. All patch cables an appropriate length, the feeder cables are velcroed into a nice bundle. The bend in the patch cables going from the panel to the hub reminds me of my old telco days. we'd use bare single-pair cross connect wire to cross connect ther premise cabling to the phone system via 66 blocks. You'd make a little band in the wire to give it a little strain relief, and to give you some slack if you needed to repunch it to a new pair. The meticulous cable guys could make it look really tidy. Did the holes in the back line up with the keyholes in the back of the switch? Wondering if you had to velcro/2-sided tape them into the rack or if the mount holes lined up. There's probably not a lot of heat coming out of it, how is the ventilation?
Plans to add a UPS?
Looks good to me!
Will it be covered if so here is the vent?
Looks good! ...
That is a thing of beauty
Where’s the modem or box from your ISP?
Nice! Why hide the homepod tho?
Presumably the heat and humidity sensor.
That patch panel is almost exactly what I've been looking for. If it came in an 8 port it would be perfect. I think I can fit it in. Gotta round up the tape measure.
She’s so beautiful.
Thats pretty darn good.
Great except for the net gear.
Love the patch panel, great idea!
Where did you get that perfectly sized box?
That makes me hot.