EnGenius ECS2512FP & ECS2512 affordable multi-gig POE switches announced with 2.5Gbps & 10GbE SFP+

This new bypassed me a couple of days ago, but EnGenius has recently announced two new multi-gig switches that they claim will be affordable.

With EnGenius being a business focussed company, the definition of affordable may be different from what home and SOHO users class as affordable, so we will have to wait and see.

I have been impressed with the recent EnGenius access points I have reviewed, they do in fact offer a reasonably affordable Wi-Fi 6 access point, and their new cloud-managed AP and switch is a superb alternative to Zyxel Nebula or Ubiquiti.

If priced right, the EnGenius ECS2512FP and ECS2512 sound like they could be the perfect solution for the growing multi-gig demands in home and SOHO use. Both switches feature 8 x 2.5Gbps copper ethernet ports which are backwards compatible with slower speeds, they then have 4x 10Gbps SFP+ Ports.

The ECS2512FP model then introduces PoE to the Ethernet ports with a PoE budget of 240W, this is important because the EnGenius EWS377AP Wi-Fi 6 access point uses a 2. 5Gbps PoE ethernet port so you would be able to deploy a multi-gig Wi-Fi solution with these two devices.

Again, dependant on price, this is potentially an attractive choice for many home users. Quite a lot of AMD X570 motherboards have launched with 2.5Gbps ports, USB-C 2.5Gbps ethernet adaptors are becoming affordable, and high-end consumer Wi-Fi 6 routers such as the TP-Link Archer AX11000 also feature a multi-gig port.

Affordable multi-gig switches are few and far between, even less with PoE. Ubiquiti have two notable options:

• UniFi Switch 16 XG with 10x10GbE SFP+ & 4x10GbE copper ports but no PoE for just under £500
• UniFi US-XG-6POE with 4x POE 10GbE ethernet and 2x10GbE SFP+ for around £630

Netgear has the smart managed (not cloud)  MS510TXPP with  4 Gigabit ports and 2 1G/2.5G ports and 2 1G/2.5G/5G ports and 1x10G port all with POE for just £302.99 or the none POE version for £239

Last update on 2023-03-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API