Monday, June 29, 2015

NEST Cam PoE Setup

Having just received my new NEST Cam to replace my existing Dropcam Pro, I wanted to update my  USB over PoE setup to work with my existing PoE switch (Cisco SD208P). The previous setup used a 24v PoE to USB setup which required it's own power adapter and was not 802.3af compatible. This time around I found several 802.3af solutions:

  • ArmorActive USB over PoE Adapter, $99 (too much)
  • Vidabox VidaPower CAT5 to USB Power Adapter, $99 (too much)
  • Tyson Power POE-MSPLT-USB PoE to USB Converter, $32.95 (Sold!)

All three adapters are 802.3af and 802.3at compliant and provide 12-15W output via USB. That is enough to power most current smartphones, tablets, and USB cameras.

Below is a picture of the basic test setup I used before installing the camera in my entryway.


Front & back of Tycon Power POE-MSPLT-USB. Adapter has a handy green LED to let you know if the adapter is receiving PoE.



After confirming that this setup would work, I replaced my Dropcam Pro with the NEST Cam in the entryway.







Thursday, March 5, 2015

VMware vSphere Client for Mac!?

Edit: Check out the new ESXi HTML 5 Embedded Host Client here, also included in ESXi 6.0u2! (3/24/2016)

I found this little nugget on YouTube while researching ESXi 6.0. A beta tester recorded the installation of ESXi 6.0 beta and when they went to the vSphere Client download page I was shocked to see something called "vSphere Host Client Installer for Mac".



After looking into this a little further I discovered that it was only available on a specific beta release, VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.0.0-1921158.x86_64.iso to be exact. I obtained a copy, through the magic that is Google search, and created a ESXi 6.0.0-1921158 VM in Fusion so that I could get the installer links.

The ESXi welcome page includes the following two links to the vSphere Host Client Installers:

Edit: Links are no longer valid (6/24/2015)

http://vsphereclient.vmware.com/vspherehostclient/VMware-hostclient-mac-6.0.0.pkg
http://vsphereclient.vmware.com/vspherehostclient/VMware-hostclient-win-6.0.0.zip

I downloaded and installed the VMware Host Client and was able to connect to the 6.0.0-1921158 beta host and to my 5.5u2 lab host.