Choosing the Best PoE Hardware for Your Smart Building
A node the size of a deck of cards is now expected to power a light fixture, talk to a wall switch, authenticate itself on a corporate network, and report back whether anyone is sitting in the room. That is what modern PoE infrastructure for smart buildings has become, and it is why hardware selection matters more than it used to.
MHT Technologies builds three node families for exactly this reason. The Node 90, the Super Node, and the Core Node each solve a different problem, and understanding the difference is the first step toward designing a smart building system that actually fits the space it is going into.
Why One Node Doesn’t Fit Every Job
A conference room and a hotel suite have almost nothing in common, electrically speaking. A high-bay warehouse fixture pulls far more power than a desk lamp. An enterprise office with strict IT security policies has different requirements than a retail space that just wants the lights to dim on schedule.
Early PoE lighting systems treated these as the same problem. Run low-voltage cable, power the fixture, call it done. Intelligent PoE infrastructure has to do more: occupancy sensing, tunable white and RGBW lighting, shade automation, smart desk integration, scheduling, and in a growing number of buildings, network authentication that satisfies an IT department before it satisfies a lighting designer.
That range of requirements is exactly why MHT didn’t build one node in the Inspextor product line and call it universal. The three families split the work along the lines that actually matter in the field: channel count, power delivery, and security.
Why the Network Backbone Matters As Much As the Node
None of this hardware works in isolation. Every node in the MHT platform pulls its power and its data connection from a switch, and the switch MHT recommends for most deployments is the Cisco Catalyst 9300. The 9300’s UPOE+ ports deliver up to 90 watts per port under the IEEE 802.3bt standard, which is the exact power ceiling the Node 90 and Core Node are built around. That alignment isn’t a coincidence. It’s why MHT designs its proposals with Cisco switching included from the start rather than treating the network as someone else’s problem to solve later.
Running on a Cisco backbone also opens the door to Cisco Spaces, Cisco’s smart building analytics platform. Cisco Spaces can be hosted directly on Catalyst 9300 and 9400 switches, which means a building already wired for MHT’s PoE infrastructure has the network foundation in place to layer in Cisco’s own occupancy analytics, space utilization data, and environmental monitoring without adding a separate network. In commercial real estate, that combination lets a property team track space utilization and energy usage across a portfolio while the MHT layer handles the lighting and device side of the building. In healthcare environments, the same backbone supports real-time asset tracking and staff safety applications, the kind of use case where knowing exactly where a piece of equipment or a person is located actually matters.
For integrators, the practical takeaway is that hardware selection and network design aren’t separate conversations. A Core Node’s security posture is only as good as the switch authenticating it, and a building’s appetite for Cisco Spaces analytics later on is easier to support if the Catalyst 9300 backbone is already there from day one.
The Node 90: The Workhorse
The Inspextor Node 90 is the platform MHT has deployed the longest, and it remains the right call for most standard commercial lighting. Built on the IEEE 802.3bt PoE standard, it supports up to 90 watts of input power, though in practice MHT designs around a 72-watt maximum across its two channels to account for cable losses and keep the system comfortably within spec. Each channel maxes out at 60 watts individually.
Those two channels don’t need to be balanced. One channel can run 20 watts, the other 40, and that’s fine. What the Node 90 can’t do is split a single channel into independently controlled fixtures. If three downlights are wired off one channel through a splitter, all three move together. That’s a meaningful design constraint, and it’s the main reason integrators reach for a Super Node instead when a space needs tighter, fixture-by-fixture control.
For tunable white applications, the Node 90 handles it by dedicating one channel to low color temperature and the other to high, with the software blending between them. It’s a clean solution for offices, classrooms, and healthcare spaces, but it won’t support RGBW lighting at all. That capability starts with the Super Node.
The Super Node: Built for Granular Control
The Inspextor Super Node exists for the jobs where one or two channels isn’t enough. It offers eight individually controlled output channels arranged in two banks of four, which means a single device can run constant current LEDs on one bank and constant voltage RGBW fixtures on the other, simultaneously.
That flexibility is what makes it the default choice for hospitality deployments. A single Super Node can manage ceiling lighting, accent lighting, bedside controls, and occupancy sensing in one hotel room, with each fixture or zone controlled independently rather than grouped by channel. It also supports both PoE and external DC power, so if a project needs more current than the PoE switch can deliver, the Super Node can pull from a DC source without losing centralized control.
The tradeoff is straightforward: more channels and more flexibility, at a higher cost than a Node 90. For straightforward two-by-four office lighting, that flexibility is overkill. For a hotel room with eight different lighting behaviors, it’s the only option that makes sense.
The Core Node: Where Security Becomes the Spec
The Inspextor Core Node is MHT’s newest platform, and it exists to answer a question that didn’t used to come up in lighting conversations: can this device be trusted on our network?
Most low-voltage lighting nodes communicate using CoAP. The Core Node also supports MQTT Secure, an encrypted protocol, and adds IEEE 802.1x authentication, the same standard IT departments use to control which devices are allowed onto a corporate network in the first place. That distinction matters more than it might sound. A Super Node or Node 90 sitting on an open network segment is a device an attacker could potentially compromise to gain a foothold into the broader network. The Core Node closes that door by requiring the same authentication handshake as a laptop or a badge reader.
That’s why it’s becoming the default recommendation for enterprise offices, financial services environments, and any space where the IT team has a say in what gets plugged into their switches. It’s not a coincidence that Cisco has standardized on the Core Node for their own office deployments, running on the same Catalyst 9300 backbone MHT recommends across its projects.
The Core Node also pushes voltage resolution further than the other two platforms, stepping in half-volt increments from 12 to 48 volts rather than the larger steps used elsewhere in the lineup, and it supports a constant power feature that caps output regardless of what the connected fixture could theoretically draw. Physically, it’s smaller than a Super Node, which makes it a better fit for high-bay applications and longer linear fixture runs where space inside the housing is tight. A single Core Node channel can deliver a full 80 watts, compared to the Node 90’s 60-watt single-channel limit, which means two Core Nodes can power a 160-watt high-bay fixture where a Node 90 setup would fall short.
The one limitation worth knowing: the Core Node supports a single RGBW channel, where the Super Node’s two independent four-channel banks allow for two separate RGBW feeds. For most enterprise lighting applications that’s not a constraint. For complex multi-zone RGBW installs, it’s a reason to bring in a Super Node instead, security requirements permitting.
Beyond Lighting: Smart Desks and Emergency Systems
Inspextor’s node platform extends past standard lighting into a few specialized applications worth understanding.
The Smart Desk Kit pairs with the Node 90 and, more recently, the Core Node to power desk-integrated technology. Two nodes working together can share power and boost total output from roughly 71 watts to 120 watts, enough to run a monitor, a docking station, and a laptop directly through the same PoE infrastructure already running the lighting above the desk. For organizations tracking workplace utilization, that same connection point can report occupancy data back to the platform.
For life-safety applications, the ELS node is a dedicated emergency lighting variant of the Node 90, built to UL924 standard with an added AC input. When normal power is lost, it sustains 8 watts to the connected fixture for 90 minutes, which satisfies the testing requirement most facilities are required to run annually. It’s a narrow-purpose device. Outside of emergency applications, it doesn’t get used.
Matching Hardware to the Job
None of this matters in the abstract. What it means in practice is that designing a smart building deployment starts with a few practical questions: How many independently controlled zones does this space need? What’s the wattage requirement, and how long are the cable runs? Does this fixture need to support RGBW, or just tunable white? And does the IT department have a security policy that the hardware needs to satisfy before it ever gets installed?
A standard office with two-by-four fixtures and static white lighting is a Node 90 job, full stop. A hotel room with eight different lighting zones calls for a Super Node. A high-security enterprise floor, or a high-bay application pushing past what a single Node 90 channel can deliver, points toward the Core Node.
This is also where MHT’s certification training earns its keep. The decision tree above sounds simple in writing. In the field, with a fixture schedule, a floor plan, and a client’s IT policy all competing for attention, getting it right consistently is exactly the kind of judgment trained, certified integrators are expected to bring to every smart building project.
Inspextor hardware is only as good as the design decisions built around it. That’s the next layer of this series: how MHT’s ADA software platform turns a pile of nodes into a commissioned, working building.
This is the second in a series exploring intelligent PoE infrastructure for smart buildings.
Read Part 1: Why the Smartest Buildings Run on PoE Infrastructure.
Read Part 3: Why Smart Building Commissioning Is Just as Important as the Hardware
MHT Technologies designs and manufactures intelligent PoE infrastructure solutions for commercial, hospitality, healthcare, and enterprise environments. The MHT platform includes the Inspextor PoE hardware family and the aida™ AI-powered building management software.