The home-rack switch guide: PoE budgets and what Pro actually buys you
Switches are where UniFi's naming gets dense — Flex, Lite, Ultra, Pro, Pro Max, with and without PoE, in 5 to 48 ports. But buying one comes down to two numbers: how many ports you need, and how many watts of PoE those ports must deliver. The second number is the one people get wrong.
The PoE budget, in one paragraph
Every access point and camera you power over Ethernet draws watts from the switch's total PoE budget. Add up what your devices draw at peak — each product page lists it — and keep the total under about 70% of the switch's budget, so one power-hungry addition next year doesn't force a new switch. That's the entire concept. Our PoE budget calculator does the arithmetic for you against the actual device catalog.
No PoE needed: the desk and TV-stand tier
The Flex Mini ($35) is five gigabit ports powered by USB-C or PoE, and it disappears behind whatever it's serving. The Flex Mini 2.5G ($59) is the same idea at 2.5 GbE — the cheap way to give a WiFi 7 AP or a fast NAS the uplink it deserves.
First PoE switch: the closet tier
The Switch Lite 8 PoE ($135) and Lite 16 PoE ($249) are quiet, fanless, and power a typical home's worth of APs and cameras. The Switch Ultra ($159) packs eight PoE ports into something small enough to mount anywhere — the pick when the "closet" is a shelf.
The 2.5G tier: feeding WiFi 7
WiFi 7 access points can move more than a gigabit of real traffic, which makes their uplink the bottleneck. The Flex 2.5G 8 ($199) family exists for exactly this — 2.5 GbE ports so the APs aren't capped at the wire.
What Pro Max actually buys you
The Pro Max 16 ($349 / $499 with PoE) moves you to Layer 3 switching, 2.5 GbE access ports, 10G uplinks, and Etherlighting — port LEDs that color-code themselves so you can read a rack at a glance. You buy Pro Max when the network is the hobby, when you're segmenting VLANs hard, or when the rack will grow into cameras, multiple APs, and a NAS. You skip it when a Lite covers the port count.
The cheat sheet
| Switch | Price | Ports | PoE | Buy when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flex Mini | $35 | 5 × 1G | — | Behind the TV / desk |
| Flex Mini 2.5G | $59 | 5 × 2.5G | — | One fast AP or NAS |
| Lite 8 PoE | $135 | 8 × 1G | Yes | First closet switch |
| Switch Ultra | $159 | 8 × 1G | Yes | Tiny spaces, full PoE |
| Lite 16 PoE | $249 | 16 × 1G | Yes | Cameras + APs + drops |
| Flex 2.5G 8 | $199 | 8 × 2.5G | — | WiFi 7 backhaul |
| Pro Max 16 | $349 | 16 × 2.5G/1G + 10G | Optional | The forever rack |
Sizing shortcut
Count your wired drops, add your PoE devices, run it through the PoE calculator, and round up one tier. Or assemble the whole thing in the kit builder — it warns you when the switch can't power what you've attached to it.
Prices current at publication. Browse the full Switches collection.