When AI QoS is enabled on the 4 and 8 port models, all ports will prioritize Video and VoIP traffic flows over others. For example, an IP camera streaming in real-time takes preference over a user transferring a backup file to a server. If this mode is enabled on the 16 and 24 port models, only ports 1-8 will be prioritized and all others will get a lower priority.

AI extend is a common PoE switch feature designed to extend PoE distance up to 250m. The downside is that port speeds will be limited to only 10Mbps. This limitation does not apply to the uplink ports. The AI Extend feature is suitable for situations where your power source is too far away. There is, however, that bandwidth limitation to be aware of.

The AI PoE feature allows the switch to check the ports for activity periodically. If a port is not passing traffic for a certain amount of time, the switch will reset power on that specific port. The device on the other end will reboot with the idea that it returns to a working state. This is a great feature to automate this process. It can save lots of time on support and driving out to the site to troubleshoot or manually power cycle equipment.

AI VLAN is essentially port isolation on each of the PoE ports. All PoE ports are only able to communicate with the uplinks when this option is enabled. This can be useful when the setup requires multiple clients to connect to a common network resource but should not be able to connect to each other. Using this also improves network security.