Battery-assisted power-over-ethernet powered device

A method for battery-assisted Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) operation of a powered device, comprising:

• comparing a present power requirement of a device load of the battery-assisted PoE powered device to an amount of power available via PoE according to a standard;
• in response to the device load requiring less power than the amount available via PoE according to the standard,
• driving the device load with only power from PoE, and
• charging a local battery pack using excess power;
• and
• in response to the device load requiring more power than the amount available via PoE according to the standard,
• discharging the local battery pack, and
• driving the device load with a combination of PoE and battery power.

An in-wall or in-ceiling battery-assisted Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) powered device, comprising:

• a port configured to receive an Ethernet cable via which PoE is provided according to a standard;
• a local battery pack including one or more cells that is configured to be disposed in a wall or ceiling cavity of a structure;
• a device load configured to be disposed in a wall or ceiling cavity of the structure and to consume power to provide functionality of the in-wall or in-ceiling device, the consumed power to sometimes exceed an amount of power available via PoE according to the standard;
• and
• a charger/path controller configured to charge the local battery pack during periods of time when the device load consumes less power than the amount available via PoE according to the standard, and to discharge the local battery pack and to drive the device load with a combination of PoE and battery power from the local battery pack during periods of time when the device load demands more power than the amount of power available via PoE according to the standard.