Diagnostics

🌡️ Diagnostics & Hardware Health Metrics

This page covers the switch-level hardware diagnostics and Power over Ethernet (PoE) metrics collected by SNMP Switch Manager, explaining how they are exposed in Home Assistant and visualised in your dashboard.

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🌡️ Environmental Health Diagnostics

Environmental diagnostics report the physical operating state and health of your switch chassis.

Depending on your switch model and vendor-specific SNMP support, available metrics may include:

• Temperature (°C): Core or chassis ambient temperature readings.
• Temperature Status: Standard states (e.g. OK, Warning, Critical) mapped from vendor tables.
• CPU Utilization (%): Overall processor load.
• Memory Utilization: Memory Used, Memory Available, or Percentage Used, dynamically calculated based on MIB storage definitions.
• Fan Speeds (RPM): Live rotation speeds of internal cooling fans.
• PSU Status: Operational states of redundant or primary Power Supply Units (e.g. Normal, Failed, Disconnected).
• PSU Label: Identifiers for multiple power supplies (e.g. PSU 1, PSU 2).
• Total Power Draw (W): Real-time active power draw of the switch chassis itself.

Note

Chassis Capabilities vary
Because different manufacturers expose hardware data via different MIB tables, the integration will only generate entities or attributes for metrics that your switch physically reports. If a metric is missing, it means your switch does not expose it via SNMP.

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Environment Metrics: Attributes vs. Sensors Mode

• Attributes Mode (Environment Entity):
  • A single entity is created representing your switch environment (e.g. sensor.switch_environment).
  • All metrics (such as temperature, cpu_utilization, fan_rpm, psu_status) appear as attributes on this single parent entity.
  • Highly performant, extremely clean, and ideal for the Lovelace diagnostics panel.
• Sensors Mode:
  • Home Assistant generates standalone sensor entities for every supported metric (e.g. sensor.switch_cpu_utilization, sensor.switch_temperature).
  • Ideal if you want to record long-term history graphs, set up database records, or trigger automations when a value exceeds a threshold.

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⚡ Power over Ethernet (PoE) Diagnostics

PoE diagnostics provide detailed metrics about the switch's power delivery capabilities.

Switch-Level PoE Budgets

• Total Budget (W): The absolute maximum power the switch’s power supply can deliver to connected PoE devices.
• Used Budget (W): The cumulative wattage currently drawn by active PoE devices.
• Remaining Budget (W): The remaining capacity (Total - Used) available for additional PoE loads.

Per-Port PoE Metrics

• Port PoE Draw (W): The individual wattage consumed by a device connected to a specific physical port (e.g. an IP camera drawing 6.4W on port 5).
• Note: Generated as individual port sensors when running in Sensors Mode with per-port PoE enabled.

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PoE Metrics: Attributes vs. Sensors Mode

• Attributes Mode (PoE Entity):
  • A single entity represents switch-level PoE status (e.g., sensor.switch_poe).
  • Metrics appear as attributes on this entity (used_budget_w, remaining_budget_w, total_budget_w).
• Sensors Mode:
  • Generates standalone sensors for each budget metric.
  • If Create per-port PoE Power sensors is active in options, the integration will scan your switch and automatically generate a dedicated wattage sensor for each PoE-capable port (e.g. sensor.switch_port_gi1_0_5_poe_power). Non-PoE ports will not generate empty entities.

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🔄 The Dynamic OID Database (Auto-Updates)

To prevent users from having to deal with complex OID tables and MIB compilation, SNMP Switch Manager utilizes a dynamic community-driven OID database consisting of 12 distinct JSON files:

• cpu.json, memory.json, fans.json, psu.json, temperature.json, poe.json, power.json, device_info.json, vendors.json, interface_filters.json, interface_classification.json, and rename_rules.json.

How the updater works:

1. Every 6 hours (or 10 seconds after Home Assistant starts), a background service connects to the official GitHub repository and checks if any updated database files are available.
2. If changes are detected, the integration automatically downloads the updated JSON files and saves them locally.
3. It then silently reloads all active switch config entries in Home Assistant to apply the new OID templates instantly.
4. No Home Assistant restarts are required! If a new template is added for your switch vendor, it will activate automatically.

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🎛️ Lovelace Diagnostics Panel

The SNMP Switch Manager Lovelace Card includes a dedicated collapsible Diagnostics Panel that mirrors these health metrics on your dashboard:

• It is designed to display high-signal, real-time status without cluttering your main grid.
• It automatically adapts to show only the diagnostics that your switch reports (e.g. if your switch does not support fan RPM, that row will not be shown).
• By default, it displays ambient Temperature, Temperature Status, Used PoE Budget, and Remaining PoE Budget.
• In Attributes Mode, you can customize exactly which attributes from the Environment and PoE parent entities appear on the card by selecting them in the card editor.

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🚀 Next Step

Check the compatibility matrix to see verified hardware models, or proceed to the troubleshooting guide to resolve connection issues:

👉 Go to Supported Switch Matrix