Software and Performance
As far as functionality goes, the TPI-06 is a simple device and works like most other managed PDUs. Once you have things set up, the TPI-06 helps you monitor wattages for everything that is hooked up and protects from voltage spikes. The only functionality that I found myself missing physically was individual power buttons for each of the plugs. You have just one power button to power all 6 ports up or down. Having a little more control there would be huge. As it sits, you have to log in and turn a port off unless you are okay with powering everything down and that is extra work if you are there in person.
That said, most of the functionality is on the software side of things. The TPI-06 offers a lot more through its web interface than you might think from looking at it. So let’s run through the whole experience there, that is where you are going to use the TPI-06 the most. For starters, when you first hook the TPI-06 up, it will default to a static IP. I would prefer to see it default to DHCP, that way you don’t risk having an IP conflict when you first hook it up. Once logged in and you get your password you have a small PDU setup wizard that walks you through the main configuration. You get asked if you are going to use Trendnet’s Hive cloud control or the default web interface. All of the pictures here are with the web interface. I did try out Hive but the TPI-06 wouldn’t connect, even with the latest firmware. I kept getting domain name resolution fail, get server IP fail errors. On top of that, while Hive is interesting I was surprised to find that by default you need to pay $9.99 yearly for your device license. Paying for a cloud service isn’t anything new, EnGenius has a Pro license as well but you can at least use most of the features without it. In this case, you get a year of Hive free for your device when you buy it and have to pay after then on top of that they have the Pro Add-On. Back on the Wizard, it has you fill in the date and time but there isn’t an option to set your timezone and let it update. After that, you are good to go.
Once set up and anytime you log in you will start on the dashboard. This page has two tabs up top, the dashboard and switch view. This is where you will find all of the information on your setup. On the first page, you have tables that show your uptime, current voltages, and temperature, and then all of your network configuration. Down at the bottom, they have graphs showing your power consumption. I would prefer that to be right up top and easiest to see. On the left you see the wattage used and available, there is a graph with the total wattage, and then a per-plug breakdown of the wattage being used. I only had one plug running for this picture, but you can see that one system is pulling 127.4 watts at the time. The switch view tab then has a picture of the back of the TP1-06 with each outlet. Then below that you can see the wattage, voltage, and current for each outlet and have switches to turn them on and off and a reboot button. There is also a power cycle button on the far right for all 6 outlets. This should also be on that main page, I would prefer to have this and the graphs right in front of me when I log in and have to go a tab over to see things like all of the PDUs network details.
On the left side you can open up or hide the menu and there are three main sections. You have Outlet, System, and Log. The first section is where you will find all of the PDU-specific settings. They have it split up into three pages, the settings page, the schedule page, and auto reboot. On the settings page, you start with the power delay settings for each outlet. When power turns on it’s a lot easier on things to not have every single device power up at the same time and this is how you can avoid that. It can also be important when some devices get a little weird if another device isn’t powered up first. On our network for example our TrueNAS server has issues when it comes on before the network is up and running. Here you can name each outlet and then set the delay for each. The same goes for how long of a delay is needed when powering it all down. If you don’t want a delay there is a switch up top to turn it all off. On that same page down at the bottom you can set voltage range settings, this lets you set a minimal and max voltage range, and if you aren’t in that it will turn things off to try to prevent damage to your devices.
Continuing with the Outlet menu the next page is the Schedule page. Here you can set up multiple schedule actions. There are a few on here by default to show you what can be done. This is basically like a smart outlet where you can turn a plug on or off or reset it at a specific time and set what days of the week you want to do that. This is great if you have a device that gets a little weird over time and doesn’t have auto reboot in its software or using the example that Trendnet gives you might want a light or something else to turn on for a specific window. I would prefer to go about it other ways, but you could have your PoE-powered wireless network shut down when the business isn’t open. For me, I am most likely to have this rebooting a modem outside of busy hours though.
The last Outlets page is the Auto Reboot page and this is where things can get useful. By default, there are two Google host checks on here but you can set up other websites or IP addresses and have it pinging out. Below that you can set the ping interval and the number of failed pings to see before anything happens. I’ve used this functionality on my own network to fix an issue that seems to pop up when we go on vacation. I can go all year without needing to reboot my modem or a router and once I’m 2000 miles from home the power will go out or something will happen and it all gets hung up. Then we have to ask someone to go and restart them so we can access files, our cameras, and our Plex remotely. With this, you can ping out and if the internet goes down you can set it to auto reboot. You can even get fancy and ping a device on your network and when it fails reboot that device to automatically fix a lockup. Each outlet has reboot settings so it can reboot multiple times if needed and most importantly you can pick which hosts that are getting pinged apply here. You can set up multiple and require all of them to fail, this is a good way to avoid having a Google outage and suddenly your network is going crazy. Be careful how you set this up though. With my initial configuration, I had it reboot my modem, gateway, and all of my switches. I learned though that maybe your internet goes down and now your entire network is down where before you could at least access things on the network.
The next section is the Settings menu. This is broken down into four pages. The first is the Cloud settings page. This is a simple one you have the option up top to switch between using cloud mode or not. When you are using the cloud, the rest of the web interface goes away. You have your Hive login information and then on the right you have the status of everything. The next page is the network settings page and here you can switch between static and DHCP. With the static page, you set up your IP address, Gateway, DNS, and Subnet mask and you are off to the races. The DHCP page just greys all of those out and lets DHCP do the work. The System setting page has your web interface username and password settings, your time zone setting, device name, and if you want information in Fahrenheit or Celsius. You can also change the Https port here as well. Last up for the System settings pages you have the firmware page. Here you can see the model name and current firmware. You can upload a new firmware downloaded from the Trendnet website. You can also back up or restore your configuration and this is where you can reboot the entire TPI-06 or do a factory reset.
The last section is the Log section and this has two pages. The first page starts off with remote Syclog settings. You can turn that on and input your server IP and port. Below that you then have the logs which you have options to flip through the pages and you can download the full log. The second page has your email settings including setting up an email server in the top half and down at the bottom you have three options for email notifications. You can get emails when there is a safe voltage event, overload breaker event, and host timeout event. Those are the three safeties that the TPI-06 offers. Depending on how you are using it, you might not need some of those. You might already get notifications when the internet or a server goes down or if you have a UPS you might get voltage information but the overload breaker event one should be on your radar if you are planning on running any big-wattage devices.
