exaviz blog

One Board, Your Choice of Module: Interceptor with a CM4, CM5, or Banana Pi CM4

2026-10-08T00:00:00Z

The Interceptor turns a compute module into a NAS or NVR: five SATA ports with software RAID, a 4-port Gigabit managed switch, and up to 16 PoE+ ports with add-on PoE boards. The same carrier takes the CM4 and the CM5, so you can start on a CM4 and move to a CM5 later.

Raspberry Pi CM4: full support, every variant

The CM4 is fully supported in every variant, from 1GB to 8GB of RAM. eMMC models flash on the board over USB, Lite models boot from SD or USB, the power button works, and Raspberry Pi says the CM4 stays in production until at least January 2034.

Raspberry Pi CM5: more CPU and RAM

From Raspberry Pi’s CM5 specs:

A quad-core Cortex-A76 at 2.4GHz, up from the CM4’s Cortex-A72 at 1.5GHz. It brings the power of the Raspberry Pi 5, which Raspberry Pi says delivers 2 to 3 times the CPU performance of the Pi 4.
Up to 16GB of ECC RAM.
eMMC (non-Lite models) at up to 400 MB/s, four times faster than previous compute modules.

With a CM5 you can also try experimental PCIe Gen 3: a link of about 1,000 MB/s, potentially double Gen 2, which can help RAID 5 and 6. See Jeff Geerling’s Gen 3 write-up.

A few things work differently on the CM5, such as USB boot and the power button; the FAQ covers them.

Banana Pi CM4: AI on the module

The Banana Pi CM4 has a built-in NPU, so AI inference like object detection and video analytics can run on the module. Banana Pi rates the NPU at 5 TOPS. The module runs its own Exaviz OS build (2025-04-30), still available though no longer being developed; the FAQ covers HDMI and the power button.

Which module fits

Module	Best for
Raspberry Pi CM4	Fleets that want full support and a long production run
Raspberry Pi CM5	Demanding NAS and RAID builds, with up to 16GB of RAM
Banana Pi CM4	AI inference on the module

Software

With a CM4 or CM5, start from Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit, Trixie) or Ubuntu (25.10 or 26.04 LTS), add the apt.exaviz.com repository (software guide), and install the Exaviz packages:

sudo apt install exaviz-dkms exaviz-pse-dkms exaviz-netplan exaviz-poe-tool

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and earlier aren’t supported (Ubuntu notes). On Ubuntu Server, SATA and Ethernet work out of the box, and the Exaviz packages add PoE control.

The Interceptor Carrier Board v2.0 costs $79 (compute module not included), and an Interceptor PoE Board adds 8 PoE+ ports for $59.

The DeskPi 2U Case: A Purpose-Built Home for the Cruiser

2026-03-07T00:00:00Z

The Cruiser is a Mini-ITX board, but it’s not a typical one. With 8 PoE+ ports, dual SATA, 2.5GbE WAN, HDMI, USB, and barrel jack power, there’s more IO on it than any standard ITX case was designed to accommodate.

DeskPi saw that as a design opportunity.

Their 2U Mini Rack Mount Case is built specifically for the Cruiser. It’s compact, rack-mountable, and has cutouts in all the right places. The front panel exposes the ports through a wide IO opening and locks in two Dell R720-style drive sleds. The whole thing drops into a desktop mini rack or sits on a shelf.

Jeff Geerling featured the case in one of his latest videos, where he rebuilt his Pi-based Frigate surveillance server around the Cruiser and the DeskPi enclosure:

The build he put together is worth paying attention to:

Exaviz Cruiser with a Compute Module 5
DeskPi 2U case with two 4TB IronWolf NAS drives in R720 sleds
Hailo 8 AI accelerator for object detection
Frigate NVR running in Docker with three cameras

CPU usage stayed under 5%. Hailo utilization under 10%. Object detection at 10–11ms. Three cameras barely made the hardware break a sweat, and the setup can comfortably handle eight or more.

What makes this case impressive for the mini rack community is that it solves the enclosure problem cleanly. The Cruiser replaces a PoE switch, a Pi, and a storage server with one board. The DeskPi 2U case gives that board a proper home — with drive bays, ventilation, and a front panel power button — all in a 2U footprint that fits a desktop rack.

The case is currently a prototype in pre-order at $69.99 from DeskPi. Jeff noted a few areas DeskPi is still refining — drive sled cabling, a power LED, and airflow direction over the CM5 — but the bones are solid. We expect the production version to be even better.

You can read Jeff’s full writeup on his blog or watch the video above.

Full Cruiser specs and pre-order at exaviz.com. Documentation at exa-pedia.com.

Why the Cruiser Has Qwiic Instead of RS-485

2026-03-04T00:00:00Z

The Interceptor had RS-485. The Cruiser doesn’t.

If that sounds like we removed a feature, keep reading.

RS-485 is a serial bus. It connects one class of device: industrial controllers, sensors with serial output, Modbus equipment. It requires custom wiring, termination resistors, and possibly an oscilloscope when things go wrong.

The Cruiser has two Qwiic ports instead.

Qwiic is a standardized I2C connector. A 4-pin JST plug shared by SparkFun Electronics, Adafruit Industries (STEMMA QT), and dozens of other manufacturers. No soldering, no termination, no wiring. Click it in. It works. And the ecosystem has hundreds of modules.

Here’s the part some people may miss: because Qwiic carries I2C, it opens the door to I2C-to-UART bridge hardware that supports RS-485 signaling. The capability isn’t gone. It’s one adapter away instead of being hard-wired to a single protocol. And now you also get access to everything else.

What “everything else” looks like:

A Qwiic Single Relay ($18, SparkFun). Switch a 240VAC / 5.5A circuit over I2C. Lighting, irrigation, garage doors, HVAC. Controllable from Home Assistant.
An SCD-40 true CO2 sensor ($45, Adafruit). Server room or grow tent air quality monitoring with temperature and humidity. Automated alerts when ventilation fails.
An MCP9601 thermocouple amplifier ($15, Adafruit). Read K, J, T, N, S, E, B, and R type thermocouples over I2C. 3D printer enclosures, kilns, HVAC ducts.
A Qwiic Scale with NAU7802 ADC ($18.50, SparkFun). 24-bit load cell measurements. Propane tank level, beehive weight, package detection.
A PA1010D GPS module ($30, Adafruit). Precision location and time over I2C. Asset tracking, NTP time source, geofencing.
A 128x32 OLED display ($12.50, Adafruit). Mount it on your rack enclosure and show live PoE power draw per port, system uptime, IP address.

One of the first things a hardware integrator asked us for on the Interceptor was GPIO and I2C access. It would have required a custom add-on board. On the Cruiser, it’s two Qwiic ports, built in. Voltage selectable between 3.3V and 5V. Daisy-chainable.

We didn’t remove a feature. We replaced one protocol with an ecosystem.

Oh, and the Cruiser’s Qwiic ports are also compatible with Adafruit’s STEMMA QT connector. But that’s a post for another day.

Full specs and pre-order at exaviz.com. Documentation at exa-pedia.com.

(Photo Courtesy of Jeff Geerling)

The Cruiser and the Mini Rack: One Board to Run It All

2026-02-27T00:00:00Z

A typical home lab rack looks something like this:

A Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant. A PoE switch next to it to power everything else. Two power supplies. A handful of cables. It works, but it’s two devices doing a job one device could do.

The Exaviz Cruiser flips that around. The PoE switch is built into the board. You get 8 ports of PoE+ (expandable to 16), a CM5 running your stack, NVMe storage, and 2.5GbE WAN, all in one Mini-ITX form factor. There is no separate switch.

That means your PoE ports are free to do something useful:

A Raspberry Pi running Pi-hole for network-wide ad blocking
A JetKVM for remote keyboard/video/mouse access to other machines in the rack
An ADS-B SDR receiver for aircraft tracking
A PoE-powered GL-iNet router as a dedicated VPN gateway
A second Pi as a Docker or Kubernetes worker node

Every one of those devices draws well under 15W. Standard 802.3af. The Cruiser’s ports support up to 30W each, so you have headroom to spare. One cable per device, power and data together. No power bricks, no outlet hunting.

And for this kind of build, you can run the whole thing off our 48V 4A PSU. One small power brick, 192W of budget, powering the Cruiser and every device hanging off it. That’s your entire rack on a single supply.

The mini rack community has been building toward this kind of setup for years. The Cruiser just removes the layer where you need a separate switch to make it work.

Full specs and pre-order at exaviz.com. Documentation at exa-pedia.com.

(Photo Courtesy of Jeff Geerling)