It's more a case of creating a vendor lock-in, than preventing compatibility issues. If you buy an expensive XYZ branded switch, they expect you to buy their SFP(+) modules as well. The software in the switch (or NIC) will just refuse to work if they see a different vendor ID. Officially, this will prevent using untested modules, to limit support issues. Even some generic Intel branded NICs will stop working, if you use 3rd party modules. This goes as far as allowing to use 3rd party DAC or1G modules, but blocking the use of 10G modules. The same chip, but mounted on a HP branded NIC, will accept the 10G modules perfectly fine. In some cases, you can overwrite the NIC firmware (flipping one bit) and it will work. Similar to changing the vendor ID in the SFP module.

I have been wondering about how this device works. Thanks for doing a video

This is like a basic tool. Handy to have. What I was taking from it is that there are different types and power for doing different distances and speeds. So the low power are slow and short and the higher power should be for long distance. The lower the dBm in the white, the further the signal will go (stability)( and the bigger the gap)

I don't think this thing is really meant to be used with anything but FS's own SFPs. It might not be able to screw with vendor ID if it doesn't know what the SFP is. It looks like the software remembers the last SFP part number it recognised, confusing you a few times :) Also, yes, they make fiber loop things you can plug in. they're barely larger than the LC connector itself.

My understanding is that the box is designed to program their transcievers to a compatible brand id. Also believe it can be used to update the transcievers with new firmware/codes if things are found incompatible. I suspect they can enable it so you can put a manufacturers transciever in and they can read all the i2c flash on the device and then their engineers can check it physically can meet the requirements and allow you to clone the sfp with the data, eg if they are having compatability issues. I dont have one but a colleague had an older edition

I wish there was an Industry standard for SFP module Firmware etc. - all the vendor locking and the compatibility problems are so unnecessary IMHO :/

Aww... this is madness... Been digging into this new optical fiber infrastructure for months, and I think I got a couple of things right... If an ISP delivers optical fiber line to your house or business, there is little hope to trick them into using your own equipment. It all stands in their hardware safety. Engineers and programmers studied this well before implementing the fiber optic infrastructure. The rules are made by ISP's, otherwise you will have compatibility issues . This is why the OLT settings decides what sfp's setting parameters to accept or no. Sfp's heat up because they generate light or laser beams. Generating too much / less , light or laser beam can heat up or burn the the ISP's fiber optic cable or slow down the connection speed . There is also the issue of physics to take in count. I think that the temperature and DB graphs that are shown in the diagnose tests are related to frequency of the beam reflection inside the fiber optic cable and in my opinion best is to stay in the middle of the white area to be able to accomplish a steady network connection. And to sum it all up you need to take in consideration the distance between devices. In few words the fiber optics cable type and technical ratings. And here most common ones are the simplex and duplex fiber optic cable. From what I understand simplex one is better for long ranges but I doubt that you can achieve higher performance than on a duplex cable , as duplex uses 2 physical fiber optic cables one RX and one TX that actually take place of the upload and download separate lines actually. In few words, taking all this in consideration on a LAN network connection , you make the rules while on a ISP fiber optic internet connection it all depend on your ISP's infrastructure.

We have one of these at work, very handy when you need an SFP programming for a different vendor. Don't think we have ever tried the FS box with non-FS optics. Was interesting to see it could read them even if it can't write them. The SFP at 31:51 looks a little suspect to me as your receiving more light than is being transmitted.

For Lenovo, just choose IBM and it should be fine

So will we see you replacing your modem with a direct sfp into pfsense ? You could replace the serial number of the sfp module with the one from your modem

so requires a windows/macos machine, browser based, requires login, so it can be turned into a brick at any point, and you can only use part #s they support? why would anyone buy this?

I haven't deaõt with anything latest and greatest, but on 1, 25G SFP land different vendors where not universalky programmable and needed mainly some additional grounding tricks for the writing part to work. It is likely the same here.

interesting device.

I'm very curious how that goes.

First to comment and I feel honoured. Love the videos Morten, keep up the awesome videos.

It's a shame that the government's haven't forced equipment manufacturers to support all optics. It's ridiculous. Countless times being stuck somewhere, where I needed the optic encoder to program a compatible optic to work. Some gear will light up, but won't report levels or temps. Stupid.

10:39 - Arista is pronounced A-wrist-a and Juniper is pronounced june-nuh-per. They are pretty big network vendors.

On my fiber Cable i see about 3

Mangling vendor names (0:59 "Jupiter", 10:26 "Jumber", "Artista"??) was fun - but don't you know that this FS box is supposed to configure FS modules to look like e.g. Cisco or Juniper ones only? Don't try to f*ck up the EEPROM of original Cisco, Juniper modules!