EXAVIZ has launched the Cruiser, a mini-ITX-compatible carrier board for the Raspberry Pi CM5 that packs up to nine Ethernet ports into a single board designed for Network Video Recorders, smart home gateways, and edge AI applications. The board features one 2.5GbE port and up to eight Gigabit Ethernet ports with PoE+ support, alongside dual 4K HDMI 2.0 outputs, two SATA III ports, an M.2 PCIe Gen2/3 x1 socket for NVMe SSDs or AI accelerators, three USB 3.0 ports, and four USB 2.0 interfaces. An onboard ESP32-C6 module adds 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4 LE, and Zigbee connectivity.
The Cruiser comes in three variants to suit different networking needs. The full Cruiser model includes eight Gigabit Ethernet ports with PoE+ support, while the Cruiser Lite offers four PoE+ ports and the Cruiser Keel provides four Ethernet ports without PoE capability. An optional Interceptor PoE expansion board can add eight additional 10/100Mbps PoE+ ports, bringing the total to sixteen PoE-capable Ethernet ports. The board measures 170 x 120 mm (6.7 x 4.7 inches) and supports hardware RAID configurations (RAID 0/1/Span/JBOD) via DIP switch.
Power requirements scale with configuration, starting at 10W idle and 15W under load for just the CM5, up to 105W idle and 115W under load when powering a full setup with NVMe SSD, two hard drives, and eight PoE devices drawing 10W each. The board accepts 13V to 60V input via a DC jack, with 24V or higher recommended for the Keel and 48V or higher required for PoE+ variants. EXAVIZ designed a custom desktop case that accommodates the board alongside two 3.5-inch SATA drives and dual cooling fans.
The board works with Raspberry Pi OS out of the box with no custom images required, and also supports Ubuntu 25.10 or later thanks to kernel support for the Raspberry Pi RP1 SDIO driver. Documentation covers hardware configuration, software setup, and ESP32 firmware details. The Cruiser carrier board is available now from EXAVIZ starting at $89 (€82) for the Keel version, $109 (€100) for the Lite version, and $139 (€128) for the full version, with the optional desktop case priced at $129 (€119).
