Okay, I’ve been watching lots of YouTube videos about switches and I’ve just made myself more confused. Managed versus unmanaged seems to be having a GUI versus not having a GUI, but why would anyone want a GUI on a switch? Shouldn’t your router do that? Also, a switch is like a tube station for local traffic, essentially an extension lead, so why do some have fans?
You’re right, a basic unmanaged switch is basically that!
Managed switch is a smarter switch. For example, creating VLANs or doing port trunking.
These are generally configured on the switch GUI as you mentioned.
Think of them as a computer with dedicated software to control how the network interfaces behaves.