Hello, all. I’m brand new to this forum. I’m having a 2019 Mercedes 144 4x4 converted into a weekend van for my dog and me. I’m trying to figure out the whole Wi-fi thing. I understand the Weboost. I have one in my SUV. When I am away from my van and my dog is in there by himself*, I want a way to be able to see him with a video-cam. I also want to be able to monitor the internal temperature with a Temp Stick. I have two cell phones and I suppose I could leave one of them in the van when I’m not there and use it as a Wi-fi hotspot for the cam and Temp Stick. Are there options that make more sense than this? Is a Mifi the way to go? Or, is the Winegard Connect 2.0 4G2 a better option? The web site says that it is pay as you go, but I can’t seem to find any information on actual pricing of the plans. Also, what do you all consider the best signal booster to be? I’m not impressed with the performance of my Weboost in my SUV. If Winegard is the way to go, I guess it handles the boosting too. I would really appreciate any information you might have. Thanks!
*Please don’t worry about temperature issues. I have a 400 ah 24 V Lithium-Ion battery bank and a Dometic Penguin II a/c unit that will keep my dog cool when I’m not in the van. He will never be in there more than a couple of hours without me.
Hi! We don’t use one currenty as our cell service hasn been inconsistent throughout our two years of travel. We have a.c as well but try not to leave our pup unattended if the temps are high. Our inverter failed once and the a.c shut down, so we were reminded that nothing is a sure thing.
I am interested to hear what you decided to go with and how it works for you
Your biggest issue will be having WiFi inside the van, so I’m guessing leaving a phone would be the best option, but that certainly means figuring out the boost/router/signal issues first.
That said, as someone who has traveled everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) with a dog for the past 7years… why is the dog stuck in the van while you’re not??
Is the best way to get your dog to come with you everywhere you go is to get them certified as service dogs? Or do you just travel to places where they are allowed? I want to bring my puppers along but leaving them in car is out of the question. Just trying to figure out how I can make that possible
I use a ‘mifi’ router from Huawei and and extarnal antenna on the roof, works really well ! One time in Montenegro I didn’t had any signal on our phones, but we had 2 bars of 4g on the Mifi !
Our company uses those at remote customer locations or temporary setups where fixed line is not possible to have. Such as construction sites or video surveillance or remote buildings. On that site one use scenario mentioned is those installed in city buses providing free WiFi for passengers.
I’d quess overkill is a proper way to describe one. More features than I can figure out uses for. Despite being robust and well featured, at least here the retail price doesn’t differ much from what I paid for my Asus AC68 home router few years ago.
HI! I know your answer is quite old but I’m very interested. I’m planning to go in Montenegro and I need to work while travelling, and for work I mean at least 3hours of video call per day. So something like 70GB of good internet per month.
Anyway, my idea is to buy a hotspot + antenna like you said, and use a local SIM. But after some research I cannot find any local SIM that offer more then 15GB per month.
How did you do it? With a local SIM?
Would you share what Antenna did you bought and if you are happy with it?
Thanks
My experience at using a phone as a hotspot is flakey at best. Mine is an iPhone on Verizon. As soon as the computer goes to sleep or the phone loses the signal for an instant the connection is lost and I have to restart the hotspot feature. Will not trust it to ensure the safety of my dog! I’ve also used portable standalone hotspots and they’re just as flakey.
This is from years of experience working as a field geologist all over the country.
The one described by @KLF (RUT955 - LTE RS232/RS485 Router | Teltonika Networks) seems amazing, they also have a solution for Van/RV with an antenna, and they are from Germany which is one of the country that mostly care about security/privacy, so I kind of trust them on tech stuff
But is quite expencives, ca. 700Eur
I would not trust anything dependent on the internet or a cellular network to ensure the safety of my dog. I’ve seen too many of them stop working for no apparent reason to do that.
We have remote sites equipped with mobile routers like the one you linked for data monitoring and they’re constantly having to be reset.
For general internet access, fine, but to ensure the safety of a pet - no way.
oh yes, I wasn’t talking about monitoring the dog anymore I would also always bring my dog with me or ask someone to dogsitting.
I’m just trying to figuring out a way to work while traveling without fearing to have broken videocalls.
Do you also have an Antenna/signal booster?
In Amazon.de right now RUT955 is being sold for 230e and up, just 60e more than that Huawei, which is essentially a phone without screen. I don’t remember what brand local operator uses, looks similar anyways but black. Those had their batteries swell within a year of use due constant charging and of course it would not work without battery.
There is also a fancy antenna accessory available for the rut955, it houses the router and you just feed ethernet and power from the vehicle.
Amazing! I didn’t see that. For some reason, I just check the combo CamperNet.
Sorry I don’t understand you sentence “I don’t remember what brand local operator uses, looks similar anyways but black” Are you talking about the RUT955 or the Huawei?
So KLF, do you use this solution? If so, is it very difficult to set up/maintain? I’m a technical person but would like to no go crazy to set it up
And you use it with 2 local SIMs inside it?
Do you use it with an Antenna or works good also without?
I meant the Huawei. Even my mother has one and it’s battery is also swollen, but the brand is actually ZTE (MF910D, google image search is my friend), not Huawei. Same principle still stands: it is just a phone.
I have one antenna-less rut955 in my desk drawer right now. My boss was going to throw it away because customer didn’t return antennas or i/o connectors so I volunteered to rescue it instead. I’ve set these up for customer sites like warehouses and construction yards where they would serve security cameras and office workers.
Setup is pretty much like setting up your home wifi router, with the addition of one tab that has wwan settings. Then there is more, as it has serial i/o that can be used to turn remotely on/off things like fans or heater. Also the GPS, can be displayed on map so you can give a link to your parents and they can always see where you are (should you wish that).
I’m not using it at the moment. I sold my van because I changed from roaming work to an “office” job in another city (thanks corona!) and I needed something that is cheaper to commute with (I boughta Skoda Yeti for now). I might now see a roof tent in my future summer adventures…
I have a regular cctv inside that could rotate 360 so my opinion is your could just get a regular tept checker and place it near the cctv so you could check the tempt using your phone.
