Blink XT2 and mobile hotspot
Discussion
After being flooded last week we are out of the house for 9/12 months if building contractors first estimates are correct, I’d like to have the ability to leave the external cameras running but we have no downstairs electric and no phoneline/internet presently ( we will probably taking the sky package to medium term rental in next week/10days)
In my head I have this idea of running the 4 external cameras off a mobile WiFi hotspot and was wondering if anyone had tried this, or something similar ?
Did try Blink support and their reply on two occasions was it needs WiFi to work but no clarity on mobile
Any thoughts/suggestions?
In my head I have this idea of running the 4 external cameras off a mobile WiFi hotspot and was wondering if anyone had tried this, or something similar ?
Did try Blink support and their reply on two occasions was it needs WiFi to work but no clarity on mobile
Any thoughts/suggestions?
The cameras outbound connection won't much care how the internet is delivered so they will send cloud recordings up via a hotspot no problem provided the MiFi device's WiFi is strong enough for everything to connect to it.
What might be more of a gotcha is the live stream and two way audio from a remote location. Unless you pay for a specific SIM that doesn't use it, mobile connections use something called CGNAT. I won't go into the technical details but it stops you from easily running 'server' type applications on mobile connections. I would guess that all Blink's communication is done via their cloud service which would, in all liklihood, bypass this problem. I suggest you check by tethering your Blink system to your mobile phone first and then see if on another mobile, connected to a different network see if you can access the cameras live before buying the MiFi type device.
What might be more of a gotcha is the live stream and two way audio from a remote location. Unless you pay for a specific SIM that doesn't use it, mobile connections use something called CGNAT. I won't go into the technical details but it stops you from easily running 'server' type applications on mobile connections. I would guess that all Blink's communication is done via their cloud service which would, in all liklihood, bypass this problem. I suggest you check by tethering your Blink system to your mobile phone first and then see if on another mobile, connected to a different network see if you can access the cameras live before buying the MiFi type device.
Only issue I can foresee would the strength of Wi-Fi signal as you will have the hotspot upstairs, which presumably isn't where your wired router was. The Blink cameras are pretty weak and by the time the signal gets through walls it might not reach from a different location. I know I had to put an extra access point in just to get the camera to work despite being only 3ft from the house wall on a fence post.
if you use a 3 sim card you can bypass cgnat by changing the apn from three.co.uk to 3internet.
3 supplied huawei routers come already setup like this.
What I have been finding during lockdown is cell saturation in certain areas, 5 bars of signal but almost no throughput due to too many customers on the same cell.
3 supplied huawei routers come already setup like this.
What I have been finding during lockdown is cell saturation in certain areas, 5 bars of signal but almost no throughput due to too many customers on the same cell.
Daveb257 said:
Sounds a good plan, what volume of data are you using?
Not a great deal, by the looks of it, but I can't say exactly. I used a prepaid 24GB sim from Three for the first six months and I don't think it used up more than 2-4GB in that time. I've now got a BT SIM in there which uses a monthly data allowance pool. I don't think its use gets separated out from the other devices I have using the same pool.
Obviously, it also depends how much you use the cameras...
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