With a few trips under our belt, and also transitioning ourselves to full-time living in the RV, we've been able to experiment a bit with our electronics situation. This is what we've learned so far, and hopefully you are just as able to take advantage of what we've learned when you start your adventure.
The first is internet. We did decide to switch service providers to one that's more friendly towards unlimited data and hotspots. Sadly, this came with a hidden termination fee for unlocking the phone to be able to switch carriers, and it was a policy that changed recently. Let's just say they didn't want us to "kindly do the needful". Once that headache was completed, the next step was to hooking up the wireless router because the phone only afforded one hotspot connection. The good news is that the router was able to setup properly, and even now we're using the hotspot for our internet, shunning the wired connection we've had at the house. Remember that public wi-fi is not dependable, not to mention you want something encrypted for personal matters, such as banking and bill paying.
Some of you reading this are probably wondering how we hooked up everything. The first thing is to configure the router. There are tutorials from Smart Domotik, Wi-Fi Planet, and Quick Fix that can help you with your setup. To get your phone's subnet information, you should be able to simply connect a computer directly to your phone's hotspot; in our case, we didn't have to change the router's subnet. I also recommend using "Client" mode instead of "Client Bridge" because you want to be connecting to your router even though it will have the same name as your phone. The next and most important step, especially when you're given only one hotspot connection, is that the order in which everything is connected matters. You have to turn on the router first, then your hotspot, and only after the router and hotspot are connected can you then add other devices. If another device gets the IP Address first, the router won't be able to connect because the one address is gone. Third, once you have everything set, keep an ethernet cable attached to your router, even if you don't have the other side connected, because if something goes down, you may need to hook a computer to that wired connection to be able to troubleshoot the router.
Once you have connectivity, start looking at your devices. During Trip 1, we found that the bulky desktop wasn't used at all, even though we brought it along. The shakedown had it as a sort of file storage area, but was a little noisy and cumbersome to put together. A small solid state drive with a smaller computer should do the trick for what we need. Since we don't have a toy hauler with an office room equipped, there's no reason to bring the desktop and we can live without the heavy gaming apps, so that will likely go to storage. As for computers, some people prefer cell phones today for accessing internet and apps, but it's still good to have a straight computer with you. Laptops are nice to have, but one newer invention we seem to like is the Raspberry Pi. These are small, inexpensive, yet powerful computers able to do what we need, and we're also able to do small electronics projects not only to entertain us, but also for potential rig improvements. They also have HDMI outputs, meaning you can connect it to your TV, not needing an additional monitor. Round it all out with a video game system doubling as a Blu-Ray player, along with a streaming video device, and we're good to go.
Sometimes you're going to have lessons learned while you travel, and looking at our situation, we find ourselves ready to go. We can spend less time worrying about our living arrangement in terms of electronics, and more time following our internal compass.
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