Question

Anyone tried running a camera off a cellular WiFi hot spot? How well does it work?  

Answer 1

I have a amcrest WiFi camera with SD card and hotspot. Uses very minimal data during standby. I can view live feed or playback from SD card. No problems. I have 2gb of data prepaid plan.  

Answer 2

Just one camera? They make sim card enabled game cameras. Used them before with minimal issue

Answer 3

What kind of camera? Packet loss isn’t great on a cell connection so you could get grainy pictures at times but as long as the signal is good enough it should be fine.  

Comments

@balzer not sure yet but trying to avoid paying the $400+ for the Arlo cellular version if possible.  

---

@subtreasury70 Challenge with a hot spot could be data cap. Steaming a camera will burn a decent amount of data. As another pointed out could look at a game camera but not sure the cost on those.  

Answer 4

Depends on location and how much you are willing to spend. Cradlepoint would be the best equipment for the hotspot gear.  

Answer 5

Arlo has some, local home builders use them hidden all over jobsite, good battery life for such a small device sim enabled not much data drainage

Answer 6

I ran two ring cameras and a ring alarm off of an AT&T hotspot for 3 months and never went over my 10GB plan. It worked well.  

Answer 7

What are you trying to protect? Car, House RV/Caravan etc. Different approaches for each.  

Comments

@secrest RV

---

Great, I'm working on a similar project but for a Caravan. I've built an Arduino auto dialler that has e. g. 9 sensors. Each sensor can call any number of people including SMS, Actual Text to speech voice call and Email. The problem with Caravans in storage is that the battery wouldn't last long, so I'm using a timer board that can be tripped into action from 'No' power to full power for everything else attached to it. e. g. Router, 4 Cameras, Alexa etc. It then stays on for 20 mins or for as long as the sensors keep tripping. Anyone tries to break in, the power is turned on to the system, the system phones the whole family, the whole family dial straight in to the cameras to see what's happening. The Arduino also has a GPS board so it will also relay its exact position every few minutes. Is this the sort of thing you are creating too?  

---

@secrest wish I knew how to work with Arduino like that.  

---

@subtreasury70 There is no need to program, you would simply buy the sketch (Script) and upload it, there is no need for soldering either. I'm putting one in a workshop as an emergency help system in case I cut my arm off or something. This is not vapourware, it's already working . aiming for the UK Caravan market eventually.  

---

@secrest if you don’t mind my asking which Arduino did you use? I tried looking around when thinking about doing the ST_Anything project and couldn’t figure out what’s suitable. There’s Uno, Mega, Nano, Micro, etc.  

---

I'm using the Arduino D1 R1 board which has built in WiFi. The board boots in under 3 seconds so would then start collating sensor trips whilst the Router is firing up. The D1 will continually try to connect until successful where it will then connect to my server and look up people to call. The great thing is, that a battery should last months because it's not being used until it's tripped.  

---

Imagine in the RV when your exploring the area and leaving your RV in the middle of a field. Anyone even going into your awning, messing with your bikes etc will immediately phone you on your mobile where you can then dial in, see who's doing what and maybe even connect via Alexa to have a nice chat with them.  

Answer 8

It works great till the cellular provider throttles you when you hit their limit of unlimited

Answer 9

I turn old cell phones into video monitoring cameras with this.  
https://manything.com/faqs.html#sma...hones