Mobile WiFi, which one to buy

[Dee-ruth]

Hi all. We are about to become full timers, although it's not the right time to do this, personally it is for us as we are about to become unemployed. We've always wanted to tour Europe, so we're going to do it, but very cautiously. The van is now fully kitted out apart from the mobile wifi. Could anyone recommend which system to go for. My partner was about to buy a system from motorhomewifi, but i thought it would be good to get some advice from anyone with more knowledge about these things than us. Please help. Thanks

 

[Tommo and Ca]

We have 'Roam' from Maxview. Fitted about 6 months ago and is excellent. Travelled to Spain back in March and as long as you can get a mobile signal it works well. We have an Amazon Firestick and can receive all the TV we need.
Good luck with your travels.

 

[eddie]

We don’t sell any of them, despite plenty of manufacturers requests to stock and install them.

We always recommend MotorhomeWiFi

its not the hardware that makes the difference, it is the depth of knowledge and support they give when it doesn’t work that makes the difference

 

[kevenh]

For a dealer supply/install company motorhomewifi are well liked on this forum.

I went the self install route & bought a Huawei E5577- 4G Mifi and later an internal aerial.
Currently I’m using a 3 sim that’s data only - 24GB in 2yrs

The aerial is still under test but the other parts are working well

 

[tonyblack1964]

I work (in IT) from my motorhome occasionally so reliable 4g WiFi is crucial. This 4g WiFi router and external aerial package from motorhomewifi.com has proved to be indispensable to me:

4G Smart Compact - Motorhome WiFi

4G Smart Antenna & 4G Compact Router Vehicle or Portable Use Quick Mount Docking Station 150 Mbps CAT 4 10 Wireless Devices 25-50m WiFi Range On-Screen Display WiFi Repeater Mode Easy to use smart phone app Ideal for: 1-2 concurrent users, web browsing & leisure

www.motorhomewifi.com

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[orridge]

We went with Motorhome wifi had a few questions regarding the options and Adam from Motorhome Wifi was really helpful. Did consider the Roam system.

 

[Robster100]

Strange, I reached out to MotorhomeWiFi to try and understand how their £65 internal aerial differed from some £20 alternatives on Amazon.

All I ever got back was comments about their testing, CE nark and safety, and bent coat hanger remarks concerning Amazon alternatives.

None of these comments helped me decide that technically there was a real reason for the extra cost and I would get some real return on my purchase!

 

[tonyblack1964]

Unless you purchase one of the £20 Amazon alternatives and send it to motorhomewifi for analysis I'm not sure how you expect them to be able to give you a detailed breakdown of the differences. They would only ever be able to give you a broad explanation for the differences in quality. I've generally found the 'pay peanuts you get monkeys' analogy to hold true.

 

[sallylillian]

As Eddie says its about support and crucially your own skill sets. It you understand simple networking, antenna connectivity, 12vdc and are conversant with generic router setup then you don't need a third party to provide a plug and play package.
However if you have honest doubts buy from someone like Motorhomewifi who will likely provide you a robust solution with little access to areas of setup that you can truly screw up.
Do not decieve yourself either way on your ability.

 

[autorouter]

Strange, I reached out to MotorhomeWiFi to try and understand how their £65 internal aerial differed from some £20 alternatives on Amazon.

All I ever got back was comments about their testing, CE nark and safety, and bent coat hanger remarks concerning Amazon alternatives.

It's easy to figure it out yourself. Simply compare the radiation pattern diagrams in the horizontal and vertical planes for the frequency bands you are interested in. Then compare the signal-to-noise ratios over the same frequencies. Do you have the info for the £20 amazon offering?

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[Mark and Mindy]

I don't see the point in using an internal aerial for for mobile Wi-Fi. To improve the chances of mobile data reception in a poor reception area an external aerial and mounted as high as is practical is essential.

before getting a proper mobile Wi-Fi installed I did try tethering my mobile phone and sharing the Wi-Fi inside the van but I found that this mainly only worked during daytime and that at night when the silver blinds were drawn the mobile signal dropped right off. Putting my mobile on the roof through the roof vent helped.

A good reason for me using MotorhomeWiFi was that they could supply the brackets and pads suitable for mounting the LTE antenna on corrugated the roof of our PVC.

Mark

 

[eddie]

Strange, I reached out to MotorhomeWiFi to try and understand how their £65 internal aerial differed from some £20 alternatives on Amazon.

All I ever got back was comments about their testing, CE nark and safety, and bent coat hanger remarks concerning Amazon alternatives.

None of these comments helped me decide that technically there was a real reason for the extra cost and I would get some real return on my purchase!

Strange I have always found that the technical backup and after sales service from Amazon lacking.

Being told "send it back for a refund" isn't always the answer

 

[Speve]

A Huawei with dual antenna sockets and a good external antenna such as Poynting and with the necessary DIY skills it can be quite easy to fit.
I have just done mine and did not have any problems and can now get a much better strength signal.
there is lots of help in threads on the forum Lenny HB has a good one modding the gin palace

 

[Wellington]

I have no input on the WiFi, but we are abroad and I feel happier here than I did in the UK. Everyone wears masks indoors (with none of this absurd ‘the-government-is-trying-to-control-us’ whining) and most things can be done outdoors, as it isn’t raining all the time. People are taking care, but getting on with it. It’s quite busy here, but we are in a tourist town in The Continental Fortnight. There are hardly any Brits (Or Germans, for whom this a popular tourist destination) but plenty of Italian visitors. Not having to take your holiday when everyone else does will mean you can avoid busy hotspots. (If it we’re up to me, I wouldn’t be here now either!)

 

[Robster100]

Unless you purchase one of the £20 Amazon alternatives and send it to motorhomewifi for analysis I'm not sure how you expect them to be able to give you a detailed breakdown of the differences. They would only ever be able to give you a broad explanation for the differences in quality. I've generally found the 'pay peanuts you get monkeys' analogy to hold true.

I agree with the “pay peanuts” analogy, however I have also seen pay more for a quality product and up up with pretty much the same result as a cheap product.

i was trying to understand if their window mounted Ariel had any ‘active’ components or was it in the end just a bit of wire attached to the window!

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[sallylillian]

I have no input on the WiFi, but we are abroad and I feel happier here than I did in the UK. Everyone wears masks indoors (with none of this absurd ‘the-government-is-trying-to-control-us’ whining) and most things can be done outdoors, as it isn’t raining all the time. People are taking care, but getting on with it. It’s quite busy here, but we are in a tourist town in The Continental Fortnight. There are hardly any Brits (Or Germans, for whom this a popular tourist destination) but plenty of Italian visitors. Not having to take your holiday when everyone else does will mean you can avoid busy hotspots. (If it we’re up to me, I would be here now either!)

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[Wellington]

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Edited for typos that make me look illiterate. I meant that we are restricted to school holidays, and although it is a lovely spot I wouldn’t choose to come here in high season if I had the option to come off season.

 

[Addie]

Strange, I reached out to MotorhomeWiFi to try and understand how their £65 internal aerial differed from some £20 alternatives on Amazon.

All I ever got back was comments about their testing, CE nark and safety, and bent coat hanger remarks concerning Amazon alternatives.

None of these comments helped me decide that technically there was a real reason for the extra cost and I would get some real return on my purchase!

I declined, in the most polite and light hearted way possible, to provide a 'technical comparison' between our products and these two on Amazon / eBay neither of which have any specification sheets on which to form a comparison:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/293483776420
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YBWRJBD

Like every company in the leisure market right now we're getting a huge volume of enquiries and while I'm more than happy to discuss the benefits of our product and the service we offer, with all due respect being asked to compare ourselves against an £11.99 antenna on Amazon is perhaps not the best starting point

I agree with the “pay peanuts” analogy, however I have also seen pay more for a quality product and up up with pretty much the same result as a cheap product.

i was trying to understand if their window mounted Ariel had any ‘active’ components or was it in the end just a bit of wire attached to the window! ☹

All antennas, at the end of the day, are a 'bit of wire' to one degree or another. Just some bits of wire have hundreds of thousands of pounds of R&D behind them and others are just 'wire coathangers'. If you had a car in the 70's you might already know that the wire coathanger worked to some degree - but doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job.

We hope to provide a full solution backed by advice, support and aftersales which hopefully results in lots of happy customers like those who have commented on this thread. If you go the DIY route then there is lots of good advice on fun and I try and help where I can.

 

[autorouter]

If you had a car in the 70's you might already know that the wire coathanger worked to some degree

Definitely old technology - it's all Pringles cans now.

 

[Dee-ruth]

I have no input on the WiFi, but we are abroad and I feel happier here than I did in the UK. Everyone wears masks indoors (with none of this absurd ‘the-government-is-trying-to-control-us’ whining) and most things can be done outdoors, as it isn’t raining all the time. People are taking care, but getting on with it. It’s quite busy here, but we are in a tourist town in The Continental Fortnight. There are hardly any Brits (Or Germans, for whom this a popular tourist destination) but plenty of Italian visitors. Not having to take your holiday when everyone else does will mean you can avoid busy hotspots. (If it we’re up to me, I wouldn’t be here now either!)

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[Dee-ruth]

We are so looking forward to our new adventure, our business has had to close, therefore we felt its either now or never to do something that we were going to do years ago when our daughter was small.
Any advice in travelling Europe and money saving tips would be gratefully received, we are hoping to live off-grid as much as we can to save money, when we have to come back we still hope to live in our Van full time for a few years. Thanks

 

[Belledog]

Motorhome WiFi for us. Very helpful after a avtex tv failed to connect. Nothing to do with their products but took the time to email me to see what the issue was.

 

[Sunnyb]

We have the 4g compact package from Motorhome-Wi-fi. Impressed with the service from start to finish and the products seem good quality. Fitted myself last month and so far so good. No problems ( you just have to be careful and bold with drilling through the roof! Check and measure again). Their instruction booklet is excellent, clear and logical... but most importantly, everything works as it should. We are currently trialling Smarty 30Gb for £10 per month (non contract) which has been more than adequate for two long weekend trips , watching Netflix on Firestick and web browsing. Great to have access whilst in motion . Signal has been definite improvement on mobile and connectivity has been stable. Firm believer in you get what you pay for. Would recommend.

 

[Otter Spotter]

Motorhome WiFi for me too, bought the set last year and it very rarely drops out. Worked on Shetland even Hermeness car park

Hermaness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

cannot get any further away from mainland uk.

 

[peterc10]

We are so looking forward to our new adventure, our business has had to close, therefore we felt its either now or never to do something that we were going to do years ago when our daughter was small.
Any advice in travelling Europe and money saving tips would be gratefully received, we are hoping to live off-grid as much as we can to save money, when we have to come back we still hope to live in our Van full time for a few years. Thanks

Another thing to think about is what SIM you are going to get. For that you need to know how much data you need, which may be a hit and miss thing. At the moment I am using a Smarty SIM in my phone. Unlimited calls and texts and 30GB per month data for a tenner. They also do plans for £15 for 50GB and £20 for unlimited. All of these can be used in a Mifi router. The good thing is that because it is on a 30 day contract you can swap plans from month to month. The bad thing is that all of the plans are limited to 20GB per month when in the EU.

If you follow <Broken link removed>you and I will both get a free month if you take up their deal.

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[StephDeLux]

Having visited motorhomewifi website, I've found that at least this is sold at a frankly obscene price:

Stand-Off Roof Mount - Motorhome WiFi

Suitable for all van conversions Surface Mounting

www.motorhomewifi.com

£35 for a bit of metal that's plied into a very simple shape.

Consider this very similar item available for less than £2:

150mm Stand Off Bracket for Cable Tray (Sold in 1's)

150mm stand off bracket

www.cef.co.uk

Another example of over-charging to remain polite:

4G Mobile Lite - Motorhome WiFi

4G Window Antenna & 4G Portable WiFi Router Best for portability Our 4G Mobile Lite is a portable solution allowing you to easily transfer both the antenna and router between vehicles. This cost effective solution is ideal for those who want an incremental increase in thier data reception. With...

www.motorhomewifi.com

That's £70 for a Netgear antenna that is sold £40 in the rest of UK.

That didn't give me confidence in the rest of the pricing. Went my own route (no pun intended) and it all works well. It is not all that complicated frankly.

I also generally avoid Chinese brands if I can. The very prominent place given to Huawei on motorhomewifi website is another thing that pushed me away. Buying from a European or American company using Chinese subcontractors is not at all the same as buying directly from a Chinese company.

 

[kevenh]

Optional discussion. Avoiding tat on ebay like USB leads, chargers, etc. from China is a good idea.
But to cut out products from internationally recognised Chinese companies like Huawei could be limiting.

If the stance was you were buying UK products instead, OK, but why US rather than Chinese?

 

[StephDeLux]

why US rather than Chinese?

Because supporting a murderous dictatorship government is not in my goals.

 

[Otter Spotter]

Because supporting a murderous dictatorship government is not in my goals.

It would be interesting if you looked at many of your everyday items to see which do NOT have any parts manufactured in China, most of your 3 pin and usb sockets in your van will be from China, so how far are you prepared to go for your principles I wonder

 

[StephDeLux]

It would be interesting if you looked at many of your everyday items to see which do NOT have any parts manufactured in China, most of your 3 pin and usb sockets in your van will be from China, so how far are you prepared to go for your principles I wonder

I know that. But as I said, it is not at all the same to get a product from a non-Chinese company that is, for now, compelled to use Chinese slave labour for competitive reasons.

If you order from a Chinese company, it is still slave labour of course, but all of the profits go to China, and you actually support their own development. And, Chinese companies have no pressure from regulators, customers and public opinions to improve things, contrarily to American and European brands.