Mobile Hotspot

billk9989

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My DR900X arrives today. No experience, my first dash cam. I want this for driving, parking, and showing video clips of our road trips to our family.

I’ll likely get the auxiliary battery for parking, but will start with the car battery. I‘m going to do the install myself, and will use the OBD2 port for unswitched power and then cut into my switched radar detector lead for switched power. This way I won’t have to get into the fuse box again, which is underneath carpet in my car.

I’d like to have a mobile hot spot that would double for general data use and for live observing of our car when parked. I have a Volvo XC60 that has a built-in AT&T hotspot for a monthly fee. But it goes off when the car is turned off, and there is no way to keep it on. The Blackvue communication module appears to be dedicated to its job and not suitable for general data use.

So, my question is, can I buy a mobile hotspot (say from Verizon, as I am already their customer and they have excellent data coverage for the weird areas we like to travel) and have it work for live dashcam coverage when the car is parked? Or do I have to have the dedicated connector module from Blackvue?
 
So, my question is, can I buy a mobile hotspot (say from Verizon, as I am already their customer and they have excellent data coverage for the weird areas we like to travel) and have it work for live dashcam coverage when the car is parked? Or do I have to have the dedicated connector module from Blackvue?
You can use a hotspot type device but it's usefulness for parking mode is going to be dependent on it's battery life. You would also need to charge it daily.

I looked into one when I was in a similar situation as you. I didn't want an aux battery pack and I didn't want to constantly charge the hotspot. During my research on them I found that you can hardwire a hotspot to the car battery (fusebox) then use a hardwire that has built in battery cutoff.. The other problem is that some hotspots are set to auto turn off after an amount of time regardless if they are receiving power or not. Some allow you to change the time out setting but many don't...

I ended up going with the CM100 from BlackVue and am happy with it. It only allows one other device to connect to it so if you need more than that then you'll need to look elsewhere...

You can see my thread on the CM100 here: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/blackvue-cm100.45317/
 
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I read your thread, thanks. As I understand your comments, I can substitute one IOS device at a time, for general internet access, and concurrently share the cellular network with the dashcam, right? One is enough for us. If yes is the answer, I’m interested and have several more questions to bug you with, lol…
 
I read your thread, thanks. As I understand your comments, I can substitute one IOS device at a time, for general internet access, and concurrently share the cellular network with the dashcam, right? One is enough for us. If yes is the answer, I’m interested and have several more questions to bug you with, lol…
The CM100 can have 2 total devices connected to it. One is obviously the camera for it's cloud service so you can attach one other device to it's WiFi. That can pretty much be anything like a tablet, phone, ect...

If you need to connect the app to the camera for settings or whatnot then you'd need to free up a connection spot by turning the other connected device's (tablet, phone ect) WiFi off...

Hope that made sense..
 
Thank you. Total sense. One added connection all I need. I don’t worry about battery at this point. We drive the car daily and I don’t need parking mode most of the time. Also, we live seasonally in MN and AZ, so don’t encounter the needs for those good old heavy duty cold cranking hours.

We do extensive, over the road trips a lot, all over the western USA. Into some remote areas. Verizon has the best coverage for general data use. But T-Mobile would be fine for parking mode and normal internet use when we are in range. When not in range we can use our cellphones with, hopefully, Verizon coverage. (Sometimes there is no coverage, at all.)

I have read of problems with AT&T getting activated on the Blackvue device. So I’d be fine w/T-Mobile if that’s what’s working well for you. I don’t seem to find a description of T-Mobile plans. I’ll keep looking. I’m gonna do this! I’ll also talk to AT&T and see if they can offer something that they can understand and make work.
 
Thank you. Total sense. One added connection all I need. I don’t worry about battery at this point. We drive the car daily and I don’t need parking mode most of the time. Also, we live seasonally in MN and AZ, so don’t encounter the needs for those good old heavy duty cold cranking hours.

We do extensive, over the road trips a lot, all over the western USA. Into some remote areas. Verizon has the best coverage for general data use. But T-Mobile would be fine for parking mode and normal internet use when we are in range. When not in range we can use our cellphones with, hopefully, Verizon coverage. (Sometimes there is no coverage, at all.)

I have read of problems with AT&T getting activated on the Blackvue device. So I’d be fine w/T-Mobile if that’s what’s working well for you. I don’t seem to find a description of T-Mobile plans. I’ll keep looking. I’m gonna do this! I’ll also talk to AT&T and see if they can offer something that they can understand and make work.
Here are the T-Mobile pans.. I went with the 5GB data plan for $20 a month but may end up downgrading it to their $10 a month 2GB plan..

 
Search for my posts on here, I have the same dashcam and have talked about your concerns.

If you're gonna get power from the OBD port, look at the OBD power cable I mention. Almost a year now and still working like a champ.

I also use a Verizon MiFi 8800L jetpack Hotspot. Works like a champ.
 
Search for my posts on here, I have the same dashcam and have talked about your concerns.

If you're gonna get power from the OBD port, look at the OBD power cable I mention. Almost a year now and still working like a champ.

I also use a Verizon MiFi 8800L jetpack Hotspot. Works like a champ.

So I’m looking through your stuff and learning. Re. your hotspot, I like it that it’s Verizon and you’re having good reliability experience. With the Blackvue external connector there is no charging problem. I hate the idea of having to remember to manually charge yet another device, which is the default way of charging your hot spot. How do you manage charging your hotspot? You know, if I got the Blackvue high capacity battery I suppose that I could wire the hotspot into it.
 
How do you manage charging your hotspot?

I have it plugged into a USB port in my vehicle that's hot whenever the motor's running, so it charges automatically every time I turn the key.
 
Got it. I had this model mixed up with one that required a wall charger.

I think that I’ll get this unit, as I like Verizon service. It sells on Amazon at a very attractive price, but there are comments about a recall. Maybe these are used devices that have been reflashed, don’t know.

Where did you buy yours? What data plan do you have, and is it enough for your use?
 
Oh, and do you see any problem with antenna sensitivity if I keep in my glove compartment?
 
Where did you buy yours? What data plan do you have, and is it enough for your use?

Bought mine straight from the Verizon website and had them mail it to me.

I generally run it for parking mode 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus whenever I go somewhere on weekends.

I share an 8 GB data plan between 4 devices, and the hotspot averages about 300 MB per monthly billing cycle. Not really even a blip on my data usage.

Oh, and do you see any problem with antenna sensitivity if I keep in my glove compartment?

I keep mine in front of the shifter on a tray that's practically under the dash in a 2020 Dodge Durango. It's probably the closest I can get to being in the glove box without actually being in it.

Signal strength has always been great. Pretty much mirrors the bars I see on my cel phone.

That said, you may have an entirely different experience with your particular vehicle and where you live.
 
Is there no settings option to enable/disable LTE stay on in park mode? That would be a shame.
 
Bought mine straight from the Verizon website and had them mail it to me.

I generally run it for parking mode 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus whenever I go somewhere on weekends.

I share an 8 GB data plan between 4 devices, and the hotspot averages about 300 MB per monthly billing cycle. Not really even a blip on my data usage.



I keep mine in front of the shifter on a tray that's practically under the dash in a 2020 Dodge Durango. It's probably the closest I can get to being in the glove box without actually being in it.

Signal strength has always been great. Pretty much mirrors the bars I see on my cel phone.

That said, you may have an entirely different experience with your particular vehicle and where you live.

So I bought the 8800 from Verizon and have it up and running as the cloud connection. It’s great(!), very low latency compared to the hotspot generated by my car, excellent overall performance. I bought 15 GB/mo for $20. This hotspot will be great for general internet use for cross country travel, in addition to Parking Mode.

My only problem with it is that when I do the 192.168.1.1 thing I get constant, intermittent disconnection, so that if I’m in the middle of something, I am constantly interrupted. When not in admin mode, normal operation is perfect, no intermittent disconnections.

Also, I can find a way to change the admin password, but no way to change the user access password…? There must be a way, but I can’t find it.

As an aside, any particular settings on the Blackvue do you think are important, in order to give the most information with the least aggrevation? One thing that is mildly aggrevating to me is that I have notifications set up, and every time I get out of the car, open the back door to get something before leaving the area, close the back door, I get an impact event on my watch. I turned down the G-sensitivity, but still get it. Don’t know how far I can turn it down before I lose actual events.
 
My only problem with it is that when I do the 192.168.1.1 thing I get constant, intermittent disconnection, so that if I’m in the middle of something, I am constantly interrupted. When not in admin mode, normal operation is perfect, no intermittent disconnections.

Not something I've ever experienced. When I wanna change the Jetpack settings, I pull it out of the car and bring it inside. Set it on my desk next to my phone, connect my phone to it, and go to the website on my phone. No issues for me.

Could be interference from other 2.4 GHz networks on your same channel. You could also try setting the cam and the device you connect to it with to use 5 GHz and see if that helps.

Also, I can find a way to change the admin password, but no way to change the user access password…? There must be a way, but I can’t find it.

When on the device website's home page: Menu (triple hash icon, upper left) > Wi-Fi > Primary Network. Password box is under the SSID and Security items.

Now, I cannot find a way to change the ADMIN password. The instructions in the manual and on the Verizon website do not line up with the device admin website's menu and don't work. Far as I can tell, there's no way to change that. If you've figured out how to change the device admin password, please clue me in!

As an aside, any particular settings on the Blackvue do you think are important, in order to give the most information with the least aggravation?

Only recording quality, really. The recording length is set to one minute and can't be changed, and I keep it on the highest quality setting in case I need to ever pull something from the video. Far as I'm concerned everything else is personal preference.

I use a 128GB card and swap it out every 90 days so I always know it's good. I also turn off all the cloud upload options except for driving impact and parking events. I plan to pull the card if something happens on the road and pop in a new one immediately (I keep 4 in the car on a constant rotation), but I'm afraid I'll forget in the heat of the moment and the crash vid I need will get overwritten. Probably saves me a good bit of upload bandwidth but I've never cared enough to test it.

As far as the Jetpack, I am impressed that it has a lot of the functionality of the average wi-fi router. I have security enabled and a user password set on mine, but I don't really bother with anything else, since it's only for use in the car and its range is limited.

One thing that is mildly aggravating to me is that I have notifications set up, and every time I get out of the car, open the back door to get something before leaving the area, close the back door, I get an impact event on my watch. I turned down the G-sensitivity, but still get it. Don’t know how far I can turn it down before I lose actual events.

Yeah, I get the same thing, it's one of the common complaints about this cam. Unfortunately, that's something you have to work out with trial and error since it'll be different between vehicles. Took me awhile to get my parking mode sensitivity where I want it, but I still get false alarms too. Park too close to the road, passing buses or cars with loud exhaust will set it off. Someone parking next to me and slamming their car door hard is sometimes enough. It's a crapshoot. Wish I had better news for ya.

They way I adjusted mine was to note the time whenever I got a false alarm notification and then use the BV viewer to find the corresponding parking event video to watch that one minute clip. The BV Viewer has a g-Meter display for all three axes and will show the spikes that set off your alert. Each of those 3 axes are configurable for sensitivity on a scale of 1 - 10 in the BV firmware, and there are 5 lines above neutral and 5 below neutral in the BV Viewer display.

My monkey brain says each of those lines is worth 2 Gs (units, or whatever they actually represent...), so five lines equals the threshold of 10 that you can set in the firmware. Look at it and you'll see what I mean. Bus drove by at time XX:XX and gave me an alarm? Pull up the video from that time, find the spike, see what the level was, adjust that axis that registered it in the firmware accordingly.

That's the best place to start that's not just a stab in the dark. Remember, though, it's just a starting point: You don't wanna detune it so much that all the bus-driveby false alarms go away but the sensitivity is now too low to register that door ding.

BV did make a firmware change not too long ago where they inserted a 5 second delay for parking mode notifications to stop them right when you get outta the car and close doors. I think they should make it user-configurable, because I usually fart around for more than 5 seconds before I get out of my car... So do make sure you have the most recent firmware in your cam.

Also, Parking Mode and Driving Mode sensitivity are configured separately, so make sure you're tweaking the right one when you dig into the settings.

About the only thing I wish the 8800L would do that it won't right now (besides being able to change the #*%$*^admin PW...) is to turn on automatically when it's plugged into a USB port, but turned off, when I apply power to start the car.
 
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I haven’t had time to go through all of what you’ve written, but I will. If I isolate the hotspot it still disconnects. So there is a problem and I have to get it diagnosed or get the box replaced.

“Now, I cannot find a way to change the ADMIN password. The instructions in the manual and on the Verizon website do not line up with the device admin website's menu and don't work. Far as I can tell, there's no way to change that. If you've figured out how to change the device admin password, please clue me in!”

There is a way. Since I can’t get into admin mode and make it work reliably I am going from memory here:

If you do the 192.168.1.1 from a phone you don’t get the right sort of screen - what you see does not match the instructions. But if you put in the web address from an ipad you get a different looking screen. Now you see a menu in the upper right hand corner, per the instructions. You do the sign-in. Once you are signed in, you go back to that menu and access the admin functions and you can change the admin password. This is from memory; I think it’s close, give it a shot.

My hotspot was fully charged when we parked the car yesterday afternoon. This morning the hotspot was down to 8% battery when I checked it. I have parking mode set to motion and impact, not the 1 fps option. I recall in one of your comments on a different thread that you were getting plenty of battery life? Looks like I’m going to get quite a bit less than 24 hours. I almost want to hardwire the device to a 5VDC source that’s always on, but I don’t have a ready 5V always on source in the car.
 
I haven’t had time to go through all of what you’ve written, but I will. If I isolate the hotspot it still disconnects. So there is a problem and I have to get it diagnosed or get the box replaced.

“Now, I cannot find a way to change the ADMIN password. The instructions in the manual and on the Verizon website do not line up with the device admin website's menu and don't work. Far as I can tell, there's no way to change that. If you've figured out how to change the device admin password, please clue me in!”

There is a way. Since I can’t get into admin mode and make it work reliably I am going from memory here:

If you do the 192.168.1.1 from a phone you don’t get the right sort of screen - what you see does not match the instructions. But if you put in the web address from an ipad you get a different looking screen. Now you see a menu in the upper right hand corner, per the instructions. You do the sign-in. Once you are signed in, you go back to that menu and access the admin functions and you can change the admin password. This is from memory; I think it’s close, give it a shot.

My hotspot was fully charged when we parked the car yesterday afternoon. This morning the hotspot was down to 8% battery when I checked it. I have parking mode set to motion and impact, not the 1 fps option. I recall in one of your comments on a different thread that you were getting plenty of battery life? Looks like I’m going to get quite a bit less than 24 hours. I almost want to hardwire the device to a 5VDC source that’s always on, but I don’t have a ready 5V always on source in the car.

Well, I'll be a sonuvab%$&^.

I tried to change the admin password on my iPad. Still couldn't see the drop-down menu in the upper right of the screen. ...Until I flipped my iPad on its side. Bam. There it was. Thanks for the vector.

I don't know who's the bigger idiot, me for not thinking of trying another device or the ^%#$*^ who wrote the instruction manual not noting this issue.

I remain firm in my conviction that said individual should be hunted down and made to walk barefoot across an open room randomly strewn with Legos every day for the rest of his life.

Of note, my iPad had trouble staying connected to the Jetpack just like you described. My smartphone, however, is always rock solid. So maybe it's an Apple/iPad issue.

When I was talking about plenty of battery life, I meant for my purposes, really. 8-10 hours a day plus weekends with parking mode, and my car charging the device automatically when ever I was driving has always been plenty to keep the Jetpack topped off or nearly so. I stopped worrying about the charge level a long time ago.
 
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Jeez, I never thought about the iPad orientation. I happened to have been using mine with a keyboard, in landscape mode. I suppose I’d have never found what works, except by chance. And yup, whomever designed this should get the full Lego treatment, this kind of thing sucks, a simple password change should be obvious.

I had the bright idea of using wife’s Mac, wired, to see if I could get the admin function to be more stable. It was better, but eventually began intermittent disconnecting. I’m not going to worry about this problem, because once the passwords are as I want them I don’t see going into admin mode much. Hard to believe that it’s an Apple problem, propagated across two different operating systems, but I suppose that anything is possible.

I’ve ordered a 12VDC to 5VDC converter, with USB plug. I’m going to have a hotwired hotspot and if this leads to having to replace the hotspot battery more often, so be it.

Now I‘m trying to figure out the next thing that I want to do. I want this camera primarily for the standard reason of evidence-if/when-needed. But I have another thing. We do a lot of over the road trips through great scenery, and this camera should allow us to share some of it with our kids. I‘ve put a test video clip into my cloud account. Playing it back at full resolution caused a lot of buffering on my home internet (can’t understand this but I’ll deal with it later). One way that I can think of, for viewing by my kids, is to give them access to my cloud, which I assume there is some way to do. Another is to create a Youtube account, which I’ve never done but people say it’s not hard to do, and put it there. We have Dropbox but I want something where my kids don’t have to mess with yet another sort of app. So, my question is, do you do this sort of thing - sharing your videos? If so, how do you do it?
 
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So, my question is, do you do this sort of thing - sharing your videos? If so, how do you do it?

Yup, for what you wanna do, YouTube is the way to go. Free and easy to set up, and if I wanna share a video with someone and don't wanna have to have them mess with a bunch of stuff, a YT link gets it done easy.

For Example...

aaaand this.

That first one was from my phone, but you YT can convert just about anything on the fly as you upload it. For dashcam vids, you'll have to use a video editing app to connect the clips together before you upload, so a bit more work.

Just remember, if you're on long roadtrips, your video will eventually be overwritten automatically. How often will depend on the size of your SD card and the video quality you select.

So you'll either have to swap cards at intervals on extended trips or lock the clips that you wanna protect. Unfortunately, that method only locks the current one minute clip, so if you just did a cool 20 minute run through a scenic area, it wont help much.
 
Just to note that with Youtube you can select who you want to share your vids with. It's a very easy-to-use platform.

Phil
 
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