Tips for staying connected in a RV/Camper?

Hey!

(Sorry if this is not the right section for this. Mobile Tech seemed like the most applicable one!)

For a few years now, I’ve been gravitating towards moving into a RV or some sort of camper conversion. I lost sight of that as I recently started looking at purchasing a home, but dealing with a bank/loan and all the additional fees has frustrated me and reminded me of my passion for getting a mobile living solution that can go wherever I’d like. Even though I love the city where I was looking at that house (and its particular location was phenomenal), it just suits my lifestyle a lot better to spend a lot less money, have no debt, and have a living solution that isn’t bound to a plot of land.

I digress,

There’s lots of cool opportunities for tech solutions given a RV/camper lifestyle, and I can even explore some really weird hardware and perhaps eventually share some input on things like DC-DC power supplies and whatever else. I’ve given this a lot of thought, but I haven’t necessarily distilled things down to the “right” solutions for most of the problems.

There’s laptops vs a DC-DC based desktop… There’s whether or not I really need additonal file storage versus its power consumption… there’s my actual power solution, my internet… I’m looking for suggestions and maybe some new ideas, and hopefully some considerations that I’ve overlooked!

  • Internet Connectivity

Currently, I’m in the US (and in my camper, I’d likely stay at least in continental North America…) and use Cricket Wireless as my carrier for my phone. I’ve tethered to the phone a number of times when I was in a pinch and haven’t had any problems, and I’ve also used the connection to watch Youtube on my laptop. (Wanted more of a cinematic experience than my phone could offer.)

I haven’t selected any antennae, but I understand there are ones that can really magnify both Celluar signals and Wifi signals, which seems handy. I’m interested in trying to figure out solutions that can “mesh” those together, but I’m also concerned about whether that’s secure/risky or not. I don’t know a whole lot about security or blending wifi and 3/4G, but I know there are options like Google’s.

It is probably worth doubling up on cellular carriers, the rest of my expenses should be super low and the safety and comfort provided by always having access to good signal seems really nice. I don’t know if there’s a proper dream team of carriers that will leave me alone even though I’m using their networks a lot, but so far Cricket has been kind. Perhaps this recent development on Net Neutrality is going to make my life harder, though…

I was thinking of waiting for 5G to start being deployed, but it will probably take a long time to start actually rolling out. Perhaps I can ‘future-proof’ my system, I would assume that an antenna that can receive 4G can also receive 5G? Perhaps that’s wishful thinking.

Staying as connected to the internet as I can is an important comfort to me, and I’d rather not compromise on that quality of life. Granted, I have been surviving on the scraps that AT&T and Cox throw to my rural region for a long time, so there have been times where my mobile connection has been superior to my landline connection. The cellular connection has actually always been more reliable.

  • Computer(s) and other Connected Devices

You may have already assumed that I like having access to a computer, I do. I’m a hobbyist and like to tune PCs and figure out what’s optimal. Of course, only I can figure out what will work best in my specific situation, but there’s a lot of possibilities that are–for one–a little foreign to me, but also uniquely optimal for a living situation that is running off of finite battery power.

I have taken a small interest in “Cloud Gaming,” using a cloud computing service to play games, which can apparently be a pretty enjoyable experience if you’ve got low enough latency. I’m not sure I can count on having good enough latency to justify using cloud computing, and I’m a fairly averse to the additional cost that comes with running cloud computing services. A big part of this movement in my lifestyle is to generally minimize my expenses. (I know this contrasts my mention of getting a secondary Cell carrier, but that’s a comfort I’m more concerned about having stable access to.)

If I were to use a cloud computing service, I could get away with running a system that has insanely low power draw, as all of the heavy lifting would be done with someone else’s power. But even if I’m not using a service like that, running a system with low power draw will obviously be beneficial since I’ll likely be using solar to power all of my electronics.

So, laptops are generally designed to be power efficient. And, what’s cool is that eGPU docks have been brought up to a functional state. But there’s also very efficient desktop parts, and what’s more is that a lot of the times tuning voltages and clocks allows you to come very close to a laptop’s power draw. Compound the fact that I can use (usually super-efficient) DC-DC power supplies, and it starts to seem like desktop hardware could be a feasible option.

That said, having a laptop handy to take out of the camper with me does sound like a nice luxury. I’m not sure a desktop can justify its form factor in this living situation. (For me.) As much as I like having, tuning, and maintaining desktops.

Besides wanting my primary computer to be power efficient, it might also be worthwhile to have a few other small accessories, like a streaming receiver (a la Chromecast). An eGPU or Thunderbolt dock would allow me to have a desk setup and would definitely help keep the (small) space from getting super cluttered with wires.

  • Displays

This one is kind of hard. I’ve tried to do research a few different times and never had much luck. Monitors use power, of course, but from my homework no one really seems to give them consideration. From what I can tell, most of them use more power than the average modern laptop, and could make for a significant load on my power system.

It would be nice to have one or two monitors elegantly mounted in my desk area, perhaps in a fashion that would allow one of them to serve as a “TV” for a different part of the space. I currently use older (~4-year old) 1080p, 144Hz monitors from Monoprice, and they have served me fairly well. I never measured their power draw but they each use a 160W external power brick.

I’m kind of taking for granted that a monitor at a higher refresh rate uses more power, it would be nice to have displays that know to switch to 120+Hz when I’m gaming, but switch down to lower refresh rates when I’m doing other stuff like using my desktop. Does AMD’s “Chill” do that sort of thing, or is it just for games? Can adaptive sync in general help with (or hurt) power consumption?

Another consideration I had was to get a projector. There are portable ones that I believe can run off of internal batteries, which the redundancy could be nice. It’s also cool that I could move the projector outside and prop a screen up against the camper and have a large display for gatherings, I like the idea of that kind of versatility. I haven’t done enough homework yet, but I believe there are LED-based projectors that both use minimal energy and also require minimal maintenance since they don’t have conventional bulbs.

So, uh…

I’m trying to figure that stuff out, but I’m also trying to learn about setting up my own solar gear and whatnot. Any general advice about a camper setup–tech or no–would be appreciated, too! Chances are I’m going to convert something like a bus or a box truck, I’ve done a good bit of research on that end of the equation.

So the quick rundown is use a mobile hotspot with an external antenna or an external antenna on a booster.

Use a laptop with a middle of the road gfx like a 1050, it plays most games very well. A desktop is like running a microwave all the time.

Mount a tv/monitor on the wall and either plug in HDMI or use a chromecast.