[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?
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Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?
I'm a UX designer, and my wife is a health coach. We recently
decided to dip our toes in the digital nomad lifestyle, and took
off in our small motor home a few weeks ago. We are loving it so
far. The one huge thorn in my side is data caps. Turns out, we're
both on zoom calls, a lot. Back home, we've got a fiber connection
and it's no big deal. But remote, I burned through my 'unlimited'
15gb hotspot plan with verizon on Tuesday of my first week and got
cut to 600mbps (really more like 400) which is pretty rough. I
also have a Skyroam Solis, which just might be the most
disappointing thing I've purchased in recent memory. The device
itself is meh, their app and website are full of typos and other
issues, and the actual service has, so far, been slower than my
throttled verizon plan - and that's in an area with a ton of cell
coverage. And, of course, their 'unlimited' plan is 10gb, which at
actual broadband speeds, is damn easy to blow through in a day or
two of zoom meetings. Luckily, we have a wifi connection where we
are now that pretty consistently pulls down 4-10mbps, so we're ok
for now. So - what's your experience been? What equipment are you
using? How are you managing your data consumption? If my work
consists of video calls and connected tools like G Suite and Figma,
is this possible without wifi?
Author : jrwoodruff
Score : 217 points
Date : 2021-03-24 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
| pkamb wrote:
| Join the "LTE Hacks" FB group for tons of discussion of rural and
| rv modem options.
|
| The three best options for unlimited data seem to be:
|
| - Calyx Institute membership (Sprint)
|
| - T-Mobile Home Internet
|
| - $20 AT&T iPad Plan
| ineptech wrote:
| Not related to data, but nomads and semi-nomads might want to
| consider an external GPU setup. I tried it and really like it
| (though it is a bit of a pain and not for people who don't want
| to deal with drivers and such).
|
| The gist of it is that, if you want to combine the mobility of an
| ultrabook with the power of a desktop, you can _mostly_ have your
| cake and eat it too by putting your extras (GPU, spare hdd, cat5,
| optical drive etc) in an enclosure with its own power supply.
| This only became possible due to usb-c being fast enough to act
| like part of the bus.
|
| In theory, it's awesome - take your laptop out and about and use
| it like a laptop, then take it home and have a full desktop worth
| of peripherals, without having to plug in external monitors and
| stuff every time. In practice, not all cards/laptops/enclosures
| work together and you'll likely spend some time trying different
| combinations of drivers and settings. There's a forum[0]
| dedicated to this that I found highly helpful. I have mine
| working and I do like it, it is a lot easier than bouncing back
| and forth between a laptop-for-mobility and desktop-for-power and
| having to share everything over distributed tools, but it took a
| good month of futzing to get it running stably and to get it to
| reliably swap drivers when plugging/unplugging.
|
| 0: egpu.io
| moxplod wrote:
| If you are in USA, the best thing I found was T-Mobile has at
| 100GB hotspot plan for $50 a month which each of you can get one.
|
| I have faced this a lot, since I have been a digital nomad for 8+
| months now. Other things I did: like downloading songs and movies
| on my ipad when I have wifi has saved me a lot of GBs. On windows
| there is a setting called "metered connection", which will make
| sure it does not download major updates etc over your hotspot.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| > downloading songs and movies on my ipad when I have wifi has
| saved me a lot of GBs.
|
| This is an underrated advantage that the Apple ecosystem
| provides. I have a 2011 Mac mini and swapped out the hard drive
| for a 2TB SSD. I just keep everything downloaded on it and
| buy/download new stuff when wifi is around. At all other times,
| networking is turned off.
|
| It connects to hotel TVs etc via standard HDMI. It has an IR
| port, so it can be controlled via remote.
|
| The DRM'ed stuff has to reauthorize every month or two. It's a
| very low-bandwidth operation that takes about 20-30 seconds
| (and reauthorizes all your content). I share internet from my
| phone and a two-bar, no LTE connection is more than enough.
|
| I even have the original box it came in, so I don't worry about
| damaging it when moving around.
| a3n wrote:
| I drive a truck everywhere. When i was on tmobile i was often
| out of range.
|
| I am out of range much less on verizon.
|
| I wonder if it's worth it for the OP to have accounts with more
| than one company.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| I've considered this, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. The
| Skyroam is on T-Mobile I think, but like I said - so far that
| device hasn't impressed me.
|
| I think the LTE iPad that another commenter suggested is the
| best option I've seen so far - that would be great to take
| calls on, and should leave enough hotspot data for other work
| on my laptop.
| tttioo12345 wrote:
| Visible wireless (true unlimited on Verizon network) -> Cheap
| android phone -> wireless router = fast wifi network from cell
| towers
| ilaksh wrote:
| Maybe you can get Starlink? Maybe.
|
| Try Duo or another AI-powered video chat (possibly with purposely
| throttled connection).
|
| Also, most digital nomads don't actually roam around in an RV. It
| usually just means living abroad temporarily.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| - '86 Winnie RV
|
| - Nomad Internet: It's RV friendly cell data service with high
| caps. ~400GB monthly with version or T-mobile variants
|
| - Work MacBook Pro
|
| - Personal MacBook Air: The M1 is wild fast
|
| - Adjustable Desk: Cheapest one on Amazon
|
| - Keychron K8 Mechanical Keyboard: Great keyboard for the price
|
| - Logitech Master MX3 Mouse: Best mouse I've ever used, hands
| down.
|
| - Crappy Dell monitor: My company paid for it, but boy is it bad.
|
| - DDJ-SB3 DJ Controller: Former DJ, so gotta shake the rust of
| now and then.
|
| - GoPro Hero Black 9: Just got this, amazing little piece of kit!
| Just need to use it more
|
| - Polaroid whateverthehell: makes instant shots. Fun for on the
| fly shots, and a way to meet strangers.
|
| - Arctis Pro Headphones: as a DJ, I do not recommend these, not
| loud enough. Could be hearing damage. Sound quality is good for
| the price, as is build quality.
| jameslk wrote:
| I've heard of https://unlimitedville.com/ recommended before,
| although I have not used them. They at least have deals with
| different carriers in case one is problematic so you can switch
| to another.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| I was just looking at them this morning. I'd love to hear of
| anyone that has actual experience with them. With skyroam, it
| seemed like many of the reviews and blog posts I came across
| were paid reviews.
| jameslk wrote:
| They've been mentioned on HN in the past, which is why I know
| about them:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.
| ..
| jaxwerk wrote:
| My partner and I have worked most of this year from a little 13
| ft Scamp travel trailer all across the U.S. and we're currently
| building out a van to get a bit of extra mobility. I'm a staff
| engineer for a consultancy with lots of meetings with our
| enterprise clients, so solid internet is a major concern.
|
| The hotspot I use is called "Glocal Me". It's run by a company
| out of Hong Kong, and sells fairly expensive U.S. data packages.
| I chew through a lot of data on that, but the price is worth it
| to me because there doesn't seem to be any throttling during
| periods of high consumption, I can scale back what I pay for when
| I have other options for access, and the data purchased works on
| all major U.S. carriers so I have a much wider coverage area than
| I would trying to tether with my phone. It works internationally
| so I'm looking forward to using it for trips abroad where I've
| generally relied on putting a local sim in my phone and
| tethering.
|
| In a trailer this size, the table converts to your bed, so having
| a good desk set-up is tricky. I've landed on a usb-c external
| monitor that goes in a claw I mount on the table each morning to
| provide an eye level monitor. I use a small mechanical keyboard
| and wireless mouse, so the whole set-up is easy to store each
| morning. I can't recommend working on a laptop all day every day,
| I'm young and fit but maintaining that posture for long still
| really messes with me and most other folks I've talked to about
| it.
|
| For power, we're just running 200w of Solar when we're off-grid
| (which is about half the time in the West where boondocking
| within cell-service abounds.) My partner and I are able to power
| our laptops with USB-c adapters so we can run off 12v directly
| without the waste of going through an inverter.
|
| We love doing this enough that we're putting a ton of effort into
| building a van out right now. A primary factor in that choice is
| that with an RV or a trailer, you're much more limited on where
| you can park. We've had days where we haul our bitty trailer into
| town for meetings to get better service, but people certainly
| look at us funny when we're posted up in some parking lot working
| on our laptops.
|
| Let me know if you've got questions. I've been having a blast
| with this way of living and have met a bunch of people doing the
| same this last year. I've really enjoyed sharing the experience
| with people.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| Question- how do you and your partner handle the logistics of
| sharing a relatively confined workspace? I value a quiet
| working space and this arrangement seems like something which
| not everyone would be able to adapt to.
| geocrasher wrote:
| I don't have direct experience except that from 2013-2015 I was
| stuck on a DSL line that offered about the same speed as your
| throttled connection. This is well before Zoom of course, but
| there were some basic things that I did that may help you adjust
| to using less bandwidth.
|
| There's also a lot of good stuff in the comments. It's dated, but
| the principals will still be valid.
|
| https://www.tidbitsfortechs.com/2013/12/surviving-internet-o...
|
| I hope it helps.
| kenzofong wrote:
| I work from the road quite a bit and use a Pepwave Max router
| which allows you to pop in multiple sims. I have a Verizon
| prepaid sim as well as Google Fi which gets me Sprint & T-Mobile
| so I basically pretty much always have coverage. Data cap wise,
| Google Fi is pretty generous but also relatively cheap to add
| additional data-only sims if you need to.
| gargalatas wrote:
| Let's wait SpaceX. We will probably solve our problems in some
| time :P
| devit wrote:
| If your data cap lasts for a week, buy 4-8 SIMs and rotate them.
|
| If you need a stable phone number, either buy a dual SIM
| smartphone or buy two smartphones.
| a3n wrote:
| Semi truck driver. I have a laptop, and a phone. I use the
| phone's hotspot.
|
| "Being on the internet" is not part of my job, and many nights I
| don't bother to take the laptop out of its bag.
|
| I never use wifi because I'm paranoid.
|
| While driving I listen to podcasts or streaming. I never
| predownload anything.
|
| I don't know if I ever get throttled. Sometimes, even in this day
| and age, I'm out of cell range, and my podcasts pause.
|
| I might watch a movie on the phone once a week or so.
|
| Which is not at all helpful to you, except possibly to observe:
| the less you need, the better it is.
|
| Your lifestyle and work may just be five or ten years ahead of it
| being worthwhile for businesses to provide what you need.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| > Your lifestyle and work may just be five or ten years ahead
| of it being worthwhile for businesses to provide what you need.
|
| I think it's also the whole telecoms situation in the US puts
| it ten years behind everywhere else. The data caps and
| bandwidth issues are mostly not a technical or business cost
| issue. Ubiquitous fast and cheap 4G is quite normal elsewhere.
| packetlost wrote:
| Both wireless and wired infrastructure is so much more
| expensive in the US than basically everywhere else because of
| just how freaking HUGE the US is.
| zikzak wrote:
| Come to Canada if you think it is bad in the US!
| exdsq wrote:
| Out of interest, can I ask what made you decide to leave
| development for semi truck driving? :)
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18796367. It's his
| thread, he mentions why in the description
| exdsq wrote:
| Thanks :)
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| Truth. I thought I'd be able to cut out more than I've been
| able to - we downloaded movies before leaving, I have over-the-
| air TV, etc.
|
| But, it turns out my habits rely on a lot of data - streaming
| spotify, streaming security cameras to check back home,
| streaming tools at work... it's kind of eye opening honestly.
| qorrect wrote:
| I had a similar experience these last 3 months, I bought an
| RV thought I would toot around the country in, use a cell
| modem.
|
| But I also want to work on my AI projects , which require
| bunches of nasdaq data. Or I want to work on a side project,
| but conda wants to download every dependency for every new
| environment I make.
|
| I thought downloading TBs worth of media would be enough to
| make it work but I'm hitting my monthly cap about 10 days in
| every month.
|
| Starlink might solve my problems, fingers crossed for that.
| But I almost need a local pip server that caches requests or
| something :S. And I guess an npm server also.
| caffeine wrote:
| For AI projects you should really consider a remote
| machine, like hosting Jupyter on an AWS box or something,
| rather than downloading everything to your RV.
| a3n wrote:
| I've had vague thoughts of doing a project that might
| have similar data needs. A linode running my work would
| be how I'd do it. You only need something local for
| initial dev, and then observe and control.
| samatman wrote:
| A proper VPN should mitigate that paranoia, if you choose.
|
| Yes, you have to trust the VPN provider. But it goes from
| "anyone could be monitoring my metadata" to "Protonmail or
| Mozilla could be monitoring my metadata" and, at least for
| Protonmail, one credible leak of that would completely end the
| company.
|
| And this is the relationship you have with your phone provider
| already... although if you're paranoid, let's skip talking
| about what can be sniffed between your cell and the tower!
|
| No idea if that's worth it to you, I never, ever use public
| WiFi without a VPN. Just tossing that out there.
|
| As an aside to the aside, I just read your story of how you
| went from programming to trucking, and I can relate to a lot of
| it. It sounds like undiagnosed ADHD, but lifestyle changes are
| a valid way to accommodate that, and come with fewer side
| effects than medication. I'm lucky to have the job that I have;
| I expect I'm more temperamentally suited to driving a truck
| than to the median software engineering position.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| > Which is not at all helpful to you, except possibly to
| observe: the less you need, the better it is.
|
| Thanks for this.
| reureu wrote:
| I make an annual donation to the Calyx Institute, which has
| worked out really well for me: https://calyxinstitute.org
| chaostheory wrote:
| For details, you help a non-profit and the unlimited Sprint
| data plan costs about $33.33 per month though you have to
| prepay for a year in advance which comes out to $400. If you
| don't have a compatible hotspot, it's a one time extra fee of
| $100.
| [deleted]
| dan353hehe wrote:
| I lived out of an RV for about a year an a half, I found that
| Internet was the most challenging part of being on the road. We
| ended up planning where we were staying based on if there was
| coverage there or not, which surprisingly still allowed us to go
| where we wanted to go.
|
| What I did for internet was pick up a sprint hotspot from FMCA:
| https://www.fmca.com/index.php?option=com_fmcatechconnectv2&...
| they have special deals for members. $50 a month, and it does not
| have data caps. You do have to hold a membership though, which
| does have an additional cost.
|
| The hot spot worked well enough,The speeds I got were in the
| 1.2-3.4 mbps range, which works. If you are lucky enough to be on
| a cell tower without a lot of load, you can take advantage of
| around 34 mbps speed. I only managed to get that speed twice on
| our trip, first in Tucson when we stayed near the west part of
| Saguaro National Park, and again in Washington Just outside of
| Mount Rainier. There should be more spots like that, but we
| didn't stumble on them.
|
| Also, don't expect that you can get the same quality connection
| as you would get over fiber, scale back the resolution on your
| video streams :)
| pradn wrote:
| Do you know if StarLink would help? Is it possible to set up a
| StarLink antenna on an RV?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Starlink does not allow you to be mobile. You have to give
| them a service address and that address cant change (often
| enough for RV travel)
|
| Edited - spelling
| modeless wrote:
| It will! SpaceX just filed with the FCC this month for
| approval of mobile ground stations on land vehicles, boats,
| and aircraft. https://fcc.report/IBFS/SES-LIC-
| INTR2021-00934/3877177.pdf
| pradn wrote:
| Thank you. Is this for billing reasons or something
| technical?
| Sebb767 wrote:
| I'd guess its about satellite load. On large assemblies
| (think burning man), it would probably break down their
| link all together and it's hard to quickly provision a
| satellite.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| They are currently doing a contract with the military to
| run Starlink on their airplanes flying around [1], so I
| assume it is not a fundamental technical limitation.
|
| In the early days, before the constellation is fully
| fleshed out, it may have something to do with capacity
| management. I could imagine that there is a relatively
| low density limitation right now, so if everyone drove
| their Starlink connected vans to e.g. Yosemite National
| Park on a holiday, that would be too much density to
| handle.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-starlink-
| airforce/...
| disabled wrote:
| You have to give them a permanent address, but what you do
| with it is another story. People on boats are successfully
| using it: https://provscons.com/starlink-is-the-best-
| internet-for-boat...
|
| However, it cannot be used extremely far off the coast,
| like on cruise ships. Starlink still requires base stations
| on land for use. They hope to solve this issue in 2-5
| years, supposedly.
| iso1210 wrote:
| Moved our dish about 20 miles today (from west london to
| the chilterns), get an "out of area" message and it
| doesn't lock on, which is a shame
| mikeiz404 wrote:
| Starlink is effectively geo- locked (at least) right now.
|
| "Starlink satellites are scheduled to send internet down to
| all users within a designated area on the ground. This
| designated area is referred to as a cell. Your Starlink is
| assigned to a single cell. If you move your Starlink outside
| of its assigned cell, a satellite will not be scheduled to
| serve your Starlink and you will not receive internet. This
| is constrained by geometry and is not arbitrary geofencing."
| [1]
|
| It looks like the service address can be updated.
|
| "If you have already ordered Starlink and your service
| address is changing please contact our Support team by
| logging into your account." [1]
|
| 1. https://www.starlink.com/faq
| giobox wrote:
| While you can move the dish today within a limited area
| around your registered address and it works, the design of
| the network doesn't allow you to travel greater distances and
| have your own dish reconnect yet. In a recent Reddit AMA the
| Starlink team have said the ability to travel and reconnect
| to the service for RV scenarios etc will be supported once
| network expanded out enough. If/when this happens, Starlink
| would likely become a fantastic option for RV use.
|
| > https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_th
| e...
| Hippocrates wrote:
| Some suggestions come to mind:
|
| If you're OK with it, turn off video and set zoom/whatever to low
| quality audio. This whole "cameras on" thing adds nothing to
| productivity and culture unless it's screen sharing you need to
| do.
|
| xfinity and FIOS, maybe others, also offer a good amount of
| public hotspots which you can sign into with your subscriber
| login. I don't believe there's a cap and speeds are great.
|
| Try to plan meetings vs heads down or offline work around when
| you are likely to have wifi if you can.
|
| If you're working from a van I might look into some sort of
| directional antenna so you can get a significantly higher range
| on wifi to a bridge and then re-broadcast that inside the van.
| Thats not an area I'm experienced in but just an idea.
| benzesandbetter wrote:
| I think you'd be better off transiting between urban areas where
| there's good 5G/4G service, and save your more off-grid
| adventures for the weekends.
|
| I've traveled both US coasts as a DN. My gear was essentially:
| - Macbook Pro - Verizon Jetpack - iPhone with hotspot
| enabled - Goal Zero Sherpa 100AC - Goal Zero Nomad
| 50 Solar Panel - BMW X3 - In-vehivle laptop mount arm
| (passenger side) - Belgian Malinois
| yitchelle wrote:
| Sorry if this is a stupid question, but wouldn't you buy more
| data if you have reached your cap? It is probably be expensive,
| but if it is chargeable to your client or work, it might work
| out.
| ic0n0cl4st wrote:
| For The last 7 years of working and traveling 50% of the time my
| setup has been two iPhones and a Macbook Air. I have about 30 sim
| cards now. In Europe I mostly use tmobile. Hotel lobbies usually
| have free wifi, as do cafes, hostels and bars.
|
| The main difference is I kind of hate talking to people about
| work so I avoid video chat and try to keep all work
| communications on Slack/Signal.
|
| America was actually the worst place to work and travel. Data
| there is too expensive and coverage sucks everywhere.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I'm strongly with you on video chat and avoiding that if and
| when possible. It's a strong marker of spending too much time
| on that garbage anyways of things going in the wrong direction
| in regards to productivity
| lukevp wrote:
| I'm not living this lifestyle, but I feel that Starlink will
| drastically alter this market and open up so much more remote
| working environments. You should consider to at least sign up for
| the beta so you can get access sooner, theoretically you would
| get 100+ mbps anywhere in the US with no caps within the next
| year or so, and I'm guessing they'll make a remote-friendly plan.
| Right now you officially can't travel with the dish, but they've
| unofficially said there's no limit imposed on the dish location.
| al_chemist wrote:
| > I feel that Starlink will drastically alter this market and
| open up so much more remote working environments
|
| You're not allowed to use Starlink in other location than you
| ordered. It's not for nomads.
|
| https://www.starlink.com/legal/terms-of-service-preorder
|
| 6.3 You acknowledge that you are only authorized to access
| Services at the location identified on your Order, and you will
| not divert the Starlink Kit or Services to any other locations
| trevor-e wrote:
| Yes, currently, but I don't think anyone expects this to be
| their policy in the future.
| simias wrote:
| What makes you say that? I haven't followed StarLink very
| closely but it seems to me that in order to be competitive
| and maximize profits it would be extremely beneficial for
| them to have regional pricing policies.
| iso1210 wrote:
| They've said they want to allow moving dishes
|
| What the price options looks like in 12-24 months time is
| anyones guess. Personally I'd love to buy 250 dishes (at
| full price, $2k each or whatever), but skip the monthly
| charge (or have some sort of pool agreement)
| samatman wrote:
| Assigning a price to a given (large) region is the easy
| part.
|
| The hard part is cache invalidation! For a stationary
| Starlink dish, every satellite knows which cell a given
| dish is in, and they cooperate to route packets to that
| cell when they can.
|
| For a mobile Starlink dish, they have to be able to
| invalidate that cache every time it moves, instead of
| having a cushion of a few hours for the occasional move.
|
| It can be done, but I don't blame them for punting on
| that problem for awhile.
| synthecypher wrote:
| Although at the moment Starlink does not allow for roaming.
|
| I assume its to prevent beta users from selling their kits to
| musketeers.
|
| "Your Starlink is assigned to a single cell. If you move your
| Starlink outside of its assigned cell, a satellite will not be
| scheduled to serve your Starlink and you will not receive
| internet. This is constrained by geometry and is not arbitrary
| geofencing."
|
| https://www.starlink.com/faq
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| I really hope so. I'm actually eligible for the beta where I
| live, but like you said, the plan doesn't travel. _fingers
| crossed_
| soheil wrote:
| Do you really wanna be lugging a rather awkwardly big dish
| around every time you check into your next airbnb or hotel
| room?
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| We're in an RV, so the dish wouldn't be a huge burden.
| Wouldn't want to do that at a hotel, but I also assume wifi
| is easier to manage at hotels or airbnbs.
| skummetmaelk wrote:
| Put it on your truck or your boat.
| [deleted]
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| I'm also interested in a mail forwarding service that can be used
| as residential address and won't give any issue with financial
| institutions, if you have any to recommend :-)
| culopatin wrote:
| UPS PO Box and call it a "suite".
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| Thanks. That doesn't work with most financial institutions
| (or the ones I use). No matter what you type, they normalize
| the address in a USPS-mandated format, and automatically find
| out it's an issue. "suite" is not going to trick anyone.
| lh7777 wrote:
| I have a mailbox at an independent mail & package
| storefront in my neighborhood. I just use their address and
| my box number, e.g. "123 Main St. #111" and have never had
| an issue with financial institutions, etc. accepting it.
| They receive my UPS, FedEx, and USPS packages as well.
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| Even for your state issued driving license?
| dan353hehe wrote:
| I can't recommend any one in particular, as I kept my home
| address. But I know that a lot of full time RVers use South
| Dakota mail forwarders as their address without issue. I
| believe it's because of lower taxes in SD, and looser licensing
| laws on drivers. But don't quote me on that last one :)
| jzellis wrote:
| So it turns out that it's pretty easy to get around tethering
| data caps on phones in a couple of different ways, especially if
| you're on Android and have more control over your network
| settings.
|
| I'm in the UK now and use prepaid GiffGaff cell service, which
| includes 80GB of LTE hotspot data. I don't do Zoom, but i use it
| for tethering upstairs sometimes because wifi and stone 19th
| century walls do not mix.
|
| But honestly, if Zoom is your biggest bandwidth hog, just get a
| cell with unlimited data and use it instead of your laptop. If
| you're going nomadic, you can't reasonably expect your workflow
| to be unchanged from what you'd do at home or an office, right? A
| phone tripod stand is a lot cheaper than a big bandwidth plan for
| tethering.
|
| Aside from that advice, I always carry a Raspberry Pi with me,
| with a couple of different setups on different SD cards, so I can
| use it as a local Node dev server with my iPad Pro as my
| workstation, or as a media server or a RetroPi game device or
| even a travel router if need be. Get a USB 3 external SSD and
| rubber band it to the Pi and, especially now with 64 bit
| Raspberry PiOS and Ubuntu, you've got a fairly decent little
| system that fits in your pocket.
|
| I keep a lot of my gear in old fashioned tool rolls, like cables
| and adapters and such. They're great on space and it looks cool
| as hell when you roll one out on a table.
|
| Anker makes a couple of USB battery packs that are also built in
| chargers for both USB 2 and USB C, and I can't recommend them
| highly enough. I've used them in Mexico and here in the UK and a
| million times on road trips, and they not only save on space but
| simultaneously allow you to charge themselves and your devices,
| rather than charging separately, and they're especially great for
| Pis because you can pull them off the socket and they won't lose
| power.
|
| I can keep 90% of my gear in one shoulder bag and be able to work
| happily anywhere on earth. I also keep a MIDI keyboard in my
| checked luggage for writing music and a Leatherman and precision
| screwdriver set in there with my Dopp kit (I shave with a
| straight razor, which is also handy if you find yourself in a
| shifty motel somewhere.)
|
| Hope that helps!
| ghaff wrote:
| >But honestly, if Zoom is your biggest bandwidth hog, just get
| a cell with unlimited data and use it instead of your laptop.
|
| Or mostly just use a dial-in number and do without video.
| Doesn't help if a presentation is being given and hasn't been
| shared in advance of course.
| xur17 wrote:
| I've tried using a dial-in number a few times, and the
| latency was horrible - made it really hard to jump in and say
| things without interrupting others.
|
| Not sure if it was just the crappy connection, or if that is
| a product of using the cell network.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| Agreed, between latency and terrible quality I always hate
| when people dial in to Zoom/Teams. It always sounds like
| the person is talking through a sweater from the moon.
|
| What makes it worse for me is they never seem to notice,
| and if you tell them they immediately go "oh, is that
| better?" and then they _stop talking_. How are we supposed
| to know if it 's better...?
| ghaff wrote:
| Not clear why that would be the case. I used to dial in to
| BlueJeans from a landline all the time and it was fine.
|
| Don't have a lot of cell experience though. The one time I
| did it for an extended period was because my power/Internet
| had an extended outage. It didn't work well but it was
| actually better than using an app on my phone; my cell
| reception absent WiFi assist is pretty bad at home.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| When I did it for a few years, I'd use coffeeshop or public wifi.
| LTE doesn't work well as a day to day. That is, for international
| stuff. Even if US centric, data caps are no good.
|
| But quite frankly: I wouldn't do this lifestyle in a pandemic.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| We're RVing it. Took the house with us, so we're able to
| socially distance -almost- as well as if we were at home. Still
| getting amazon deliveries, plus blue apron for meals. It's a
| bit more exposure, but it's manageable so far.
| davchana wrote:
| I use ATT Walmart Plan for 8+17 GB for $41/month, prepaid.
| Hotspot allowed.
| jcboon wrote:
| I've been doing van life for about a year and a half now. Zoom is
| the real killer and I try and steer my calls to audio as often as
| I can. I'm also a sysadmin/compliance consultant so I don't need
| as much screen time. My setup: Internet: Xfinity Wifi in city /
| TMobile Max for the road unlimited phone and 40GB tether. I've
| not yet tried to do all my zoom on the phone but in theory that
| would mean your Zoom wouldn't count against you. As some folks
| point out coverage gets crappy in the sticks and you'll need
| either ATT or Verizon to cover those holes. Laptop: HP 13 with a
| homemade lap desk and chairback Van: Ford handi that I converted
| Comfort: Meh, I've plans to improve the bed design but probably
| less of an issue for you folks.
| alert0 wrote:
| Can you get xfinity wifi without a home plan?
| jcboon wrote:
| Yup you can pay for it as a plan by itself or you can snag a
| login from a friend or your work as an additional user. Also
| worth a shot though I've not tried would be getting an
| xfinity mobile plan and trying the login through that. Could
| also ask the chat rep too.
| jcboon wrote:
| Also as a random aside make sure your AAA membership or
| equivalent covers your RV. Those suckers can be expensive to to
| tow and that membership pays for itself.
| cmos wrote:
| For 1.5 year I biked around the US camping with the occasional
| hotel.. I had an 11" macbook air with a data plan. Sometimes I
| would throw a rope over a branch and pull my phone up high to get
| cell signal, connecting to the phone via bluetooth. I did
| hardware development, fortunately for mobile hardware, so that
| packed away nicely. I would charge/work at a nice cafe if there
| was one, then at night a bit, and every 7-10 days get a hotel and
| work nonstop. I had a solar panel for my phone, but if I were to
| do it again I would get a bigger one to charge my laptop as well.
|
| I loved it. Check out adventurecycling.org if you are interested
| - there are maps for biking routes all over the US.
| diarmuid wrote:
| I mostly stay at airbnb - and I make sure that it has wifi and
| that there are positive comments re wifi and no negitive comments
| - I will also ask the host before booking
|
| I bring a 27' 1440p monitor and a monitor arm to use in
| conjunction with my laptop to have a good dual screen setup - I
| also tend to bring a 50' ethernet cable to connect to the router
| to avoid wifi trouble
|
| I use google fi for my phone - it works all over the world and if
| my internet goes down I can tether to my phone (at 10 USD per gb)
| - its also great that I have the same number wherever I go so
| whatsapp etc just works and I can give work contacts a stable
| number
| diarmuid wrote:
| I guess I should clarify that I have spent almost 3 years
| living in airbnbs and working remotely - usually staying about
| 2 months in each place
| gtdawg wrote:
| Since you are a long term nomad, I'm wondering what your
| solution is for Government documents (IRS, Driver License,
| Car Registration, Jury Duty notification, absentee voting,
| etc), bank statements (KYC regulations), and other things
| that need a real address, and not an personal mailbox
| service? I've had issues with using PO Boxes even with Street
| Addressing, but I'm not sure a UPS store box would fix those
| issues.
|
| Services like EarthClassMail sound like it would fit the
| bill, but I'm wondering if whatever API's these SaaS services
| use to validate "true residential address" will eventually
| blocklist these services addresses.
|
| Thanks!
| ehnto wrote:
| Not really a digital nomad right now, but my work setup is what I
| did use as a software developer. Just my laptop, my phone for a
| hotspot, and a backup USB rechargeable battery for the phone.
|
| The most important things for me are simplicity and robustness.
| So it's a light, relatively cheap laptop with a very long battery
| life. The phone is also cheap and robust. I would normally work
| outside somewhere, so the laptop needs to last a while.
|
| I'm lucky enough that in my country we have a very comprehensive
| 4G internet network, I've even been able to work in national
| parks in the sticks, although if I'm at a national park I'd
| rather be exploring that working anyway!
| ilaksh wrote:
| If people want a compact alternative to a laptop then look into
| ASRock DeskMini. Or possibly the new M1 Mac Mini.
| asidiali wrote:
| I think Verizon throttles you down to 600kbps, not mbps [1].
|
| It's 2021, so ridiculous.
|
| [1] https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimited-faqs/
| (FAQ #6)
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| Oops! You're correct. 600k is ridiculous. Honestly, If they
| just had a steady 5-10mbs -actually- unlimited option, I'd
| prefer that. Or, if they dropped it down to 2-4mbps instead,
| that'd be workable I think.
| asidiali wrote:
| Agreed, just give me like 2-5mbps and I actually have a
| chance to get work done. 600kbps is nearly unusable on the
| modern web.
| ghaff wrote:
| My dad's house had about 1mbps. Yes, it was barely usable.
| I couldn't really have seriously worked from there. (Very
| end of a DSL run in rural Maine.)
|
| Some people do make do with conventional satellite. I
| worked with one person who bought a rural home with no
| broadband or hope of getting it. They had DirectTV and just
| mostly did without streaming video or other high bandwidth
| activities. Probably increasingly hard to do though.
| dividuum wrote:
| In Germany, most plans throttle you to 64kbps down/16kbps up
| once you run out. It hard not to feel ashamed about the state
| of mobile internet around here.
| philip1209 wrote:
| I'm no longer a digital nomad. But, when I was . . .
|
| * Macbook Pro 13". Ended up with a Spanish keyboard partway
| through travels when I had to replace a stolen laptop in
| Barcelona
|
| * Google Fi. Had great tethering, and you can pay per-gigabyte to
| maintain data speeds after the typical 15gb limit.
|
| * iPad as a second monitor
|
| * Apple international power adapters
|
| * Geoblue for health insurance
|
| * Occassional WeWork membership. Today I'd take a look at their
| All Access offering. But, many cities have _some_ kind of
| coworking option.
|
| * (Couldn't find any insurance to cover stolen laptops, and
| Airbnb's insurance apparently doesn't cover it either)
| turtlebits wrote:
| I have an off grid space that I work from. For connectivity, I
| use a 5G phone on T-mobile with the EasyTether app (which tethers
| over USB and doesn't count as hotspot data). I have an RPi
| connected to the phone and a travel wifi router connected to the
| RPi over ethernet.
|
| That said, 5G service is pretty good in my location, speeds are
| fine, but isn't the cheapest solution ($70/mo.
| nomadiccoder wrote:
| I second easytether! I use this from my at&t Samsung s9 and it
| works incredibly well in USA. I have it usb to a pi which runs
| dnsmasq to operate as a router with both an Ethernet switch and
| WiFi access point. Toss on a UPS and plug it into my truck.
| When I'm driving it charges and they make 12000mAh batteries so
| it lasts a full workday. I've used over 100Gb from this setup
| per month for over a year. I also tried out a cellular hat for
| the pi and found that it was a pain to setup but in the end can
| replace the cell phone.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| If you purchase a contributing membership from the Calyx
| Institute, they gift you a fully unlimited 4G/LTE mobile data
| plan: https://calyxinstitute.org/membership/internet/4g-lte-faq .
| The membership costs $500 the first year and $400 each additional
| year. It's a popular option in the nomad community.
|
| These two apps in particular were invaluable: Wifi Map (lists
| nearby hotspots), and iOverlander (shows nearby camping, RV, and
| boondocking areas along with their amenities).
|
| For me, I found that logistics made this style of living
| enjoyable or stressful. I needed to plan farther ahead to be able
| to be productive in a new setting, and I was better off settling
| into a new place for a few days and doing a big chunk of work in
| a nice new environment and then spending a couple of days after
| that traveling, rather than trying to work and travel in smaller,
| more evenly-spaced chunks. The days where I tried to travel any
| distance and also work any amount all kind of sucked.
| alert0 wrote:
| I am looking at doing this next year and I think the best option
| is to just get a wework pass. I plan to work from there week days
| and ski weekends.
| jMyles wrote:
| My setup (the inside of which many of you have seen and
| experienced at PyCon):
|
| thisisthebus.com
| Lammy wrote:
| Everyone is talking about hotspots, but since I got used to
| having WWAN (as opposed / in addition to 'WLAN') directly in my
| laptop there's zero chance I could ever go back to tethering.
|
| My main portable is one of those custom modern motherboards for a
| 2011 ThinkPad X-series shell since I hate the keyboards on all
| the new ones. Originally a "third-batch" I7-8250U that I've since
| supplemented with a "fourth-batch" i7-10510U system so I have a
| spare just in case something happens to it, and paired with a
| Telit LTE card and a T-Mobile "unlimited" (50GiB soft-cap) SIM.
|
| T-Mo is probably not a good choice for very remote areas since
| their reception is spotty, but the price is right since I have a
| family plan of four unlimited lines for $130/mo thanks to some
| grandfathered stacked promotions. Pixx:
| https://imgur.com/a/JWGC39n
|
| I don't have a good recommendation for the Zoom bandwidth issue,
| but it is possible to host an audio-only meeting if your
| participants are okay with that :) https://it.umn.edu/services-
| technologies/how-tos/zoom-host-o...
| rektide wrote:
| Good mention. I've had laptops with dodgy wifi in the past, or
| been in some very wifi-noisy environments. It definitely helps
| not having to send data through wifi. Phones usually have
| fairly low-grade consumer wifi chips, they're not top notch
| APs. There's often considerable additional latency to boot.
|
| I'd throw in the mention that USB Tethering fixes all of these
| issues.
|
| My cell provider is not very cool about handing out additional
| (even data-only) sim cards, and it seems like most are
| similarly block-headed. Google Fi is one of the only Nice Guys
| on the scene, but I refuse to go anywhere near a service that
| throttles me to 256k if I hit my "unlimited" cap. So I've had a
| number of devices with cellular connectivity, but it's always
| gone unused.
|
| So again, usb tethering. Very fast connection speed, much more
| stable latency. It works great. My battery, a ZMI 20k, has a
| USB Hub mode, where it charges the laptop, while acting as a
| USB hub for two devices, so I can charge my laptop, and charge
| my phone (very slowly!), and have usb tethering, all at the
| same time.
|
| But for many folks, a simple USB-C cable can be a godsend in a
| time of need / slowness.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| There are some amazing Digital Nomads groups on Facebook where
| you might also try posting this question (or just searching, this
| has been asked plenty of times)
| norcim wrote:
| Mobile Internet Resource Center has all the info I needed to
| built my setup. The Sample Setups are a good place to start:
| https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/sample-setup-explorer/
|
| I bought all my gear on https://www.mobilemusthave.com/
|
| - Pepwave Max Transit Duo - Poynting 7-in-1 antenna - Weboost RV
| 65 with 25' unidirectional antenna (rarely used) - AT&T unlimited
| SIM (grey market) - Sprint Family Motor Coach Assc. unlimited
| (SIM in Pepwave) - Verizon 15gb hotspot SIM
| ttoinou wrote:
| I have a french sim with free mobile, they give you 25 GB per
| montlh in a lot of countries all over the world, including the
| USA, for 20 euros (24 usd) per month, 4G download speed is
| excellent.
|
| Coverage with free SMS and free calls too :
| https://assistance.free.fr/mobile/freeroaming/
|
| After traveling for 4 years as a nomad, I will now buy 2 or 3
| more sim like this because they work great and are cheaper than
| local sim without the hassle / paperwork
|
| If a french friend can give you a free mobile sim, don't hesitate
| :)
| 627467 wrote:
| Whoa, does this mean that if I manage to get hold of a sim like
| this anywhere free has coverage I can effectively bypass local
| service packages?
|
| I understand that in many countries this kind of roaming still
| comes with bandwidth caps (ie. slower speeds than if you were
| using non-roaming sim) but it may still be a better option
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Technically, if you use it mainly outside France, they can
| legally charge you roaming. It just happens that until now Free
| Mobile doesn't seem to control that.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Interesting, so spending a few months per year in France
| avoids that theoretically ?
| allenleein wrote:
| Someone should build a Nomad version of Uses This!
|
| https://usesthis.com/
| coding123 wrote:
| How can I email you with info?
| [deleted]
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| I don't think there's a way to dm on here - send me a message
| at this temporary address: difah50626@astarmax.com
| coding123 wrote:
| Sent you an email
| itomato wrote:
| Right now, using resold T-Mobile via Calyx on their hardware.
|
| Lots of good resources out there.
| https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/ do a lot of review and news on
| the topic.
|
| 5G, multiplexed LTE and Starlink are popular options. Some
| devices out there allow you to intermix radios via standard mini
| PCIE modules.
|
| Depending on the duration of your stint, I believe the official
| stance from Starlink is that your device be readily configured to
| your current location by calling customer support.
| fouc wrote:
| What about Google Fi?
| sbuccini wrote:
| Still throttles bandwidth after 22GB/mo
| nerbert wrote:
| Good to know!
| dudus wrote:
| Indeed, they throttle down to 256kbps when you reach the cap
| but they'll let you unthrottle for $10/GB. Kinda expensive if
| you ask me, but might be a possibility.
|
| Mint Mobile is similar to Google Fi, and their cap is higher
| (35GB). But I don't think they'll allow more data to be
| purchased.
|
| Maybe the real solution here would be to purchase several
| plans and simpl change them SIM when cap is reached.
| sinak wrote:
| I run https://www.waveform.com and we help a lot of folks like
| yourself get better signal. It's not really worth messing around
| with cheap options - your productivity is on the line and it's
| worth spending a little for great connectivity.
|
| With that in mind, the best option is a Pepwave MAX HD2 Dual SIM.
| Then put a Visible SIM from Verizon in one slot and a Calyx SIM
| (T-Mobile) in the other, or sign up for the AT&T iPad plan.
| Either use whip antennas or ideally use a roof-mount 4x4 MIMO
| antenna to get the best signal.
|
| Using Pepwave's VPN you can run WAN smoothing and/or bonding to
| make sure that your connection is rock solid.
|
| Worth looking the LTE hacks facebook group, though they tend to
| use cheap gear, and I'd recommend using something beefier.
| xvedejas wrote:
| Any recommendation for handheld / tripod-mounted directional
| antennas for camping/backpacking purposes? It's surely more of
| a niche than this RVer-heavy comments section, but if you have
| anything suitable to point to I'd be very interested.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| I use Pepwave gear as well. WELL WORTH THE MONEY!
|
| I use the Pepwave Balance 20X with the Cat12 add-on card with
| four SIM cards installed. AT&T is my primary provider (with a
| monthly usage limit of 1TB/month, no fair use limits), but I
| also have two T-Mobile SIMs (with "unlimited" plans, but with
| fair use cutoff at 50GB/month) and a Verizon SIM (50GB/month).
| It's a dual radio setup, so AT&T and one of the T-Mobile SIMs
| are always active, the other two SIMs are for fallback.
|
| I would not recommend using the whip antennas, the roof mounted
| 4x4 MIMO antenna should be considered a must in my opinion.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Would you have any suggestions for Europeans?
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| Can you share any non confidential info on how you helped
| spacex and tesla?
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| Hmmm, interesting. I'm going to look into this more. I did buy
| a weboost drive x, but I'm not convinced its really helping
| with anything...
| james_in_the_uk wrote:
| Can you change some of the tools you use? It may not be quite as
| cool to use Office rather than G Suite but much easier to work
| offline with them. (Appreciate it may be limited by employer
| requirements). Also consider a decent external LTE/wifi aerial
| with adapters for your wifi and LTE dongles.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| My understanding is that most digital nomads live and work from
| co-working spaces in beautiful tropically warm places which offer
| a nice balance between luxury for cheap, tourism and paradise
| like many places in South East Asia. I think many base themselves
| in cities like Singapore but the hop around Malaysia, Indonesia,
| Vietnam, etc., so they don't really have the issue of mobile
| broadband.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| I think we're doing the American redneck version lol - driving
| a motorhome to warmer weather. Eventually I'd love to do the
| international version though, and take advantage of exchange
| rates and all that. Seems amazing.
| zests wrote:
| How hard is it to work internationally like that? I'd imagine
| its especially challenging to hop between countries unless you
| work for yourself.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| I've been living on the road from an RV for the past 4 months and
| would be happy to share a bunch of tips. Data connectivity was
| the biggest concern I had before starting out and thus did a ton
| of research before embarking. So far that research has paid off
| in spades and I have not had any issues, despite using 700GB+ a
| month in cellular data. I don't have time at the moment to break
| down all the details in this comment, but please feel free to
| reach out to me (contact info in my profile). I'll try to come
| back later and share more details here for anyone who is curious,
| but you can also reach out and ask even if you aren't the OP too!
| xnyan wrote:
| Thanks for posting! If you get the change, you get 700GB a
| month of data from one provider or this is split over multiple?
| jsjohnst wrote:
| That is blended across multiple providers due to my setup,
| but my AT&T account alone allows up to 1TB/month.
|
| I did provide a bit more detail on my setup in this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571061
| skizm wrote:
| FYI: Verizon has "business" plans that give you much more
| "premium" data. I'm looking at one plan which is unlimited, and
| you get 60GB of hotspot usage per line before being throttled.
| With the business versions of plans, you can usually just call up
| the carrier and ask to talk to a Sales person. They can even cook
| up some custom plans for you if you're willing to pay a bit more.
| Probably worth it given your needs.
| high_byte wrote:
| my #1 reason for not going nomad is I HATE LAPTOPS. I just love
| my PC. my two big ass monitors. a keyboard and mouse. a station
| that's always set up. I don't need to drag around nothing. I am
| always connected via ethernet.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| What's the issue with setting up your station inside an RV? A
| large RV should easily fit your setup I think.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Power
| high_byte wrote:
| nomad does not imply RV. I don't want an RV, I imagine living
| in hotels or AirBnB or something while traveling every few
| weeks/months.
|
| I like doing graphics so cloud isn't optimal. a good GPU
| laptop with large monitor is as good as carrying my entire PC
| setup IMO
| [deleted]
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| usually I factor cost of data plan into the decision of where I
| go next for the reasons you mentioned. Since you say you're doing
| UI and frontend I think this is a big challenge when fetching and
| pushing binary data like static assets.
|
| To reduce your data consumption and improve load times as well as
| security/privacy you may consider a /etc/hosts blocklist[1]. It's
| not going to help with reducing data in zoom calls, Netflix and
| podcasts but it adds up. Also don't forget application/service
| specific settings like switching all preferred resolution in
| video to the lowest quality etc.
|
| DNS traffic can be reduced (and sped-up) with a local cache
| (dnsmasq - or better yet dnscrypt-proxy[2]).
|
| [1] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
|
| [2] https://github.com/DNSCrypt/dnscrypt-proxy
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I mostly nomad'ed around SE Asia, where free wifi in cafes is a
| given, and mobile caps are ridiculously huge/cheap (US$1 per week
| for 250Gb of download cap in Cambodia!)
|
| Video calls from cafes suck, obviously, but also pretty common.
| You get used to it.
|
| We got used to having "good wifi" as one of our primary
| considerations for Booking.com or Airbnb searches.
|
| I'm using a Purism 14 laptop running PureOS, with an additional
| travel monitor when there's room. Linux wifi UI could use some
| work, but otherwise it works fine.
| Freeboots wrote:
| Yeah I was in KH for many years, when I left I was astonished
| to find that wifi is not ubiquitous elsewhere, and data plans
| are 10-20x what I was paying.
|
| I just had a vpn and basic privacy hygiene. The idea that a
| street noodle cart in rural Kratie has free wifi, but a
| coffeeshop in central [major western city] doesn't is
| ridiculous.
| localhost wrote:
| Why not use a phone for zoom calls? This way that doesn't impact
| your hotspot data cap? Another thing to consider is an iPad LTE
| and an unlimited plan for that.
| jrwoodruff wrote:
| I have actually been doing this when I need to. It works well,
| except those rare occasions where I need to screen share. And
| even then it's usually easy enough to have someone else share
| for me. The iPad LTE is a great idea.
| client4 wrote:
| I traveled across Asia for 3 years. I had a Mission Workshop
| Radian and attached Spar which I loved. As for data you should
| expect to do most of your work in co-working or coffee shop
| spaces as cellular data still doesn't cut it if you're on video
| calls all day. As for the rest of my tech set-up (loosely):.
|
| * Bose in ear noise cancelling headphones with microphone
|
| * 2xPhones (A pixel 2 main and Huawei P30 Light backup) this is
| because I'd be screwed if I didn't have a phone.
|
| * Lenovo X1
|
| * RAV 90w charger with two USBC ports
|
| * iPad pro (downloaded Netflix content, games, books)
|
| * Earpod Pros
|
| * A 1000mah charger I got as conference swag
|
| * Misc cables/micro SD cards
|
| Largely I considered a drink or food every two hours as rent for
| coffee shop space where I would do bandwidth heavy work (and
| charging). Another 2-4 hours of work I would hotspot my phone and
| largely use ssh.
| ssijak wrote:
| Just flyover to Thailand or Bali and enjoy fast 4g networks (or
| fiber at homes), nice weather, good food, nature and people.
| rektide wrote:
| ergonomics are a key point for me. using a gooseneck tablet
| holder to hold an x86 tablet (i talked about the Dell Venue 11
| Pro i used for many years recently[1]). a bluetooth keyboard (the
| Lenovo), small bluetooth speaker, bluetooth headphones, and usb-c
| battery pack make up the rest. in the future, i'd like to go
| dual-screen. Linux should let me use a second tablet as an
| extended desktop in my environment, Sway, and GNOME folks are
| joining the party now too[2].
|
| i'm on a grandfathered unlimited plan, that supposedly is good to
| ~75GB before they start thinking of cancelling your contract,
| that i pay way too much for, because its been years since i've
| been very nomadic.
|
| i've long been keen to compare post-cap throttle speed across
| plans. Comcast has some of the best in the business. their
| unlimited plan is $45/mo, and after the 20GB cap, it does 1.5Mbps
| down/768k up. whereas those cheap pieces of shit at Google Fi
| throttle you to 256kbps. put a chain around my ankle and drop me
| over the side, you terrible monsters. Verizon isn't even honest
| enough to give you a straight answer: they say you may not
| experience any drop after their 22GB cap, that traffic is simply
| de-prioritized, but users report being capped to 600kbps, which i
| would very much like confirmation or denial on. TMobile's
| generous 50GB cap has a similar "we won't throttle we'll just de-
| prioritize you" promise, & i haven't found much info from
| customers on how it has impacted them.
|
| of course, everything gets way worse when you start hotspotting.
| i'm afraid to even mention it, but if you buy yourself a non-
| branded phone, or miraculously can install a ROM (rarer and rarer
| a possibility!) they often don't come with the
| tracking/surveillance systems to detect & monitor hotspotting.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26526683
|
| [2]
| https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-40...
| asidiali wrote:
| Verizon drops you to 600kbps after the first 15GB, and then
| further deprioritizes your traffic from there after you hit
| 22GB.
|
| See https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimited-
| faqs/ FAQs 6+7
| rektide wrote:
| The 600kbps mentioned in FAQ 6 is for the hotspot plan. FAQ 7
| specifically states you will not be throttled, but will be
| de-prioritized, but user reports that they are seeing 600
| kbps speeds are all over the place. Perhaps they're
| incorrectly reporting the situation, but it feels to me like
| Verizon is being dishonest.
|
| I really wish there were some good consumer reviews of these
| services, that include this critical behavior mode many of us
| will have to suffer.
| asidiali wrote:
| You're totally right, I misread that. Thanks for the
| correction.
|
| Unfortunately too late to edit my previous comment,
| apologies.
| TheSmiddy wrote:
| Most mobile networks detect hotspotting in the US by inspecting
| the TTL so you can increase it by 1 on your child devices to
| "trick" the system.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/8p69ez/bypassing_v...
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| > i'm afraid to even mention it, but if you buy yourself a non-
| branded phone, or miraculously can install a ROM (rarer and
| rarer a possibility!)
|
| I've considered switching over to a Light Phone but wondered if
| they included software that would allow for hotspot monitoring.
| Lots of really neat off-brand phones out there atm.
| nwotnagrom wrote:
| I have been getting by with an iPad Air that has cellular and
| wifi connectivity no matter where i go. I do have an iPhone Pro
| 11 as well. Basically, I just carry these two devices wherever I
| go. As both are readily connected, it is very convenient for me.
|
| For my iPad though, I also utilize a VM which I access through
| the Shells.com app. This allows me to have access to a Linux and
| Windows machine through my iPad so I have everything all in one.
| hackerbabz wrote:
| ImmersedVR and an Oculus Quest 2. Up to five monitors right on
| your face.
| ISL wrote:
| How well does it work? Do you suffer eyestrain at similar rates
| to normal monitors?
| cato401 wrote:
| I've been traveling the US full-time (RV) with my family (wife &
| 3 teens) for 5 years. I pair-program daily (over SSH/TMUX) and
| only require audio streaming for chat, generally don't need video
| or screen-sharing. We have 3 lines of Verizon "Beyond Unlimited"
| (not sure if they offer this anymore). I believe that is
| "unlimited" up to 75GB from the phone itself, and 25 or 30GB
| hotspot, per line. The kids burn through their data fairly
| quickly so we look for parks/resorts that have some sort of WIFI
| option, whether public or paid, to supplement their needs. For my
| personal and work usage, I'm able to get by without reaching my
| cap each month on the Verizon plan. I also purchased a cellular
| booster (weboost) which has made a huge difference in some rural
| areas. Staying connected to the interwebs is what bank-rolls this
| operation so it has been the single biggest pain-point for
| travel, but doing research on locations has help mitigate some of
| that. https://www.campgroundreviews.com has been a good resource.
| Hope that helps. Happy/safe travels.
| juusto wrote:
| Maybe not the perfect instagram digital nomad life but I do have
| some experience on working from the road.
|
| I travel a lot between EU/Asia/LatAm (yes its still happening)
| and for that my company provides unlimited plans. I spend most of
| my year on the road, from 6-8 months, but the longest stretch was
| only 4 months. We have 2 subs that cover pretty much the whole
| world.
|
| I use a MacBook 13 fully specced out and a Samsung 21 Ultra
| where, when outside of the office, I hotspot from when WiFi in
| public is unavailable (LA/Asia has lots of free fast WiFi
| places).
|
| Electronics with me, I take: laptop, phone, camera (RX100 6 or my
| A7R 3) and WF1000XM3. That's it. Sometimes it's already too much.
|
| Can't live without: VPN (personal/office), streaming services
| (spotify/netflix/hbo) and I load some books on my phones kindle
| app.
|
| I never think about data limits but I am also never too far from
| main cities.
|
| If I could change something would be to get the MacBook 16. But
| then I think of the weight and hassle.
| ghaff wrote:
| Much above 13" is definitely sub-optimal for travel. If the
| rumored Apple Silicon MacBook is similar to the rumors though I
| may upgrade to that--mostly though because I'd use it to
| replace both an iMac and a 13" MacBook Pro that are both 5+
| years old. (And I often travel with just a 13" Chromebook
| anyway.)
| rriepe wrote:
| The thing you're missing is a wifi antenna. They really open up
| where you can park and get internet during the day.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I've been pretty happy with spending most of my time in Costa
| Rica for nearly a decade or so. The pandemic numbers here have
| been really low, partly because people are fairly health-
| conscious here. Anti maskers are basically just gringos nobody
| likes or want anything to do with here instead of crazy people
| yelling vitriol in grocery stores. I don't live at the beach,
| because frankly it's kind of distracting having people come up to
| you wearing headphones asking why you're working and not
| vacationing, but if I want I can just go and hang out in a
| hammock in a less than 6-10 hour bus ride to whichever spot.
| There's also a LARGE amount of fibre optic internet rollout here,
| MUCH more than my 1st world home country that seems to be falling
| apart by the day, so I only have to rely on 3g/4g when the power
| goes out once in a while. If it stays out longer than my battery
| lasts I let people know I'm on a bus to find somewhere that isn't
| out after checking the power company website. Another thing about
| avoiding the beach is avoiding the hours long blackouts.
|
| As for my setup it's literally just my laptop and some notebooks
| in my bag. I have two bags, one carry-on and one backpack, and
| minimalize as much as I can so that if I have to get on a plane
| for whatever reason in short order I'm pretty much already good
| to go. The heaviest things I own are probably books, but they're
| pretty sweet books so I take the weight.
| Shared404 wrote:
| > The heaviest things I own are probably books, but they're
| pretty sweet books so I take the weight.
|
| What are they, if you don't mind me asking of course.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I found this really old book from 1938 for learning German
| which is quite the artifact, one from 1944 on how to survive
| an atomic bomb which is also super old and has some funny
| advice/a picture on wearing a fedora to protect yourself from
| the heat flash... some book from 1924 on mathematics which
| takes a historical analysis approach to teaching called
| mathematics for the million which is pretty cool. It has a
| lot of 'field trip' kind of exercises which makes me feel
| like learning math was probably a hell of a lot more of a fun
| thing to people back in the day. a more modern book which is
| probably a lot better to be learning german from is in there,
| another one from 1950s with andy warhol illustrations for
| spanish learning called "madrigal's magic key to spanish"
| which i lend to friends when they come here to pick up some
| spanish fast I can highly recommend. I got a second copy
| after some absolute walnut took off on a plane with it and
| didn't even bother learning spanish, it's that good.
|
| I also got a couple of computer books. Concurrency in Go
| (oreilly) and this one thicc as heck tome which is the
| textbook for the SEED security labs which is also super good,
| because it comes with a bunch of virtual machines. Really
| nice source for levelling up your understanding of
| application vulnerabilities in C (and by extension other
| languages, but I was really glad to find something with these
| fundamental examples) https://www.handsonsecurity.net/
| codewritinfool wrote:
| Mathematics for the Million is a really good book.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Right? I am sure some of the info in it is probably like
| archaic or apocryphal/historically inacurate in light of
| recent discoveries like a lot of this old stuff can be
| but as long as you take it with that grain of salt in
| mind it's pretty cool
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Oh, thanks for the seed recommendation, I was looking for
| something like this!
| L_226 wrote:
| > one from 1944 on how to survive an atomic bomb which is
| also super old and has some funny advice/a picture on
| wearing a fedora to protect yourself from the heat flash
|
| 1944?
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| https://www.hyperorg.com/gifs/hat.gif heh this is way OT
| now but this cracks me up
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| man scratch that typo. definitely 1946. an older print of
| this title:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/survive-atomic-bomb-Bantam-
| book/dp/B0...
| qorrect wrote:
| That's weird, I was in Puerto Viejo when I found an
| original hard copy of "Where Wizards stay up late",
| something I couldn't find for sell in the US right before I
| left.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I think people take their favorite books and just forget
| them in places. I found a copy of robert anton wilson's
| 'prometheus rising' which was a fun read but old copies
| are pretty hard to find stolen from libraries and stuff
| randomopining wrote:
| Just got back from 3 weeks there, which was awesome. I found my
| spot so far that I would definitely chill at for at least a
| month or two.
|
| I find Tamarindo to have all the amenities, but also crowded
| and basic. Santa Theresa super overrated imo. Pretty sure they
| keep the roads dusty and rocky there to cultivate a certain
| vibe. Manuel Antonio mad touristy. Want to hit more Osa and
| Pavones next time.
|
| My favorite spot was between there and Jaco.
|
| How's the pacific side? I heard the most party hardy crew is
| there.
|
| San Jose was great, went to brunch in the Escalares or
| whatever. Good vibes, low key, girls looked nice and friendly,
| fairly safe, and fairly reasonable prices.
| taurath wrote:
| Tamarindo was sooo tourist oriented, you feel a bit like
| you're a walking wallet - the vibe outside of town couldn't
| be more different and it felt very manufactured and didn't
| have much culture. Good place for people who like cruises.
| Very pretty though.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| It's all pretty sweet everywhere I've been so far, I just
| don't really prefer the beach for work/heat/distraction
| reasons, but I do visit whenever I can take a day or two off.
| There isn't really anywhere I wouldn't recommend outside of
| the Limon/Moin port area (I don't know any good port towns in
| the caribe, to be honest, too much drug traffic drama)...
| just keep in mind the further from the city you stray the
| further from good internet you're getting with the exception
| of certain places... Puerto Viejo, it's pretty far off for
| example but they're well connected enough
| tayo42 wrote:
| Which part of Costa Rica? Funny I was just looking at spending
| a month or two on a work-cation after getting vaccinated.
| Looking at Santa Teresa or nosara, keep reading the internet is
| unreliable. That was my experience after spending a few days in
| Santa Teresa a few years ago
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Yeah man I just hang out in San Jose for the most part. Pre-
| pandemic, fun party scene for sure which is probably one of
| the big things that kept me here. Now it's just nice to be
| able to spend like 5 bucks on an uber ride and go climbing
| nearby mountains and volcanoes when I get time off. Great
| climate in the city and surrounding area. I suggest here or
| some of the outlying cities and towns around Alajuela.
| Monteverde, atenas, that kind of place out in the jungle is
| super nice too and the internet just tends to be a bit
| better.
|
| I find Santa Teresa's internet to be somewhat worse than
| Montezuma area just to the south on the other end of the
| peninsula. Really though what kills things is power outages
| more than internet.
|
| There's co-working spaces with fibre optic, but you'd be
| surprised how many cheap hostels and stuff like that are
| buying into these plans becuase there's tons of competition
| all of the sudden. It's either Kolbi or American Data
| Networks serving it up for the most part, but the cable
| companies Tigo and CableTica are activating dark fibre
| purchases around too.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| https://www.grupoice.com/wps/portal/ICE/en-linea/reporte-
| de-...
|
| Well it looks like they replaced their reporting website
| with a terrible app nobody seems to like at all. I guess
| now you have to rely on having decent Spanish and being
| able to navigate their phone line heh
| res0nat0r wrote:
| I have some coworkers in Costa Rica, it is close timezone
| wise to where I live in the USA now, and I saw this
| absolutely insane house at an unbelievable price a while
| back:
| https://www.coldwellbankercostarica.com/property/11337/
|
| It looks like a fantastic place to live.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| My recommendation is to look at Banco Nacional's
| foreclosed properties. There's a website, it's all in
| Spanish but if you're coming out here not knowing the
| language like some kind of nincompoop you're going to be
| overcharged for everything anyways
|
| https://www.bnventadebienes.com
| klinskyc wrote:
| I spent a month in Jaco in Jan/Feb this year. I found it to
| be a nice middle ground where it's on the beach, but is also
| a (small) city with reliable internet. It's easy to get to
| Santa Teresa/San Jose/Manuel Antononio, etc as well.
|
| It has a (not-entirely-undeserved) rep as being seedy/a party
| town, but I found the overall pros to outweigh cons related
| to that.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I find that whole garabito zone to be WAY TOO HOT. Like
| it's really dry there. The guanacaste region too gets
| really hot and dry. Somehow I think my health prefers hot
| and humid. My nose is all dusted up and clogged in those
| regions. That said this country has a TON of microclimate
| stuff going on, so there's something for everyone, because
| plenty of people don't seem to mind that at all!
| olladecarne wrote:
| Quick disclaimer as someone who lived in Costa Rica for many
| years: Costa Rica's prices for many things are comparable to
| the US. If it's imported stuff like cars or tech, then expect
| to pay 2-3x as much. The internet can be fast, but it's also
| expensive. Basically, expect costs to be closer to vacationing
| in the US than SE Asia. Other than that, it is a very nice
| country although driving there can be like an extreme sport.
| Also, make sure you have a remote job before going there
| because you can't work without a permit and even if you could
| the salaries are very low compared to the US.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I think the really low prices for food and rent have been
| offsetting my costs related to electronics by a long shot
| (Avoiding overpriced supermarkets goes a long way to that
| end), but that's definitely true otherwise. Bringing in stuff
| from cheaper places for that is highly recommended. And yeah
| the roads are nuts haha
| randomopining wrote:
| Hah yeah I just got back from 3 weeks there. Driving was
| quite the experience. Pedestrians literally care 0%, some
| biker didn't even look crossing the street and hit us while
| we were going 15mph. Other drivers go for super risky single
| lane passes on the reg, etc. Ridiculous.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| yeah i just cross the street by standing on the yellow line
| as cars go zooming past me like it's nothing now, it's fun!
| try it sometime people do it every day to purify the vida
| tiltrus wrote:
| How's the process of getting permanent residence there?
| edorrington wrote:
| It's not too difficult. There is a fair bit of bureaucracy,
| so I would recommend going through a lawyer here. The
| essential requirements are a fair bit of documentation (birth
| certificate, marriage certificate if appropriate, and your
| FBI report) each of which have to be apostilled and submitted
| within six months of the first documents date. Then once
| you've submitted all your paperwork you'll go in process,
| after which you won't need to leave the country every 90 days
| to renew your visa.
|
| Once you've been approved, if you're going to be in the so-
| called "rentista" category (i.e. not retired, but not working
| in Costa Rica) you need to show proof of bringing in at least
| $2,500/month to the country for 24 months. That can be done
| by transferring $60,000 into a bank here, which will dole out
| the $2,500 to you every month, or, in some cases, you can
| provide a different proof of guaranteed income.
|
| After three years you can apply for permanent residency,
| which at that point is more a formality, and is pretty
| automatic unless you end up with a police record or some
| other issue.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| They have a 'digital nomad' visa right now which grants you a
| whole year which you should try and score if you can, but the
| other stuff with the rentista is definitely recommendable as
| well and is pretty spot on advice (thanks!)
|
| https://ticotimes.net/2021/03/05/costa-rica-an-ideal-
| destina...
| yosito wrote:
| Hardware is pretty minimal: MacBook, Android Phone, eReader,
| Roost Stand, Magic Keyboard/Trackpad.
|
| But your question is more about data.
|
| I travel internationally, and primarily use wifi at coffee shops,
| coworking spaces and Airbnbs. This year, that's been mostly wifi
| at the place I've called home all year. I've also got Google Fi
| which allows me to tether "unlimited" data. I think it has a cap
| at 22GB/mo, and maybe charges per GB after that, but I've never
| reached that.
|
| If I were in the US in a motorhome, I'd probably try to get
| Starlink. That's a bit new and "untested" though. You could
| switch to Google Fi for a higher data cap, though beware that
| their coverage in the US is (last time I checked) not as
| widespread as Verizon, especially outside of cities.
|
| You can also try to reduce your data use. I've used an app called
| TripMode on my Mac that allows me to block all data usage for
| apps and enable it on a per-app basis. That prevents things like
| Google Drive sync and other things that send a lot of data
| without my consciousness of it from blowing through data caps. It
| also lets you monitor exactly how much data you're using per
| session with each app.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| 22 GB per month as a cap for google fiber, is that for real? I
| eat 22 GB per day. Looking at my network properties it says
| I've eat 725 GB in past 30 days, and that's low actually as I
| routinely go over 1 TB. And that's just me alone, not the rest
| of my household.
| aorth wrote:
| Think it's Google Fi, the cell phone plan Google offers with
| Pixel devices, not fiber.
| yosito wrote:
| This is Google Fi, the cell service. Not Google Fiber. I
| don't use more than that because I used uncapped wifi most of
| the time. I think on wifi I'm probably using around 9-10 GB
| most days, but it wouldn't be too hard to use over 20 here
| and there.
| kinnth wrote:
| In the UK at least you should buy the Gigacube from Vodafone,
| it's unlimited wifi over 5g and it costs around PS45 a month. You
| can power it off a battery and then it gives you local wifi
| connected to the 5g network.
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