[HN Gopher] First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini
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First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini
Author : tosh
Score : 60 points
Date : 2024-06-16 19:39 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.starlinkhardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.starlinkhardware.com)
| poorman wrote:
| The lack of DC power is rough for boats, vans, and RVs. If
| someone wants to put this in a backpack they really need to get a
| DC power supply version. There are solutions out there at this
| point for the standard dishy but the flat high performance has a
| crazy power supply with it.
| stavros wrote:
| Do we know it's not DC?
| teraflop wrote:
| Page 7 of the linked FCC application says:
|
| > Power requirements: 30 V DC / 2 A via 100-240V AC/DC
| adaptor
|
| Presumably, when people talk about "running it from DC power"
| they mean a standard 12V automotive power supply, which would
| require a 12V to 30V step-up converter to replace the
| supplied AC adapter.
| stavros wrote:
| I wonder if that's what the adapter supplies, and the
| device can actually do 12-30V or whatnot.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Not many devices that run off 30V will run off 12V too.
| It's too big of a difference.
|
| But 12V to 36V boost converters are readily available and
| very cheap.
| stavros wrote:
| I imagine most of those devices have a buck converter
| inside, no?
| nativeit wrote:
| It isn't necessarily implied, but if this thing is pulling
| a nominal 30W-40W (assuming considering the 60W PSU) then I
| don't know how much use this would be for a portable
| device, even for RVs. That's a pretty significant load,
| even for an amplified antenna, I would have thought?
| ryukoposting wrote:
| Did some quick research on a major American car parts
| retailer's website. The biggest batteries they sell are
| rated as high as 188Ah (though they use a weird industry-
| specific unit to say that). Many are closer to 25-50Ah.
| Definitely enough juice to power a terminal for several
| hours.
|
| This lines up with my personal experiences. I have
| personally used a car battery to keep a big gaming laptop
| charged for an entire weekend, and it was being used (if
| not under heavy load) for about 10 hours a day.
|
| Those big batteries are extremely heavy and very
| expensive, but we're talking about people who want
| _broadband internet service_ on their _boat._ Money is
| not a concern here.
|
| I'm sure Starlink has different power modes for these
| things, but the average consumer is likely far more
| interested in optimizing for connection speed and
| latency.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| You likely wouldnt be running this off a lead acid car
| battery.
|
| You'd have a lithium battery and an additional power
| source, like solar or generator, to top that battery off.
| wyre wrote:
| Needing to add an extra battery to an off grid power
| supply just to power a "portable" router designed to
| accept grid power and not 12V is a huge fail on starlinks
| part, regardless of the cost of the battery to power it.
|
| For reference 60w is similiar power draw to a Dometic
| fridge or a laptop.
|
| Also adding a huge heavy battery to a boat is a non-
| negligible consideration in a lot of cases.
| swader999 wrote:
| Most van / RV setups have an inverter but I agree, DC is best.
| pen2l wrote:
| The other disappointing thing (correct me if I'm wrong) is that
| it's not quite portable in a true sense; if I take the Starlink
| equipment I bought in United States to.. say, Argentina or
| Germany, it won't work there. I wish it could work like that,
| without a lot of hassle, but it doesn't appear to be the case.
| kortilla wrote:
| "Global roaming" is the plan that allows that and it costs
| twice as much IIRC
| dustfinger wrote:
| Is this meant to supersede starlink roam [1]?
|
| [1]: https://www.starlink.com/ca/roam
| CognitiveLens wrote:
| Roam is effectively the data plan, this is a new hardware dish,
| but I suspect it will be the preferred dish for most Roam
| plans.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| Feels like this is a direct response to the Amazon / Project
| Kuiper 7" terminal announced last year:
| https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/heres-...
| panick21_ wrote:
| This much more likely to be something that had been in the long
| term plan for many years.
|
| Amazon is announcing stuff because they are spending 10e of
| billions and have nothing to show for it, and wont have
| anything for years. They need to show progress to the quarter
| to quarter investor.
|
| Frankly the idea that Starlink is passivly reacting to Amazon
| annoucments is a bit silly. The difficult part is to actually
| produce these terminals at high volume cheaply, not releasing a
| few renders.
| grecy wrote:
| The major difference being the Starlink mini terminal has 6,078
| satellites to connect to today to provide functioning internet,
| vs the Project Kuiper terminals that can connect to a grand
| total of zero satellites.
| skybrian wrote:
| I think a great use case for this would be as a backup for when
| the regular ISP goes out in a rural area.
|
| But I don't think they have any subscription plans priced for
| that? And there might be issues after a storm if everyone started
| using it at once.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| The Garmin inReach (and others like it) is probably the nearest
| readily-available solution for that use case. Not broadband
| internet obviously, but it provides access to basic, essential
| communication methods. It does so at a much, much lower price
| point than Starlink/HughesNet/etc can offer, making it more
| palatable as an "emergency backup" product.
| fragmede wrote:
| yeah they don't force you into some weird shitty contract. you
| can buy the hardware outright, and then not pay for a
| subscription until you actually want to use it for the month of
| Outober.
| amluto wrote:
| I wish "mesh" WiFi was more standardized. I don't think there's
| any good reason that a device like this should require
| specifically a Starlink mesh mode instead of an industry standard
| WDS device.
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(page generated 2024-06-16 23:00 UTC)