Dedicated mifi device vs phone hotspot?

Any thoughts on range and quality of service delivered from a mobile Wi-fi device vs using an old phone setup as a hotspot?

Obviously some mifi devices have physical connections, but I’m less concerned about those rather than range and stability of signal.

Any views?

Used both for work a couple of years ago and never noticed any benefit of mi fi over phone hotspot.

Any particular reason you’re considering either of those options over your current phone?

@Cougar it’s for an overseas trip where the flat has no Wi-fi.
We will use the data on our phones, but it’s possible that the OTS teenagers may run out of roaming data. I can buy a couple of cheap pay as you go sims that will have a roaming allowance to provide the top up and help maintain household harmony.
I’m also tempted to use it as a backup for home working.

Unless there is an external antenna there will not be any significant difference

I will caveat that with both receiving the same frequency. E.g. if your phone doesn’t receive 1800 but mifi does and there happens to be a bett signal on 1800mhz then there will be a different. This is an edge case with grey market import phones and an official mofi device configured for UK /eu

We will use the data on our phones, but it’s possible that the OTS teenagers may run out of roaming data.

Unlimited roaming data, twenty of your pounds.

https://smarty.co.uk/sim-only

it’s for an overseas trip where the flat has no Wi-fi.
We will use the data on our phones, but it’s possible that the OTS teenagers may run out of roaming data. I can buy a couple of cheap pay as you go sims that will have a roaming allowance to provide the top up and help maintain household harmony.
I’m also tempted to use it as a backup for home working.

why not just upgrade one phone to mucho/unlimited roaming data and everyone else just uses that as a hotspot?

True unlimited roaming isn’t possible on the networks I’ve looked at.
Smarty and Three, which they use, are limited to 12 gb per month (fair use policy).
Voxi based on the Vodafone network is more generous at 20gb per month, same as O2.
There’s also potential to use it with a fire stick and vpn for smart TVs stuff, but that is a lesser requirement.

I can get three 12gb pre paid data sims for £6 each, and similar for a voxi one, although that involves signing up and then cancelling the account, so I’ll probably just register a couple before we leave.

Thanks all.
Now, let’s work out if VPN is possible for iPlayer

Double check that you can tether from Smarty too, I’m pretty sure that’s the reason I binned them off after a brief trial.

Tether is ok on smarty

Yeah, I’ve remembered now, it wasn’t tether, it was WiFi calling that they wouldn’t support.

I’m interested in how on a holiday they can get through 12gb…

It’s likely they won’t run out, but for the small cost involved, I’m happy to be the belt and braces guy 😀
And streaming films in the evening is a useful option too.

I’m interested in how on a holiday they can get through 12gb…

Video streaming on a wet day / YouTube / iOS or Android update would easily chew through 12GB.

Only advantage of using a dedicated device over a phone is that when roaming abroad some phones don’t support VoLTE, so if you get a call the internet connection will drop.

Dedicated device can be useful if you’re staying somewhere with a poor mobile signal; put the device where the signal is best and you can use the phone somewhere else over wifi.

Thanks again folks. I’ve ordered a cheap ZTE mifi unit and I’ve setup a small router to provide the VPN stuff.

This
ZTE MF920U, CAT4/4G LTE Mobile Wi-Fi, Unlocked Low Cost Portable Hotspot, Connect up to 10 Devices, 2000mAh Battery, with FREE SMARTY SIM Card- White https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08CZYM51X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_W3VYZ82N192AJ455GBP3

And one of these which I already have for the vpn
GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 (Mango) Wireless Mini Portable VPN Travel Router, Mobile Hotspot in Pocket, WiFi Repeater Bridge, Range Extender, OpenVPN Client, 300Mbps High Performance, 128MB RAM https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073TSK26W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Y5GSDYAZ9XGYBRR5X0MD

The cheap sim cards and router have arrived and I’ve spent an hour setting things up.
The mini router is an amazing bit of kit; I can use my NordVPN account with open vpn profiles. Perfect for streaming in Europe hopefully 🤞

Given many providers are now not doing the roaming for free/part of your plan, then this is a good idea. We used to have an EE MiFi for the caravan, but only binned it when we got big data allowances on our phones – so use this for Netflix/internet.

All changes now with roaming – much cheaper to get the mifi and a few data sims.

I also used the mifi whilst stuck in hospital with a broken back. I was too far from the window to get a data signal on my mobile (and no wifi 6 years ago), so used the mifi with a power bank to hang off the window opening handle. The only issue is I had to ask the Nurses to carry it over to the window each day as I was bed bound for over 6 weeks. Used to get all day use, then brought back to my bed to charge both up overnight.

That router looks too good to be true for the price.

Any reason to choose that model over the AR300M16?

Dunno @Cougar I bought it a while ago and forgot about it.
Looking at them, they look the same physically.

Yeah. Different chipset seems to be the main difference? And a less toxic colour…!

Nowt wrong with the colour! You can’t lose it 😀
Read the Amazon reviews if you are unconvinced, it’s a proper little box of delights!

Nowt wrong with the colour! You can’t lose it 😀

Yes, but I was thinking of using it as a repeater for IoT devices in the farther corners of the house whilst still being permitted to have sex at some point in the next twelve months.

Sorry for the thread hijack:
If I use a mifi device tethered to an iPad, & I want to watch a uk service like Amazon Prime while abroad in the EU: Will using a vpn on the iPad allow me to do this?

Yes, but choice of VPN is important. Windcribe has been working quite well with Amazon Prime and iPlayer. They recognise you as from residentual IPs. Not tried Netflix though.

I not only need a VPN to make these types of services think I’m in the UK, but punch through The Great Firewall.

Double check that you can tether from Smarty too,

I had a 4g router running from a Smarty sim with no issues

I’m also intrigued – I’m going to buy one of these for work. We have teachers wanting to take learning outdoors, but also have tablets having data.

How many devices can you realistically connect to one of these devices and it still work ok? I’m thinking 15 devices needed….

Thats probably more down to the speed of service you are getting and the built in AP capacity/capability. I ran a Huawwei router device with a Ruckus AP connected in a residential setting with about 9Mb download speed and had four CCTV cameras, three Echos, one TV/Firestick, one tablet and up to three phones and it was fine.

NB – Using a Smarty unlimited SIM for £16 per month so the tethering to a Smarty SIM is fine as per the comment above

Both mifi and router have an upper limit of 10 connections according to the specs.
Obviously, performance will be related to how much bandwidth each connection is trying to use.

I use a GL.inet at home as the connection point for the vacuum cleaner and the IOT. It’s a great piece of kit for the money, but does have a habit of freezing up (I think when the logs get to big).

I like the way that they both release updates (unusual for a cheap IOT device) and that, if you want, you can go under the covers and directly configure the base OS. And it is small. Very small.

That router looks too good to be true for the price.

Any reason to choose that model over the AR300M16?
…
I was thinking of using it as a repeater for IoT devices in the farther corners of the house

Just as a follow-up to my own questions,

I bought the AR300 as above. And it’s bloody brilliant.

I’ve been having ongoing issues with IoT devices. The conclusion I’ve come to is that whilst I’ve got a big daft ‘dead spider’ router which cheerfully floods the house with speedy intertubes, the £8 bulbs I’ve been buying just don’t have sufficient grunt in their Wi-Fi chippery to talk to it reliably through two-foot thick internal walls. I’ll turn on a room’s bulbs with Alexa and the one in the far corner won’t respond. I’ve tried having the router in different places as far as is practical and it just moves the problem around.

I tried a Mesh system before the dead spider and that was shite. Traditional APs I had no interest in because I didn’t really want multiple SSIDs about the place, I just want to connect to the Internet and hand over seamlessly if I move between nodes. Then it suddenly hit me – for bulbs, WGAF?

So I got the little GL-iNet router. First impressions, it is astonishingly tiny. It’s like 2″ square. Setting it up was a breeze and it’s got more options, features and plug-ins than I can shake a stick at.

I stuck it on the landing acting as a Wi-Fi repeater, reset and re-paired the bulbs to its SSID rather than the main ASUS, and everything Just Works. It’s got near-line-of-sight to the main router and the bulbs are now talking to the network through the floor / fresh air rather than 120-year old stonework.

Best twenty quid I’ve spent in a long while, I can’t recommend it hard enough. Utterly incredible for the price.

@Cougar superb! Just watch out for the log issue mentioned up there ^

@Cougar – I learned a trick the other month

Traditional APs I had no interest in because I didn’t really want multiple SSIDs about the place,

You can just give all the APs the same SSID as your main wifi and your device will just hook into the one with the strongest signal. Like you I had been pratting around with multiple SSIDs and it was a right ball ache but my friend put me onto this and it works seamlessly.

Don’t know why I never knew about it before. but, this is how hotels, offices etc do it with just one SSID for the whole building.

👍 That may be true but, for the purposes of this exercise I want to control what connects to what. The IoT devices need a stronger signal, the PCs etc need a faster one.

@dannybgoode

this is how hotels, offices etc do it with just one SSID for the whole building.

This is not entirely true. Most of those environments will have a centralised AP controller that ensures there is a nice handover between AP’s. I am not saying it does not work, I am running something similar at home, but I have disabled the slower rates to force the client devices to roam earlier than they would normally. This make things a bit more stable for the ‘mobile’ devices and also prevents one device holding on to an AP at a slow data rate which would slow down other client devices on the same AP.