So after some last-minute preparations, we've embarked upon a six-week road trip
down through New Mexico into Texas, and starting with next week's episode
we'll be sharing those travel videos with you. However, unlike in 2018 when we
took a year off of work to travel, this time we're actually going to be working
from the road -- and that presents some unique challenges. We need unlimited data
to be able to work from the trailer, and we can't be bumping up against any
throttling, or any data caps. We need to have dependable, unlimited data, and like
I said that presented some unique challenges. But we found a unique
solution -- for cheap, actually -- and we're going to share that with you on this
week's episode of Grand Adventure, so stay tuned!
Now, the problem is that virtually all cellphone carriers either limit the
amount of data you can consume per month, or even on unlimited plans, after a
certain point they either throttle the speed down to the point where it's
essentially unusable, or they degrade your service where you're deprioritized on
the tower. Neither of these were going to be
acceptable solutions for us to be able to work on the road. Now in researching
the options that were available to us ahead of this trip, we discovered Visible.
Visible is a prepaid plan that uses the Verizon network. It costs $40 per month
including all taxes and all fees, so the bill every month is an even $40, and it
has unlimited voice, unlimited text, and unlimited data without any capping or
without any throttling. Now like I said it's on the Verizon network, so you have
more coverage across the U.S. than you do on any other cell carrier. It's also
prepaid, so you pay as you go. You can turn it on and off at will, so
you can turn the service off for the months that you don't actually need it.
Now you can either bring your phone, your own phone, in which case Visible will
provide a SIM card for it, or you can buy one of their phones to use as a
dedicated hotspot. We picked up this ZTE Android phone for only $19 and we're
going to use that as a dedicated hotspot within our trailer. So you're asking,
"What's the catch?" Well, there used to be two, and now there's only one -- and we
found a workaround for that one catch. The first catch was that there used to
be a 5 Mbps data cap. However, Visible has just recently
removed that data cap for all new and existing customers. The other catch is
that you could only connect one networked device to the Wi-Fi hotspot at
a time. However, we get around that by using a nano router. Now our HooToo
TripMate is a tiny lightweight router that operates on USB, so you don't need a 120
volt AC power source to operate it. In our trailer it networks all devices
in our RV, including our phones, our tablets, connected TVs and more. The power
draw is minimal, it's usually only around one amp, so it has little impact on our
RV batteries while we're boondocking. Now, we've done a separate video on the
TripMate Nano which we'll link to right here on the screen, but here's a quick
overview. It uses 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi networks. It's a single band, it
operates on the 2.4 GHz frequency. The throughput rate is 150
Mbps. There's a switch right here that allows you to switch
between wired and wireless connect modes, so you can use this to connect, say, a
wired internet in a hotel to your own encrypted network, or you could add a
layer of security while using public Wi-Fi. Now it does support WPA and WPA2
Wi-Fi security. This USB port supports network attached storage devices devices
like a thumb drive or an external hard drive, and it has a built-in DLNA server
to share media files across connected devices. Now there are newer and more
expensive nano routers available that have additional features like dual
band and 802.11ac support, but the TripMate Nano remains an excellent
value at a lower cost, currently only $21.99 on Amazon with free Prime shipping.
Now we've included the HooToo TripMate Nano in our Grand Adventure shop on
Amazon, and we've also linked to it down below in the video description. So, what's
the point of using a nano router with Visible's unlimited hotspot service? Well,
when you connect the router to the phone, the phone only recognizes that as one
device, no matter how many devices you have connected to the router via Wi-Fi,
so it gets around Visible's one-device-at-a-time hotspot limitation. So, by using a
phone, a dedicated Visible phone as a hotspot device in conjunction with our
nano router, we've got unlimited service that we can
use across all devices, including our connected TVs, and allows us to work
while we're on the road on this trip -- all for $40 a month. We've also
connected a couple of security cameras, one inside and one outside the trailer,
that are also connected to Visible's network through the hotspot and through
the nano router. All this is on the nation's broadest coverage network
through Verizon, with no taxes and no fees that aren't already included in the
$40 a month price. Now, we have no business relationship with Visible other
than being customers; however, every single customer on Visible gets a
referral code, and that has a benefit to you, and a benefit to us. By using our
referral code you get half off the first month's service, so it brings the price
down from $40 to $20 for you to go try it out like we did. And it also gives us
the benefit of taking $20 off our bill, so this is a you scratch our back/
we'll scratch yours kind of relationship. Now in the video description down
below we'll put the referral code, we'll put a link to Visible, we'll put a link
to the phone that we're using (the $19 ZTE Android phone) as well as the HooToo
TripMate. So far, so wonderful. We've been using this service so far
throughout our trip to be able to connect to the VPN at our company and
work from the road. This has been an absolutely exceptional and
cost-effective solution to our data needs while we're out here traveling.
Right now we're in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, and we will bring you to Cloudcroft next
week, as well as continued videos as we continue our journey down through
southern New Mexico and into West Texas. So if you like this video it's extremely
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week from Cloudcroft, please remember... life is nothing but a Grand Adventure!
We'll see you soon!