Hi, Marc Guido again with Grand Adventure. Now, you probably are not already
familiar with this, but for under 20 bucks there's a little 12-volt internet
router that you can put in your RV that'll allow all the network devices in
your RV to communicate with one another, allow you to share an internet connection
across devices, and can even help you out in those areas where cell phone signal is
weak and service is fringe. We'll tell you all about it on this episode of Grand
Adventure, so stay tuned!
Now, believe it or not this tiny little thing is what I'm talking about. This is
the HooToo TripMate Nano. You can get it on Amazon for under $20. I'll put the
link in the description to this video down below, and this runs off 12-volt
power and believe it or not, despite how small this is, this is actually a full
Internet router and access point. Now, we simply plug the device into a USB port
in the entertainment center of our RV. We use it primarily as a way to share
internet across devices. What we do is we actually tether this via Wi-Fi to our
cell phone, so the cell phone is providing the data. It tethers wirelessly
to the router and then it automatically shares the Internet service with our
connected TVs, our tablet, our laptop, and anything else we may be traveling with
to provide Internet service to each of those devices. Now because we're using
this as our access point, we don't have to change the TV or the laptop or
whatever, the Wi-Fi settings in each of those devices. It simply connects to this
each time we plug it in. Now, one great way to use this device if you're in an
area where cell phone service is weak, we simply put the cell phone that we're
tethering off of outside the trailer. That way it's not inside that metal box,
that Faraday cage that does such a wonderful job of blocking signal. Then
it's just transferred wirelessly to the router inside the trailer and supplies
good signal to each of the devices that we're using if we're inside. On the top
of the device you have two indicator lights: the blue one to show Wi-Fi is
enabled, and the green one shows you have an internet connection.
On one side of the device you have a switch to go from wired to wireless
router, if you use wired you have an Ethernet port there available to plug in
your network device. And on this side you have a USB port to plug in an external
drive to share files. And just like any other modern router that you may have
used in the past, that tiny little 12-volt HooToo comes with a web
interface that you can use with your web browser to set up and configure the
router, or it also comes with its own app for a mobile device. This is the web
interface for the device. You hit the button to log in with your credentials
and you have all the various settings that you are used to seeing with an internet
router. Down below you'll see the Explorer for exploring files that are
shared through the external drive that you may plug in. You have your network
settings, your internet settings where you can select the SSID of the wireless
network that you are connecting to via Wi-Fi or mobile data tethered from your
phone. And this is the mobile app. I'm showing you on Android as I use an
Android phone, but there is an iOS version as well. This has a full DLNA
media server, so any media that you have connected gets shared across your
devices. We'll go in here into the settings, if you actually go into the
internet settings this is where you connect to your internet source. We can
use either Wi-Fi or mobile data as mentioned before. Here you have your MAC
address, your IP address, all the typical router settings. There's the SSID that
we're broadcasting to our other devices, and you can see
here as I switch the screens, you do have a guest user account available as well.
So that's going to do it for our review of the HooToo TripMate Nano 12-volt
internet router. We hope this information has been useful to you. If it is, give us
a thumbs up down below. Now we've been using this HooToo for quite some time,
we bought it on our own on Amazon. We do have a link to the Amazon
purchase in the video description down below. Now, in the interest of
full disclosure this is an affiliate link, so we receive a small commission if you
decide to purchase through that link. It doesn't cost you any more to purchase it
that way, but that way we get a small amount back from Amazon to help keep
making videos like this just for you. If you're not yet one of our Grand
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episodes. And until next time remember, life is nothing but a Grand Adventure.
We'll see you soon!