[2.2.6] Cellular Dongle Compatibility

Found a little nugget in the release notes that hasn’t seen a lot of air time:

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Hmmm @mike.maxwell care to elaborate?

You need to have Remote Admin, as connecting to the hub via cellular data is "remote" by definition. With that in place, and a typical cellular data dongle, you can access the hub that way.

@gopher.ny r can fill in more details.

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Cell dongle support is available under Settings - Networking. I've tested it with a ZTE USB cellular modem (clean Amazon link is also in the app), but it can be used with any USB networking device that doesn't require a specific driver and acquires its own IP address without "help" from the OS.

The idea is to use a USB cellular modem and remote access in tandem to manage a hub in a remote location without WiFi.

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Interesting! Thanks for elaborating!

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This is awesome. Great work.
How about as a backup WAN connection? like if using HE for security and your home internet line is cut..

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It doesn't work that way at this time. Maybe in the future... It's either one or the other, cellular data or LAN, with no automatic changeover ability.

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The back-up WAN connection would make more sense on a router. I didn't think of that until I read this thread. When I saw that line in the release notes, I was thinking it would be a back-up connection to the LAN too.

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It's going to be a rare'ish situation where the cost of the Cellular Dongle (initial and monthly/usage) can be dedicated to a Hubitat Hub. Even a RV, if it's being equipped with a Hub, would probably have a couple more Internet gobbling devices and thus a dedicated Cell Dongle for the hub isn't efficient. Obviously, if it's just a couple of cell phones and a Hub in the RV, then each having it's own cell connection can work. "Family Plan" LOL

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I'm guessing this might be for the monied folks that have vacation homes/cabins where they can get cell coverage of some sort--but not a dedicated ISP.

That way, they can monitor/control it remotely while they're far away.

It might even open up some "business opportunities" for the HE vs. others by having this ability. :slight_smile:

It might also work for a business, where they want the hub off their main LAN.

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No. The hub is either connected to the LAN or the dongle, not both.

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$20 or less per month for an extra SIM card on a family plan (even less on an IOT plan)
AND
the ability for the HE to actually use the TEXT MESSAGING capability in NOTIFICATIONS ???
AND
Zigbee/Zwave device reliability on par with the best wireless alarm system devices
AND
heck yeah, this would be inchin-in-the-right-direction for remote facility management.

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A data only add-on SIM is even cheaper than a full service SIM and much cheaper than almost any ISP plan. A good solution for vacation home and could possibly use that to quickly setup a few sensors for vacant rental.

However, I don't think using cellular connection is more secure than LAN. A click on a cellular signal jammer will simply cut that off easier than cutting the cable or telephony ISP wire.

It would be great if this could be used for failover! I have a travel trailer where it would be great to use the internet connection provided by the WiFi 99+% of the time but be able to use something like alarmsim to provide security related messages when WiFi isn't available. With the 500MB data limit of such a plan using it for failover of the main router makes no sense since it would be out of data in minutes with just about anything else connected, this would be purely for security or temperature related emergency messages.

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I would love to use the dongle as a backup for my ISP internet connection, using it with a Sim card from another ISP. This would be great for using HSM as a top notch security system.

Cellular Data use for IOT isn't as exclusive as it might first seem.

The push for IOT connectivity is causing some serious price point changes for low bandwidth use. This might be a design consideration for HE configuration, i.e. if toggled in the System Panel then it would prohibit seriously data intensive features like say....Text to Voice, etc.

I can't find an article with a more current date but this mentions the ballpark pricing I had heard for strictly IOT connection (not referring to an extra line on a standard plan here).

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