STARLINK MINI: Cost, No-Drill-No-Wiring-Roof-Install, & Performance. PERFECT FOR RV, VAN, NOMAD LIFE

A few months ago, I installed a mini Starlink on my roof with no drilling and no wiring. And now for me, getting unlimited Wi-Fi is as easy as turning on a light with some limitations. Today I'll tell you all about it. Good morning YouTube and Patreon. Happy Sunday. I hope you're all doing well out there. I am doing great. Like I said, I installed a mini backpack size Starlink on my roof. Today I'm going to tell you how I did it. It was so easy, how it performs, and how much it costs. I live full-time on the road as a nomad and I have for nine years. So when I first started on the road, getting Wi-Fi was a nightmare. There weren't enough cell towers and Starlink didn't even exist. So when I first got Starlink, I guess about three or four years ago, it was an absolute life changer for me. I got the version 2 dish, which you can see here. And it was a lot better than having to hunt for a cell tower and then deal with the very, very slow uploads and downloads. But I still had to worry about trees and rocks and tall buildings and weather. And also the version 2 dish was so bulky. Here's a picture of it. It was big and you had to put it on a stand that did not fold up. And it had this massive cable and a massive router that got hot. So every time I went to a new location, I would have to drag all of that out, position it the right direction, and then shut my door on it or my slide or put it out a window. And that was not ideal because it took up space and I was tethered to it. So if I needed to take off, I would have been dragging my Starlink down the road. Well, last September I had a meetup at the Moab Music Festival and one of my patrons had one of the first Starlink minis. I couldn't believe how small it is. It really does fit in a backpack. It's only 2.5 pounds and even better, it doesn't come with that big stand or that big router and the cable is smaller. So I knew then that I wanted to upgrade. When I got my van, I decided that was the time. But again, I didn't want to be putting it outside and running my cable in and out of my doors and shutting the cable on it. Also because in a lot of the places I'm in, people just barrel down the road and I was always afraid someone was going to run over it. So I spent months doing research on different mounts for the roof and figuring out how I would wire it without drilling any holes in the roof. Ultimately I chose a magnet that the mini just slides into and then it pops right on your roof. It's super strong. It's not going anywhere. Now in these pictures, you're going to see a black cover on my Starlink. That is not there anymore. I'll explain that in just a minute. After I stuck it to the roof with that magnet, I just had to find a way to run the cable inside. Now there are more complicated ways. Like some people run the wiring with an adapter through the backup camera. I didn't want to do all that. I wanted to figure out a way to just run it so it was super easy. So what I did is I first attached part of the cable to my roof rack with a zip tie, just because I didn't want the cable flapping around. And then I ran the Starlink cable down along the seal of my door, but then I had to find a way to get it inside. So again, we ran the wire just right here, kind of secured it with some tape, and then to get it inside so I can shut the door, we put it through this hinge right here. And just for anybody else that has a Promaster, I want to tell you there's a little tab right here, and if you pull that, this whole apparatus comes out and lets you put the cord through. So then on the inside, the cord is right here. Now if that wasn't easy enough, I found a way to make it even easier with a gizmo that I found on Amazon, and I'll put the link for this below as well. This is the best gizmo that I got to go with my Starlink. Up here on the wall, you can see I have a little remote that I put onto the wall with a magnet, and what this does is it controls the power on three plugs in my house. I'm going to show you where the Starlink is plugged in here in just a second, but I don't want the Starlink to be running all the time, especially when I'm going down the road, because it's constantly going to be searching for satellites, and that takes a lot of power, and it gets hot, and I don't want it to do that. But because it's plugged in back there, I don't want to have to go back there and unplug it every time I go to travel, so instead what I do is I just turn it off right here. This is my TV. I can turn it on and off, and this is my security camera. I can turn it on and off from right here. This is my Starlink. This is as big as the plug is, which is a big improvement from the router that was in the big one, and then here's the gizmo that you plug into the outlet that you can turn it on and off from the remote. This one is my security camera, so when I don't have that plugged in, I don't have to come back here and mess with it. I can just do it from inside. Now with the Starlink, I can work in amazing places like the one I'm in right now that has zero cell signal, and all I have to do is hit the little remote and turn on the Starlink, but you might want to know how it performs because you can see that I'm in the woods, so let me give you some examples. I can tell you that the service is so much better than it was with the version 2 about three or four years ago. I think they're putting up so many satellites that even when you have some obstructions, your dish is still able to connect to a moving satellite more frequently. Here you can see that I'm camped on a beach with no obstructions, and when I did the speed test, it was going up to sometimes over 200 megabits. Here's another example where I was camped in a spot that was about 50% covered with trees. You can see that on the Starlink app. When I ran the speed test, I was still getting about 145 megabits, but I would have every once in a while a little blip where the service would get a little interrupted, and here's another example where I was mostly covered with trees. I could still connect to the satellites, but I was getting about 32 megabits, and if I went into the Starlink app, I could see that there were little obstructions, and it kept dropping the signal and then reconnecting, so I can still camp in places where there are obstructions. If I need to send a text message or download something really quick, it's no problem, but if I want to upload something or I have a video meeting or something, I cannot do it with those kinds of obstructions, but it's no big deal because I just drive forward a little bit. Like you saw earlier, the Starlink has to be plugged into a regular wall outlet to work, which means if you're in a van or an RV or a Skoolie like me, you need to have your inverter on and plug it in, but there are adapters you can buy so that you can use it in your 12-volt cigarette lighter while you're going down the road, or you can put an ethernet adapter on the of your rig to plug it into, like I did with my Airstream, or you can just plug your Starlink into a Jackery power box, which I have with me as a backup. The Starlink does use about 20 to 25 watts of power on a regular basis, but if you're going down the road and you're using it in motion, which is allowed now, it is using more power because it's always searching for satellites. So for me, I don't even deal with that. When I'm driving, I turn it off with my little gizmo, go down the road and just turn it back on as I need it. Now let's talk about the cost. I would prefer not to be paying Starlink. I'm going to be excited when there are more providers out there, but right now it's the only real satellite game in town. So you can get a basic Starlink plan now for $50 a month for 50 gigabytes. That doesn't work for me because I always use over 300 a month and I don't want to worry about it and worry about data caps. So I bit the bullet and I pay for the unlimited Starlink Roam, which is $160 a month, and I let one of my other routers, which was an AT&T router, go. I still have a hotspot on my Verizon phone just in case, and for me, that makes it so easy and I don't have to worry about it. But that's what's right for me because I work from the road and that's part of my infrastructure cost. You might not need that. Maybe the 50 gig plan would be just fine for you because you can turn it on and off as you want to and only use it in places that don't have a cell signal. The mini was $699 last year when I bought it. Now they're $499 and on the Starlink website, you can get a refurbished one for $299. So if you need it, if you want to work from the road like I do, then you can do that for as little as $299 for the Starlink mini and $50 a month for 50 gigs on Starlink Roam. Oh, let me tell you about that black cover that was originally on the Starlink. I got that mini Starlink a year ago while I was in Grand Teton National Park and there was no signal and I was so excited to use it. And so I propped it up on my windshield like I'd seen some other people do and ran the cord inside, shut my door on it because I didn't have the roof solution yet. And it was sitting there and the next morning I went to warm up my car and the automatic windshield wipers came on and knocked my little baby mini Starlink on the ground and I got a little crack in the frame. It worked fine after that and Starlinks are meant to be weather resistant. They're meant to take hail and snow and rain and heat and all that stuff. But I thought, why not? It's a silicone cover that does not obstruct the signal at all. I was really surprised by that and I thought that was a win. Well, after I mounted it on the roof and had that cover on, if I was using the Starlink and it was even 72 degrees outside, my Starlink would turn off and I would get a your Starlink is overheated notice. What was happening was that black silicone cover was trapping the heat inside. So I had to find a ladder and take it off the Starlink which is still on the roof. That was two months ago and I have been in almost 100 degree heat and have been using it all day and have never had the problem again. So do not get the black cover. I'm considering getting one of the white or the clear silicone covers. I don't know if I need it. I worry a little bit because my little baby has a crack in it. But don't get the black one. Okay, I hope you guys found this helpful. Again, I will put the link for the little gizmo that turns things off and the Starlink magnet down below. And Patreon people, I'll see you even later on this week with another new video. And YouTube people, I'll see you pretty soon. Until then, everybody out there, have happy travels and be free.