Keeping Watch

Everyday Magnadyne’s technical support team receives emails and calls asking for advice or assistance on our many products. Questions range from what fits in my RV, boat or car, to how do I install this car alarm. Occasionally they received requests that fired them up and return them to their installer days. An example of one such request came from customer who wanted to know if Magnadyne had a product that can be used to monitor a yacht while moored in a slip at the harbor. After a few conversations with the customer to understand the environment, where the yacht is moored, what type of power sources are available, and where the camera could be mounted, the team went to work.
The first problem they had to solve was what camera to use.

The camera most be controlled remotely, operate on its own power, and be compact in size. Well, it was time to call and recruit the "IT Guy". Quickly IT suggested to use a basic Ring doorbell camera. This was a great suggestion. The camera is small, there is no external power required, it can be remotely operated, and is weather resistant - camera issue solved.

The Ring Video Doorbell camera was an excellent product choice for this situation. It is weather proof, self powered, easy to install, small, and has a very clear wide angle view. However, it does require full time internet access to be remotely operated by its mobile app. Being installers in their past life, the tech team immediately picked the RV-Link TV-1W-WiFi-LTE-RVA to handle this task. The TV-1W-WiFi-LTE-RVA provides AM/FM/HDTV/WiFi and LTE capability. This single device contained all the antennas and communication devices necessary to support HDTV and AM/FM signal reception for the TV and radio in the cabin. The most important feature was the systems WiFi/LTE capability to provide access to the internet.
The yacht had an ideal place to mount the antenna and housing so there was only one thing left to solve – the internet connection. First choice was to utilize the WiFi range improving capability of the system to connect to the WiFi hosted by the harbor. After a few rounds of trial and error by IT, the harbor was called and IT was told the necessary ports to stream the Ring camera are blocked. Well, this would have provided a high speed “free” internet access, but some situations are out of one’s control. It was time to resort to an alternative solution.

After calculating the data demand to use the Ring camera on an as needed basis, the AT&T high speed LTE service (available at https://att.com/rv-link) was activated and 24/7 high speed internet service was established. To complete the setup, the Ring camera was connected to the use set SSID and password from the WiFi signal of the WF-CON-LTE system installed as part of the TV-1W-WiFi-LTE-RVA. The Ring camera was configured to only stream when signed on. By setting the Ring camera up like this the minimal 5Gig data plan provides enough data for viewing the camera 5 to 6 minutes at a time 4 to 5 times per day.
The installation of this solution has been active now for over 45 days with non-interrupted service.