RV FEATURE
At this point, I was very concerned about the Mini as the wi-fi router is contained in the dish itself. What happens if you need to place the dish away from your van to obtain a clear satellite signal?
Well, it’ s good news because Starlink has obviously recognised this and has improved the router’ s wi-fi performance by a considerable margin.
At 10m away, I could see all three routers with full signal. From 20m away, I lost the signal from our old Gen 2 system and the Home router was showing signal loss. The Mini still had full signal. From 30m away, the only system I could see was the Mini and it was still at full strength! It was from about 50m away that the signal finally started to drop. But even at this distance, the download speed was still a very respectable 56mbps.
This wi-fi performance is very reassuring but not every situation is the same and there could still be any one of several factors that could affect wi-fi performance. In these cases, the Mini still has one trick up its sleeve. Next to the power inlet, the Mini has an RJ45 outlet which will allow you to run a wired connection between the Mini and another wi-fi router. So if you
The Gen 3 Home Starlink is capable of astonishing download speeds.
have a wi-fi router in your van and you connect it to the Mini, you will virtually eliminate any signal strength issues. Yes, it means you have to connect a second wire but you wouldn’ t have to do this all the time. Only in certain circumstances.
I discussed this with Bert from Cowfish Technologies and he mentioned he had seen poor wi-fi performance from the Mini when trying to access it through the walls of his caravan. Following his feedback, I took our caravan for a weekend trip and used the Starlink Mini for internet access. I didn’ t notice any drop in signal strength from inside our van.
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