3 Easy & Cheap RV “Tech Hacks”
Over the past few months hubby has upgraded our RV life with some easy “tech hacks”, and today I figured I would share those with our fine blog readers. Now, we are most definitely tech lovers and nerds, but sometimes we like to do stuff on the cheap either because we don’t really like the tech that’s on offer at the moment or we’re waiting for next-gen releases or…well…just because it’s plain fun to do a cheap hack. None of these are earth-shattering in any way, but they’ve all worked really well for us so perhaps you might like them too. Here you go….
1/ Movie “Screencast” Hack
During the past year we finally made the move to disconnect our Direct TV (something I’ve wanted to do for aaages). Around the same time our DVD+Amp (a cheap, horrible thing that came with the RV) went kaput. So, we’ve had nothing but empty space in our entertainment cabinet for a while. We’ve been playing/streaming movies on our laptop(s) & eyeing an Apple TV so we can “cast” those movies onto our nice, big front LCD TV, but the new Apple TV (which is the one we want) never seems to come out. Also we haven’t really been motivated to replace the dead DVD player & amp (~$500 for the new model we want). What we needed was a cheap and easy hack!
That’s when hubby had the brilliant and ridiculously simple idea of buying an HDMI cable to connect the PC to the TV. For less than $12 we bought the highest-quality 25-foot HDMI Cable we could find, connected one side to the HDMI output on the TV and the other to the HDMI input Paul’s Mac. Voilà….cheap screencast! We can now play movies from our hard drive, backup drives, rental DVDs (e.g. Redbox) or streaming sources (e.g. Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBOnow) directly to our big TV by just connecting a cord. We roll up the cable and hide it behind the TV when traveling or not in use. Not fancy, but it’s cheap and it totally works.
Note/ You can also buy cables that connect your iPhone/iPad to HDMI, but they’re pricier ($44 for the Lightning Adapter) and seem a little more hassle to use so we haven’t tried that route.
2/ Navigation GPS Hack
The current GPS we have is an ooooold Garmin (from 2008) with a screen that’s smaller than my iPhone. I’ve been eyeing the new RV GPS’s for a long time (in fact they even made my 2013 “Big 5” Christmas wishlist), but at >$300 a pop we just haven’t been motivated. Plus over the past few years we’ve found ourselves using our phones for navigation more and more frequently. I really like Google Maps** especially the way it shows traffic blocks and automatically routes you around them, plus it’s free (wheee!).
So, a few months ago we bought two rock-solid iOttie Car Mount Phone Holder (one for car, one for RV) for $25 each, plus two $9 Car Chargers
** The only place Google Maps really fails is when we’re outside our cellphone service area. There are snazzy offline apps such as Co-Pilot (which also offers an “RV Mode”) that come highly recommended. We haven’t tried it yet, but will probably test it out on our next drive East.
3/ Bluetooth Audio-Streaming Hack
For many years we had satellite radio as our main “on the road” (driving) entertainment, but we started to get a little bored with it so last year we decided to cut that cord and replace it with online music streaming and podcasts.
The problem was the audio quality. On the road we could barely hear our little iPad’s speakers and since we have an old-fashioned non-Bluetooth-enabled radio (and no amp, as that went kaput last year) we had no easy way to play the sound through our ceiling (surround sound) speakers. Paul looked at buying a new Bluetooth-enabled amp (~$500) or replacing our radio with a new Bluetooth-enabled radio panel (finding an exact fit was frustrating), but both ideas seemed overkill for what we wanted to do. We needed a cheap hack!
What Paul found was this snazzy Bluetooth Hands-Free Car Kit for $30 which could connect to the auxiliary jack input on our existing radio (we also needed THIS $1.50 stereojack to RCA adapter, but otherwise nothing else), and voilà…we have Bluetooth audio streaming enabled! The device is only ~1 inch in diameter (nice & small) and Paul ran the cable inside the left ridge of our front radio panel and connected to a 12V socket behind the panel so that none of the cables show. We can now play music, podcasts and audio books over our main speakers from our phone/ipad/PC anytime we wish. As an extra bonus the Bluetooth device also acts as a speakerphone so that if we get a call on our phones while on the road we can talk “hands free” and hear the person on the phone through our big speakers.
That’s it for our most recent hacks. Told you these were easy, right?
We’ve started our countdown to being on the road again. Two more weeks and then we’re done with hosting and outta here. I’ll have several more posts before we move on including (hopefully) a few more recipes and some more pics from the beach and the beautiful area around here. In the meantime, nerd on my friends….
A couple of questions here…
You say you have said goodbye to DirectTV, yea, but you now get your movies and programs via Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBOGO. You must then have an HBO subscription? Can you expand on that? Also if you are streaming what about your data usage!
Thanks for the other hacks, great information.
HBO recently started a new thing called HBO Now which is an online-only service that does not require you to have a regular HBO subscription. Anyone can sign up! It’s a data hog though, so unless you have a very big (or unlimited) data plan you do need to be careful using it.
As for data usage, we’re lucky enough to have an unlimited Verizon plan. There are other ways to get movies (e.g. Netflix by mail, Redbox rentals etc.) and other unlimited data options out there (see this members only post on MIA -> http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/resources/option-for-unlimited-data-on-the-road/), but the nice thing is the “hack” works for all of them. No matter how we get the movie (online, rental, download etc.), we now have an easy way to play it from our PC onto the big screen.
Nina
Nina, thank you for what you do with your blog…Hope to meet you two some day on the road. I am thinking of getting the iottie mount you have recommended but I am not sure if my I Phone 6+ would fit in the holder, do you have any first hand experience with this. On the Amazon web site in the comment section some have stated that it will not fit the 6+ other than that I would love to have this mount….Thanks
Can’t say for sure. It fits Paul’s iPhone 6 (with case) no problem, but I’m not exactly sure how much bigger the 6+ is? I measured the “arms” and they are just slightly larger than 3.25 inches wide, if that helps. Amazon does do pretty easy returns too.
Nina
Thank you Nina, my I phone 6+ with a minimal protective case is 3 3/8 inches so I think it might be just a little too big for it. Hopefully they will catch up and design a wider one, great looking phone holder though. T
When you stream movies on amazon etc does that not eat a bunch of data or is the wifi in campground able to handle that..
The new GPS have a lot of nice features and not being dependent on cell service to me are better.. I like google maps and we use waze a lot on the road to find slowdown, wrecks which i am guess is like the google maps deal.
I like pandora but quality on the road can be hit or miss depending again on cell service..
OK so have a good one and hope all is well..
carl and karen hoping to be seeing you on the road in 4-5 yrs.. 🙂
Streaming movies will definitely eat data and if you are on a limited data-plan you’ll want to limit your movie streaming quality (e.g on Netflix you can set playback quality to “lowest” which uses 0.3 GB per hour) and monitor how many hours you stream. Campground WiFi is typically never good enough for streaming (with very, very rare exceptions).
Another alternative to streaming is to download videos over something other than your personal data plan (e.g. at a Library). For example, on Amazon Prime you can download movies in various formats (good, better or best) and play them back on your device at home.
The screencast “hack” also allows us to view movies from our backup drive & rented DVDs.
Nina
I know your posts here are old, but with the new Unlimited plans now available on the big cell providers you can buy an Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter to an HDMI cord to your iphone (if you use iphones). This will enable you to watch anything from your iphone/ipad on your large HDTV. Also, and the good part, you are not using hotspot data but rather your free unlimited streaming data on your phone (if you have unlimited that is).
Absolutely! We have one of those cables now too. It’s a fabulous little hack. Cheers for adding it to the comments.
Nina
Waze seems to download road navigation maps for a route that you are navigating when it has data service so that you can navigate to your destination in places that don’t have service. I’ve set it to navigate to a place where I know there is no cell service, and Waze had all of the roads and turns ready for me right to my arrival at my destination.
It seems that once you get to your destination, unless you can allow Waze to get the road navigation info to a new destination, you only have what Waze saved from your last navigation, so if you get somewhere that doesn’t have data for Waze to use, you don’t get to navigate or have any other road than the ones Waze already had saved from before.
I use Backcountry Navigator when I am way out in the middles of nowheres, as I can download many different types of maps. It is *not* a navigation app, but being able to download and have various large maps handy without a data connection has still been helpful, and it’s useful for my on foot adventures as well. I also use caltopo.com for different types of maps on my laptop, it’s a great site with many different tools that can provide handy info, like shade/sun info.
That’s a very neat feature of Waze that I didn’t know about! I’ve used it a few times in the past, but haven’t been using it regularly. I ‘m going to test it again on this next drive East.
Nina
Awesome! Great post, Nina! It’s amazing how sometimes “simple” is just better! And less expensive, too! 😉 Thanks for sharing these ideas.
Yeah, sometimes simple does the trick 🙂 Glad you liked ’em.
Nina
Nina and Paul,
I would highly recommend getting an apple TV if you have Macs/ipads/iphones. It works flawlessly and is not expensive. There is a new one coming out next month so the current ones are pretty cheap (and likely to be cheaper). a even less expensive solution that can do most of the same thing is the Google Chromecast (Cost like less than 30 buck). – Get ride of the wire – you will never regret it 🙂
Well the whole reason we went the “hack” route was because that new Apple TV has been “coming out next month” for the past year. We’ll see if/when they actually release the new model and whether we like it enough to upgrade. For now our good ‘ol $12 cable is working fine for us. Plus another “hidden” bonus of our wired option is that uses zero extra power which is always nice for boondocking 🙂
Nina
Never thought about the Power Implications! – Good point
To be honest the power savings is really, really small. Apple TV only burns 1.9 watts when streaming which is pretty darn efficient, but hey….every little bit counts 🙂
Nina
We usually boondock and watching movies or TV series seems to quickly devour even the largest data plans. So, when free wifi is available , I fill up a memory card or hard disk with video (including things like photography tutorials) and then have the choice of watching them on either a tablet or a larger monitor.
Many of the products like ChromeCast or AppleTV require that a wifi network is in place (or an ad hoc network is created) which makes them more cumbersome to set up. After using an HDMI cable for the last few years (which required separate adapters for my phone’s USB port and my laptop’s DisplayPort, I was happy to find the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter, which quickly and easily connects most contemporary phones, tablets, or laptops to any display with an HDMI port.
The very small adapter plugs directly in to the HDMI port on the monitor and is powered by a USB connection, which can be connected to any USB charging port. To use the wireless display adapter with my Surface Pro 3, I just go to display settings and connect to it as a second display, the same way I’d normally do with a cabled connection, but without the cables. Anything that can be displayed on the laptop (even regular browsing) can be displayed on the monitor, either as a mirrored display or as an extended display for dual-monitor applications.
Another way to avoid clutter is to keep a couple of charged power banks handy. It’s a lot easier to grab one of these small battery extenders with a short cord than it is to use a phone or tablet while being restricted by cord length. And it seems to keep things less cluttered when recharging several phones or tablets. (I even found a more powerful power bank that will recharge my Surface.)
I’m in favor of anything that reduces cable clutter!
Nice little hack. In our case we’d have to get another USB charging port up by our TV cabinet (not a lot of charging options up there), but it would probably work. Cheers for sharing.
Nina
Curious If you are streaming or downloadidng all your movies/entertainment, how many gigs per month are you using? I never stream and yet still approach 20 gig per month with photos mostly
We don’t stream all our movies (we do a mix of streaming some, renting some, playing some from our drives etc.), but we typically use around 60 Gb/mo.
If you work out the details, at Netflix “lowest quality” settings you can watch around 2 hours/day of movies for just under 20Gb/mo (streaming only). You’d obviously need more data capacity for the rest of your usage (email, blogging, internet etc.), so this would mean 20Gb/mo above and beyond regular usage. Back when ATT/Verizon was offering their double data plans that was our goal (sign-up to a 40Gb plan so we had 20Gb/mo for regular usage, 20Gb/mo for streaming), but once we got the unlimited plan we switched to that.
Nina
I’ve used Co-Pilot for years, since it first came out for the iPhone. I think it’s great. I’ve never used the RV version, though. I think if you try it you’ll like it.
I still use Streets & Trips for real route *planning*, as we like to stick to the back roads, but then once I have a route settled I’ll transfer the route (by hand) into Co-Pilot. That’s the one bad thing about Co-Pilot, and indeed all GPS systems I’ve found: it assumes you want to give it a destination and then it does the routing. No, machine, I’LL do the routing, thank you very much. I will say that Co-Pilot is very good at dynamically re-routing when it figures out that you changed your mind. 🙂
Thank for the feedback! Nice to know you’ve had a good experience with it. I think we’ll download the free trail and give it a go once we start driving again Sept 1st.
By the way I’m SO SAD Microsoft Street & Trips has been discontinued…:(
Nina
I too sorely miss MS S&T
Lol. Thought I had this all down. Guess not.
Leaving on Saturday for our outta here adventure. Everything is sold, donated, tossed or………
Scared to death but heading to Astoria for our first trip. Then up the Washington coast. From there who knows. Still don’t have the tv’s working or wifi. Ever heard of Freedompop??
What is life without an adventure??
Thanks for all the info!!
Safe travels
Good luck to you! Yes, I’ve heard of FreedomPop. They’re not really a good solution for RVers since they run on Sprint (which has very poor nationwide coverage) and, even worse, I think they’re on the old WiMax network which is going to be shut down in November. So, I wouldn’t recommend them.
If you want a mobile solution have a look at a MiFi device & data plan from either ATT or Verizon. Or, plan on using free WiFi (e.g. public libraries, coffee shops, campground) until you can figure out your needs.
Nina
Definitely jealous of your unlimited data plan! For those of us who live offline, I recommend MapFactor Navigator as a free GPS alternative. Download the maps you need while connected to WiFi, and use them for navigation anytime thereafter. I use it on Android and pc; I think it’s available on the Mac world, too.
Nice! Thanks for the tip.
Nina
Jack – can’t agree more about having an offline mapping option handy. Just checked out MapFactor Navigator, but it looks like it is Android & PC only. 🙁
We’ve been using an iOS app called Maps.Me for a while now. You can download maps for whatever area you’re going to be needing (state by state) when you have WiFi, and then it provides seamless mapping without requiring any additional data. You can search and plan routes, all offline. It does turn-by-turn navigation, but without voice. But it’s still handy!
RV Geeks to the rescue!! Cheers for the extra tip!
Nina
LOL! Don’t know if we’re actually “rescuing” anyone, but figured we’re all richer with an extra $0.02 added in! 😉 There are a ton of offline mapping solutions, but maps.me has worked well for us, at least!
Thanks for spurring the conversation, Nina!
Another option. Before I started using a Chromecast, I used a Philips SWW1890/27 Wireless HD Net Connect that I bought refurbished from Woot! It creates it’s own internal wifi network and can be used with either a Mac or PC.
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-SWW1890-27-Wireless-Connect/dp/B005GSYQ1A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439858964&sr=8-1&keywords=Philips+SWW1890%2F27+Wireless+HD+Net+Connect
I also use the long HDMI cord for a while but the weight of the cord damaged one of the HDMI ports on a TV after a while.
Nice post!
I am a fan of my Garmin GPS, it does what I want it to all the time. Google maps are great as long as you have cell service but without the internet mine doesn’t work. The Garmin just needs a shot at the sky & power (battery or plugged in).
Without the internet? Well yes, I have (searching for service) Sprint running thru Virgin Mobile and there have been a lot of places the last few months where all I had was “searching for service”.
I went to Straighttalk & the BYOP program. I bought a Verizon access code for my phone and the first month’s service. Verizon is everywhere, I even borrowed a Verizon phone to call 911 in July.
It took 8 days to get my phone to work and they (Straighttalk) hooked me up to the (searching for service) Sprint network.
I complained and they said “we cannot change or move the service on your phone from one system to another. Your request is not possible. ”
Enough complaining about Straighttalk and (searching for service) Sprint. I’ll just have to buy a different phone and find the best deal for me.
A Rand McNally atlas will get to a state line and I can usually find a better state road map at the 1st visitors center.
The paper map (any paper map) is important so you can check out what the GPS wants you to do before you start.
These days most phones can be unlocked and used on other networks, but Sprint-based phones have always been tricky. Some of their older phone models cannot be unlocked (e.g. older iPhones) and they’ve always had compatibility issues with Verizon (it’s always been next to impossible to move a Sprint phone onto Verizon, even though they both use CDMA). If you have one of the newer LTE-phones it should have a SIM slot where you can input an ATT-compatible Straight Talk SIM. That may be an option?
By the way totally agree on the importance of paper maps. We always use paper maps as part of our planning process and have paper maps as a backup everywhere we go.
Nina
Google maps now has where you can download maps to use when you have no connection. Just download the ones where you are going to
True, but it’s somewhat limited. There’s a size limit so for example you can download a city map (e.g. San Francisco), but might not be able to download a larger area (e.g. San Francisco and surrounding areas). Also not all areas are available for download. If you’re limiting your navigation to within a single city or a few close(ish) areas it’ll work, but for many of the drives we do in the RV (~150-200 miles) it won’t.
Nina
Good to know! Just saw this feature in the app the other day and was thinking “Hmmmm… THIS could be useful”. Glad to know this limitation so we don’t rely on it TOO heavily! 😉
Google Maps can store offline maps temporarily, but you have to break the areas down into bite-sized pieces and store them individually.
https://www.androidpit.com/use-your-google-maps-offline
Windows 10 computers can store extensive offline maps.
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/download-offline-maps-windows-10
You still run into the issue of not being able to run navigation or search offline. There’s a cumbersome work-around which involves downloading caches of all the (smaller) map areas you need ahead of time, starting navigation while you’re online and then going from there, but it’s not ideal. So, for what we’re using it for (on our phones as a pseudo-GPS for car and RV) the feature set is not quite there yet.
However Google has announced that they will offer offline navigation by the end of this year, so I’m hopeful we’ll get there.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8680345/google-maps-io-2015-offline-search-navigation
Nina
I would suggest a Sony Blue Ray DVD player and streaming player. I bought one 4 years ago on Amazon for $49. This gets all the most popular stream sites like Netflix and Amazon. I have an Apple TV that I bought a year or so ago. It works great but no Amazon. I think the big Apple announce regarding TV is more about the Apple TV channel than the enhanced box/hockey puck TV box. If you really want the Apple TV device likely the lower price on existing one is a good deal. Or $50 buck Roku stick. There are lots of choices out there for these things. None perfect.
The new Garmin RV GPS is super. Huge screen and works really well. I also use my Android phone with the Google maps system sometimes. My own experience is that the Google system is far less reliable. Plus with the Garmin you can program in the size of your RV and it takes that into consideration when suggesting routes. The Google system in my experience is good when you are driving a car in town. I do like being able to talk to my phone and telling it to find a POI hands free and it finds it, most of the time. But when you are piloting a “beast” the Garmin seems more surefooted. To me.
Why don’t you just plug your iPad into your house speakers directly? That is what I do most of the time. I use the old amp that came with our coach. You said you blew your existing one. Buy one used on eBay. That is what I did when my bose one blew. Or as an alternative an amazingly good amp/bluetooth/speaker is the TDK. I bought one about a year ago and the sound is amazing for the size. Only about 100 bucks. You can plug it into the coach or run off rechargeable batteries for about six hours. I also have an older iPod classic. It has a lot of storage and does not need the internet to work.
We also have a Verizon unlimited smartphone. That is how we watch TV most of the time. I also buy seasons of shows on the internet and then sell them on eBay when done watching them. Another trick is that if you buy anything from the Apple iTunes store to watch you can download the show to your Mac. That means you can hook your computer to your TV and do not need the internet.
Love your blog. Have been reading it for some time.
We haven’t bought a new amp coz our speakers are an odd resistance (6 ohm) meaning not all amps support them. Also our cabinet space is an odd size meaning not all amps fit. Lastly since we also wanted Bluetooth, and did not want to swap out speakers the combo of those 3 things narrowed our amp choice to a select few, rather more expensive options. The fit in the cabinet was actually the biggest restriction. So, we know which one we want but just haven’t been motivated to pull the buy button yet.
In the end there are many choices, but our $12 cable plus $30 Bluetooth device has satisfied our needs…for now
I’m sure we’ll find something snazzier (and likely much more expensive) in the future.
Nice tips on buying shows & movies, by the way. Hadn’t thought of reselling on eBay.
Nina
I was *just* looking at the iPhone to HDMI cable, but the comments made it sound like there was DRM built into the cable & that Amazon Prime wouldn’t play through it.
Our 2014 Wildcat didn’t come with bluetooth so I added a similar BT reciever to the house stereo. We use it all the time for music and the sound from movies playing on our laptops.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about your 6 ohm speakers. Most car speakers are 4 ohm so a car stereo amp would drive them, maybe with a bit less volume.
For the iPhone to HDMI cable if you read some of the follow-on comments to the top ones, it looks like Amazon enabled the ability sometime in 2014. Question section seems to support this too. Haven’t used the cable myself, but it looks like it should work with Prime.
Nina
But there is still that $45 price tag for a cable..;) That’s a lot of Redbox rentals….
Yeah, that’s partially why we haven’t bothered with it either. We can do everything we want through our main computer. Haven’t seen the need for the extra cable so far.
Nina
We’re not able to full-time yet, but with that in mind I’ve been “ripping” all our DVD’s as well as others, to portable 1 and 2 Terabyte hard drives. Then there is a player you can get from Amazon or I’ve seen a variation of this at Walmart, but it’s a very small box that’s just a media player. You need house power or an inverter then plug that into the TV with HDMI. The player I have I use for travel has a USB as well as SD card slots and will play music, photos, or videos from either source on the TV.
Hundreds of hours of TV shows, movies, home videos, all on hard drives that can be easily watched whenever you want. No WiFi or cell data needed.
Ripping your DVDs is a great way to go. We have several GB of movies on our backup drives (two Terabyte drives in a small RAID configuration) that we play through the Mac, and “cast” onto our TV via the HDMI cable. We also have ~300 DVDs in a DVD carrier that I haven’t gotten around to ripping yet. Eventually I’ll get there and we’ll be all digital.
Nina
Really like the bluetooth streaming hack! I have used Pandora, Spotify and also have Sirius. However, I have stated using the “new” Apple Music App and have become a fan. We do have a now outdated iPhone interface that requires an adapter and doesn’t allow for full functionality from the radio.Being able to stream through our speaker system would be great – Really good for audio books. We may not renew Sirius – we mostly use it for news and listening to Bronco games.
We also stream a lot of movies and TV shows using HBONow (Game of Thrones and now the Knick), Netflix, iTunes, and since we are Amazon Prime there streaming as well. We have both Verizon and AT&T for a total of 60Gig and like you use most of it every month – love the AT&T rollover.
I really like our Garmin RV760 – tons of really nice features – When I route, it gives me up to 3 different options. I also use the Garmin Basecamp app on my MacBook to pre-plan routes and then upload to my Garmin 760. Previously, I had a Rand McNally which it got so frustrated with I tossed it in the garbage. I also use Siri and Apple Maps on my iPhone. When I have any doubts I do double check using a paper map – but honestly, that does not happen all the often.
We really love our new Bluetooth adaptor. The key is to check your radio to see if you have an auxiliary input or stereo input jack…most do, and if you do it’s pretty easy to setup. Our input was a RCA input on the back of the radio (it was listed in the manual and Paul located it when we unscrewed the front panel). That’s why we needed the extra stereo to RCA connector.
You may also be able to buy a Bluetooth adapter for whatever amp you have in your rig (depends on the amp model and how old it is). That’s another way to get wireless audio connectivity over your main speakers.
I do like Garmin GPS’s. They’re the only make we’ve ever used, and we still use our old 2008 model as backup while we’re navigating. If we (ever) upgrade we’d buy Garmin again.
Nina
Thanks Nina, Yes we have an “Audio in ” input on the front of our Radio(s).
Rick
Nice info you provide here. I especially like the phone holder. Thanks for sharing
Thanks! I did a lot of research on the phone holder before I settled on this one. Having the ability to “click” it into (and out of) place with one hand was key, as well as being able to use either of our phones (iPhone 5 or 6) without having to take them out of their protective cases. I also wanted the ability to adjust position with ease since Paul and I prefer slightly different viewing angles. This one satisfied all the requirements. We’ve been very happy with it.
Nina
We have a Rand McNally GPS and it has its pluses and minuses. It is difficult for both of us to remember how to navigate from screen to screen (such as programming a new destination). Also, it tends to default to the fastest route instead of routes that are a better choice for large rigs and that has gotten us on some less than desirable roads. Otherwise, it does the job and has some cool features like weather links and the Rand McNally campground directory (both need internet access).
For whatever reason I’ve never been able to adapt to the Rand McNally GPS’s, but I know many RVers who love them. We’ve always been Garmin folk ourselves. I do like the fact that the RV GPS’s (in general) allow you to input your rig size. It’s something you can’t do w/ Google Maps. Co-Pilot does have an “RV mode” which helps with this.
Nina
Saw the title and thought, “oh no, more technology to learn!!” but was surprised to see we’ve done all three–now aren’t you proud of us!!! We learned about HDMI cables for computer to TV streaming while living in Texas, we have a radio in my car to which we connect my iPod for music listening and even though we have that fancy/shamcy Garmin GPS for use on the ATV we use the phone or iPad for navigation in the jeep or motorhome. I love how Google maps shows all the lanes on a freeway and tells me which ones to head the cowboy to! What is it about motorhome amps–we’ve had two poop out on us. We also have a tiny iHome speaker which has great sound when plugged into the iPad, iPhone or iPod. You can teach old dogs new tricks!
Just goes to show…nothing can keep a good idea down. Plus that cowboy of yours is always nifty with hacks and mods. Well done!
Nina
some great informaton!
http://newbeginningswiththebudhis.blogspot.com/
Great info. We try to save the streaming for when we have the relatives’ wifi. otherwise it eats up our data FAST! We stick with prepaid. I get so tired of dealing with contracts. We do netflix streaming and dvds. Looking for solutions to screencasting. The $12 cable sounds good. I have trouble getting my dvds and other videos onto portable drives. Guess I should learn to do that better.
As long as you have an HDMI input in both your TV and PC the cable should work perfectly for you. Just connect and enjoy!
Nina
We have been full time for over 2 years. In the first 18 months we did over 30,000 miles traveling for my work in a diesel pusher motorhome.
Being the life long gadget geek I am we have several devices and apps for navigation (including a compass and maps). All the apps and GPS have pros and cons.
What we like the best for RV travel is the Rnad McNally RV GPS app running in iPad mini.
Easy to find a rest stop/Walmart, fuel stop,… With. Allows you to log fuel and maintenance in it.
Maybe most important you set up your RVs height, weight, and length which it takes into consideration when picking your route.
The iPad mini we use is also our hot spot. Unlimited 4G LTE $200 monthly. We need it for work of course. It’s nice for streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
Love the blog. We just returned your follow on Twitter. @RVAdventures.
Maybe we will meet up in our travels somewhere.
Stay safe out there.
My $0.02
Mike
Sounds like an excellent setup. Is that unlimited plan an old grandfathered plan from ATT? Or did you get yourself an unlimited Verizon back when those were available?
Cheers for sharing your details!
Nina
Just love your blog. Working my way backwards through the posts. You have a nice writing style. And the posts are a nice combination of info and entertainment. I also love dogs.
Just wondering two things.
1. Why were you happy to ditch DTV?
2. Are you grandfathered in your unlimited plan? If not, I thought ATT/ Verizon made it impossible to transfer a plan. ??
Thanks! And to answer your questions.
1/ YES we’ve been very happy since we ditched DTV. No regrets at all. Don’t miss it a bit.
2/ NO we’re not grandfathered in. We got in through a loophole last year right before Verizon stopped the transfer program. You can still get a Verizon or ATT unlimited plan today, through eBay (most of the Verizon plans are “lease” deals). There is also a new service (Omnilynx) that is offering a Verizon-based plan right now. For more on this check out the press releases at MIA -> http://www.rvmobileinternet.com/news/
Nina
Can you connect an antenna to your lcd tv to pick up local broadcast tv channels for entertainment or news? Or connect a device called hdhomerun connect to pick up broadcast tv and play it on a PC or tablet.
We already have an over-the-air antenna on the RV. It’s on our roof and we just crank it up whenever we need it. It’ll pick-up any over-the-air channels in the area (if any are present, which is not always the case) and project it onto our TV. So, that one is already covered.
Nina
Thanks for the reply. Love your posts and reading about your adventures! Hope to be out there some day on the road.
Recently retired, snowbird want to be. Cancelled cable tv and purchased OTA channel master Dvr +. This dvr records off your crank up tv antenna, recently tried in my trailer for one week trip, scan for local stations and load up your hdd for use when no local stations available. No subscription and love all the old movies. Bonus is this has a 12 volt input that I want to build an adapter for, no decent inverter yet. Love your site and all the info planning our official inaugural trip south.
Regards
Jack