Ask HN: Digital Nomads: What's Your Setup?

I'm a UX designer, and my wife is a health coach. We recently decided to dip our toes in the digital nomad lifestyle, and took off in our small motor home a few weeks ago. We are loving it so far.

The one huge thorn in my side is data caps.

Turns out, we're both on zoom calls, a lot. Back home, we've got a fiber connection and it's no big deal. But remote, I burned through my 'unlimited' 15gb hotspot plan with verizon on Tuesday of my first week and got cut to 600mbps (really more like 400) which is pretty rough.

I also have a Skyroam Solis, which just might be the most disappointing thing I've purchased in recent memory. The device itself is meh, their app and website are full of typos and other issues, and the actual service has, so far, been slower than my throttled verizon plan - and that's in an area with a ton of cell coverage. And, of course, their 'unlimited' plan is 10gb, which at actual broadband speeds, is damn easy to blow through in a day or two of zoom meetings.

Luckily, we have a wifi connection where we are now that pretty consistently pulls down 4-10mbps, so we're ok for now.

So - what's your experience been? What equipment are you using? How are you managing your data consumption? If my work consists of video calls and connected tools like G Suite and Figma, is this possible without wifi?

What about Google Fi?

ergonomics are a key point for me. using a gooseneck tablet holder to hold an x86 tablet (i talked about the Dell Venue 11 Pro i used for many years recently[1]). a bluetooth keyboard (the Lenovo), small bluetooth speaker, bluetooth headphones, and usb-c battery pack make up the rest. in the future, i'd like to go dual-screen. Linux should let me use a second tablet as an extended desktop in my environment, Sway, and GNOME folks are joining the party now too[2].

i'm on a grandfathered unlimited plan, that supposedly is good to ~75GB before they start thinking of cancelling your contract, that i pay way too much for, because its been years since i've been very nomadic.

i've long been keen to compare post-cap throttle speed across plans. Comcast has some of the best in the business. their unlimited plan is $45/mo, and after the 20GB cap, it does 1.5Mbps down/768k up. whereas those cheap pieces of shit at Google Fi throttle you to 256kbps. put a chain around my ankle and drop me over the side, you terrible monsters. Verizon isn't even honest enough to give you a straight answer: they say you may not experience any drop after their 22GB cap, that traffic is simply de-prioritized, but users report being capped to 600kbps, which i would very much like confirmation or denial on. TMobile's generous 50GB cap has a similar "we won't throttle we'll just de-prioritize you" promise, & i haven't found much info from customers on how it has impacted them.

of course, everything gets way worse when you start hotspotting. i'm afraid to even mention it, but if you buy yourself a non-branded phone, or miraculously can install a ROM (rarer and rarer a possibility!) they often don't come with the tracking/surveillance systems to detect & monitor hotspotting.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26526683

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-40...

If you are in USA, the best thing I found was T-Mobile has at 100GB hotspot plan for $50 a month which each of you can get one.

I have faced this a lot, since I have been a digital nomad for 8+ months now. Other things I did: like downloading songs and movies on my ipad when I have wifi has saved me a lot of GBs. On windows there is a setting called "metered connection", which will make sure it does not download major updates etc over your hotspot.

Semi truck driver. I have a laptop, and a phone. I use the phone's hotspot.

"Being on the internet" is not part of my job, and many nights I don't bother to take the laptop out of its bag.

I never use wifi because I'm paranoid.

While driving I listen to podcasts or streaming. I never predownload anything.

I don't know if I ever get throttled. Sometimes, even in this day and age, I'm out of cell range, and my podcasts pause.

I might watch a movie on the phone once a week or so.

Which is not at all helpful to you, except possibly to observe: the less you need, the better it is.

Your lifestyle and work may just be five or ten years ahead of it being worthwhile for businesses to provide what you need.