Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

starlinkhardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 208 posts

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#21

Post by wyre »

ryukoposting wrote: post #15
nativeit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t necessarily implied, but if this thing is pulling a nominal 30W-40W (assuming considering the 60W PSU) then I don’t know how much use this would be for a portable device, even for RVs. That’s a pretty significant load, even for an amplified antenna, I would have thought?

Did some quick research on a major American car parts retailer's website. The biggest batteries they sell are rated as high as 188Ah (though they use a weird industry-specific unit to say that). Many are closer to 25-50Ah. Definitely enough juice to power a terminal for several hours. This lines up with my personal experiences. I have personally used a car battery to keep a big gaming laptop charged for an entire wee…

Needing to add an extra battery to an off grid power supply just to power a “portable” router designed to accept grid power and not 12V is a huge fail on starlinks part, regardless of the cost of the battery to power it.

For reference 60w is similiar power draw to a Dometic fridge or a laptop.

Also adding a huge heavy battery to a boat is a non-negligible consideration in a lot of cases.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#22

Post by grecy »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #11

Feels like this is a direct response to the Amazon / Project Kuiper 7” terminal announced last year: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/heres-...

The major difference being the Starlink mini terminal has 6,078 satellites to connect to today to provide functioning internet, vs the Project Kuiper terminals that can connect to a grand total of zero satellites.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#23

Post by fragmede »

skybrian wrote: post #12

I think a great use case for this would be as a backup for when the regular ISP goes out in a rural area. But I don't think they have any subscription plans priced for that? And there might be issues after a storm if everyone started using it at once.

yeah they don't force you into some weird shitty contract. you can buy the hardware outright, and then not pay for a subscription until you actually want to use it for the month of Outober.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#24

Post by grecy »

ryukoposting wrote: post #15
nativeit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t necessarily implied, but if this thing is pulling a nominal 30W-40W (assuming considering the 60W PSU) then I don’t know how much use this would be for a portable device, even for RVs. That’s a pretty significant load, even for an amplified antenna, I would have thought?

Did some quick research on a major American car parts retailer's website. The biggest batteries they sell are rated as high as 188Ah (though they use a weird industry-specific unit to say that). Many are closer to 25-50Ah. Definitely enough juice to power a terminal for several hours. This lines up with my personal experiences. I have personally used a car battery to keep a big gaming laptop charged for an entire wee…

Pretty much all of us in the vanlife/overland space run Lithium batteries now, the smallest of which is basically 100Ah. I'm just about to put either 300Ah or 400Ah into my new Jeep camper to run an induction cook top, water pump, hot water, lights, charging and a lot more.

I also just mounted 600W of solar on the roof.

The power needs of Starlink is a tad annoying, but certainly not a deal breaker for anyone living in a vehicle that actually needs internet anywhere on the planet.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#25

Post by grecy »

pen2l wrote: post #14
poorman wrote: post #2

The lack of DC power is rough for boats, vans, and RVs. If someone wants to put this in a backpack they really need to get a DC power supply version. There are solutions out there at this point for the standard dishy but the flat high performance has a crazy power supply with it.

The other disappointing thing (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's not quite portable in a true sense; if I take the Starlink equipment I bought in United States to.. say, Argentina or Germany, it won't work there. I wish it could work like that, without a lot of hassle, but it doesn't appear to be the case.

It works perfectly fine crossing any borders.

it even (currently) works in all the countries in Africa where the governments have requested for it to stop working. It is unknown if SpaceX will disable it in those specific countries.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#26

Post by wongarsu »

ryukoposting wrote: post #15
nativeit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t necessarily implied, but if this thing is pulling a nominal 30W-40W (assuming considering the 60W PSU) then I don’t know how much use this would be for a portable device, even for RVs. That’s a pretty significant load, even for an amplified antenna, I would have thought?

Did some quick research on a major American car parts retailer's website. The biggest batteries they sell are rated as high as 188Ah (though they use a weird industry-specific unit to say that). Many are closer to 25-50Ah. Definitely enough juice to power a terminal for several hours. This lines up with my personal experiences. I have personally used a car battery to keep a big gaming laptop charged for an entire wee…

Normal car batteries really hate if you discharge them anywhere close to their capacity. You can get deep-cylce lead acid batteries built for that, but at that point just get lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#27

Post by wongarsu »

kortilla wrote: post #16
pen2l wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other disappointing thing (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's not quite portable in a true sense; if I take the Starlink equipment I bought in United States to.. say, Argentina or Germany, it won't work there. I wish it could work like that, without a lot of hassle, but it doesn't appear to be the case.

“Global roaming” is the plan that allows that and it costs twice as much IIRC

And asking for more money in return for completely ignoring their capacity planning seems fair to me.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#28

Post by wmf »

fragmede wrote: post #23
skybrian wrote: post #12

I think a great use case for this would be as a backup for when the regular ISP goes out in a rural area. But I don't think they have any subscription plans priced for that? And there might be issues after a storm if everyone started using it at once.

yeah they don't force you into some weird shitty contract. you can buy the hardware outright, and then not pay for a subscription until you actually want to use it for the month of Outober.

Paying for a full month if your main ISP is down for a day or two sounds quite expensive. How long does it take to activate?

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#29

Post by [deleted] »

pen2l wrote: post #14
poorman wrote: post #2

The lack of DC power is rough for boats, vans, and RVs. If someone wants to put this in a backpack they really need to get a DC power supply version. There are solutions out there at this point for the standard dishy but the flat high performance has a crazy power supply with it.

The other disappointing thing (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's not quite portable in a true sense; if I take the Starlink equipment I bought in United States to.. say, Argentina or Germany, it won't work there. I wish it could work like that, without a lot of hassle, but it doesn't appear to be the case.

[deleted]

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#30

Post by jml78 »

fragmede wrote: post #23
skybrian wrote: post #12

I think a great use case for this would be as a backup for when the regular ISP goes out in a rural area. But I don't think they have any subscription plans priced for that? And there might be issues after a storm if everyone started using it at once.

yeah they don't force you into some weird shitty contract. you can buy the hardware outright, and then not pay for a subscription until you actually want to use it for the month of Outober.

You can actually create an account, pay for one month, then pause it.

Then just unpause in the starlink app to instantly have access and resume billing

Post reply on HN