Accessing raspberry pi with no wifi

PeteS

Forum Member
So you are away in van and your Venus OS raspberry pi suddenly loses wifi and you lose vrm data. you only have a mifi router with no Lan ports, how do you remote access the pi via the ethernet port with a laptop. I'm missing something I'm sure but I could not figure out how to do it.
The problem went away when I moved on so it looked like there was some local interference wiping out the wifi control channel.
 

wildebus

Forum Member
PeteS said:
So you are away in van and your Venus OS raspberry pi suddenly loses wifi and you lose vrm data. you only have a mifi router with no Lan ports, how do you remote access the pi via the ethernet port with a laptop. I'm missing something I'm sure but I could not figure out how to do it.
The problem went away when I moved on so it looked like there was some local interference wiping out the wifi control channel.
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you could for a future happening get yourself a wireless repeater with a LAN port.

These units are excellent - https://amzn.to/3iGoE8m - and you can even power them off the USB port on a Pi
 

PeteS

Forum Member
Yes but I just cant help thinking with a laptop with an ethernet port, that I should be able to connect the two together and talk to the pi but I havent figured it yet.
 

wildebus

Forum Member
PeteS said:
Yes but I just cant help thinking with a laptop with an ethernet port, that I should be able to connect the two together and talk to the pi but I havent figured it yet.
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PeteS said:
However your wireless repeater is interesting so bought one to play with :)
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Ref your first post.... Yes, you can.
But .... you will need to get a crossover ethernet cable and change your laptop settings so it will work as a DHCP server. It really is a PITA when the simple option is get a little router like that and just connect easily :)

The other benefit is the little router/repeater has a much stronger WiFi signal than the Pi so if say you are parked outside your house, you will be able to connect to your house router instead of a MiFi in the van say - could be handy if you have a limited data package?

One thing to note .... If you have a Huawei MiFi, that probably has a default IP address the same as the Mini Router (192.8.x.x) - you will need to change one or other for them to co-exist (I think I changed the Mini Routers address as simplier to do).
 
Millie Master

Millie Master

Forum Member
Or you could turn the darned lot off and enjoy the sounds of the birds and bees.

Me and my most beloved travel both far and wide throughout the UK and hardly ever turn on the damnable mobile phone and never turn on a TV as we don't have one and as for the radio, it is turned on, on Radio 4 between 0700 & 0800 to listen to the news, but from then on it is off.

As for entertainment we have the two of us, our ancient (early 1950's) Scrabble board and a few good books and of course my Classic & Sports Car magazines.
 

PeteS

Forum Member
Millie Master said:
Or you could turn the darned lot off and enjoy the sounds of the birds and bees.

Me and my most beloved travel both far and wide throughout the UK and hardly ever turn on the damnable mobile phone and never turn on a TV as we don't have one and as for the radio, it is turned on, on Radio 4 between 0700 & 0800 to listen to the news, but from then on it is off.

As for entertainment we have the two of us, our ancient (early 1950's) Scrabble board and a few good books and of course my Classic & Sports Car magazines.
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SquirrellCook said:
Do you really need a pii or are there other connectivity options.
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I totally agree re TV etc, this is about monitoring services within the motorhome, the Raspberry Pi is a poor mans Victron Cerbo GX so monitoring battery voltages and recording performance of those batteries, Lithium in my case as well as water and waste and a few other things.
So as a Electronics engineer of 40 odd years it is part of my life and interests me. So when it behaves differently to as intended that intrigues me.
 

PeteS

Forum Member
wildebus said:
Ref your first post.... Yes, you can.
But .... you will need to get a crossover ethernet cable and change your laptop settings so it will work as a DHCP server. It really is a PITA when the simple option is get a little router like that and just connect easily :)

The other benefit is the little router/repeater has a much stronger WiFi signal than the Pi so if say you are parked outside your house, you will be able to connect to your house router instead of a MiFi in the van say - could be handy if you have a limited data package?

One thing to note .... If you have a Huawei MiFi, that probably has a default IP address the same as the Mini Router (192.8.x.x) - you will need to change one or other for them to co-exist (I think I changed the Mini Routers address as simplier to do).
Click to expand...
I do indeed have a Huaweii Mifi and one of the things I like about it is that if it is outside my house it connects to the house wifi using the wifi extender function in the app. The 3 phone signal is pretty pants around the house.

Thank for all the information and help as ever.
 

wildebus

Forum Member
PeteS said:
I do indeed have a Huaweii Mifi and one of the things I like about it is that if it is outside my house it connects to the house wifi using the wifi extender function in the app. The 3 phone signal is pretty pants around the house.

Thank for all the information and help as ever.
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Wifi Extender on the MiFi? I have not heard of that. please tell me more - I could do with enabling that :)
 

wildebus

Forum Member
PeteS said:
I totally agree re TV etc, this is about monitoring services within the motorhome, the Raspberry Pi is a poor mans Victron Cerbo GX so monitoring battery voltages and recording performance of those batteries, Lithium in my case as well as water and waste and a few other things.
So as a Electronics engineer of 40 odd years it is part of my life and interests me. So when it behaves differently to as intended that intrigues me.
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for long-standing current or ex-electronics type folk, this kind of stuff stays ingrained within them and becomes an interest/hobby/whatever just like any other interest like bird watching, dogs, or even scrabble is.

(I also think exsilvergs has a lot to answer for! I eventually tried the Victron OS Large, with the Node Red option - that he has talked about a few times - a couple of days ago and it is more addictive than crack cocaine I reckon!! Pete, you might be interested in that if you have not tried it? But you have been warned ..... it might take over!)
 

PeteS

Forum Member
On the Huawei HiLink app under tools there is Wifi Extender where you can connect to preferred wifi Networks, the Mifi will then connect to that instead of 4G data link.
I have the E5576-320 Mifi. Ive just taken my van back to storage so cant do any screen shots sorry. What I can say is it works really well.
 

wildebus

Forum Member
PeteS said:
On the Huawei HiLink app under tools there is Wifi Extender where you can connect to preferred wifi Networks, the Mifi will then connect to that instead of 4G data link.
I have the E5576-320 Mifi. Ive just taken my van back to storage so cant do any screen shots sorry. What I can say is it works really well.
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Connected to the MiFi and went to 192.168.8.1 ... (had to do a factory reset as forgot my admin password :( )
I never noticed the WiFi Extender feature before!

Set it up to use my home ISP and I see on the MiFi Screen it shows that SSID instead of the usual "O2". Great stuff :)

I have the Ubquiti WiFi stuff and not used it for years since Mobile WiFi has become more common and affordable as the hassle of switching networks was fiddly, but this feature makes it much more usable again :)

Many thanks, Pete. greatly appreciated (y)
 

PeteS

Forum Member
SquirrellCook said:
So what device are we recommending for improved connectivity now?
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I dont think we are, mine was to solve a specific problem in how to connect via ethernet when a piece of hardware loses wifi connections.

I would recommend a Huaweii Mifi as it has the ability to use wifi connections instead of a 4G data link which may incur charges for instance when your on your drive. What it wont connect to is wifi sites that require a specific login such as Caravan club sites etc but rock up at a pub and get a SSID and a password and your good to go.
Im sure other Mifi devices have a similar Wifi Extender function.
 

wildebus

Forum Member
SquirrellCook said:
So what device are we recommending for improved connectivity now?
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I think as Pete says, he had a very specific requirement, however I will make an additional comment....

In terms of the Victron GX products , they are generally good with Wireless connectivity but Victron have acknowledged that the Venus GX specifically has a WiFi chip with poor range, so I would say it might be worth considering the little mini-router, cabled up to the Venus GX, as a standard setup (wouldn't be needed on a Cerbo GX).
The Venus GX is actually a Beaglebone SPC, so might be the same issue if anyone is running a native Beaglebone rather than a Raspberry Pi?
 
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