Nest Cam Alexa Travel Router....

[jkstewart1800]

We have a 13 year old autistic son and 3 other kids 16, 15, & 12 whom we feel comfortable leaving at the resort while we go out for a few hours dinner at one of the parks. That being said, we also are thinking of bringing our nest cam to set up so we can see in the room while we are gone (like a big boy baby monitor) - we own a nest cam, not a baby monitor and we are trying to use what we have. We also would let to set up Alexa dot in the room, because our kiddo uses it to play audio books and pod cast comedy etc. It will make the hotel room more like his room at home.
We aren't trying to spy on Mousekeeping and I know some people my disagree with / disapprove with the choice to not hire from KidsNightOut (he's not afraid to be with his siblings or by himself, but strangers freak him out) and I respect that.
I would just like help on how to hook up a travel router and use the cam OR hear any one's stories if they have had success or failure with this sort of thing... You can private message me too if you wish.
Thank you for your help. Any tips of what you have done with your special needs kiddos while traveling would be appreciated too.

 

[SteveMouse]

You may not be able to do as you wish. Echo devices use several ports to communicate. I don’t know if Disney has them open on their firewall and how Disney is routing or limiting network traffic.

 

[Lewisc]

I'm not going to directly question your decision to leave 4 kids, one with special needs, alone for a few hours. BUT FOR the purpose of planning you need to assume neither Alexa nor your Nest Cam will be working. Even if you think you'll be able to get it working Disney might close the ports you need.
A travel router connects to a wired network and allows you to share the connection with other wired devices. Most also set up a wireless network. I don't think Disney has ethernet ports in any of the rooms. That's no the device you need.

BEST SHOT. Can you use your cell plan to create a hot spot in your room? If so research how you can configure that to access Alexa and stream your Nest CAM.

No matter what you do there is a good chance it won't work.

 

[Mrsjvb]

What’s your back up plan if Alexa is a non option?

 

[jkstewart1800]

You may not be able to do as you wish. Echo devices use several ports to communicate. I don’t know if Disney has them open on their firewall and how Disney is routing or limiting network traffic.

Good point. Thank you.

 

[jkstewart1800]

What’s your back up plan if Alexa is a non option?

Go old school and bring the white noise machine and the ipod with audio books on it, the lap top for skype etc.... I was hoping to NOT have to lug all the tech around. KWIM?

 

[Cloudy]

We travel with an Arlo camera, Amazon Echo, and an Amazon Firestick. We have been staying off site so I cannot verify if these will work at Disney Resorts, but we had no problem connecting our devices to the hotel wifi and using them. Our Arlo camera has its own router. We stayed this past May at a condo in Clearwater and Wyndam Bonnet Creek and all devices were fairly easy to connect to the wifi.

 

[jkstewart1800]

We travel with an Arlo camera, Amazon Echo, and an Amazon Firestick. We have been staying off site so I cannot verify if these will work at Disney Resorts, but we had no problem connecting our devices to the hotel wifi and using them. Our Arlo camera has its own router. We stayed this past May at a condo in Clearwater and Wyndam Bonnet Creek and all devices were fairly easy to connect to the wifi.

Awesome - thank you. Right now we are considering a Echo Show 5 and just using one of our phones wifi.

 

[BeachLife]

I've used quite a few travel routers over the years for work and wouldn't consider traveling without them now. For anyone who travels with multiple devices, I fully recommend using one. Just being able to sign into the internet once and have all of your devices start working automatically is great. This is also quite fun on the aircraft, where one sign-in will give access to all of your (or seatmates') devices. I also can share files securely between my devices through it.

I currently use a GL.Inet MT300N-V2 (Mango): https://www.amazon.com/GL-iNET-GL-MT300N-V2-Repeater-300Mbps-Performance/dp/B073TSK26W/

and a GL.Inet AR750S-Ext (Slate) https://www.amazon.com/GL-iNet-GL-AR750S-Ext-pre-Installed-Cloudflare-Included/dp/B07GBXMBQF/

For most people, the $20 Mango is more than sufficient. It's powered by USB and will run happily off a USB battery pack and will be fast enough for any internet connection you'll come across on the road.

Why did I buy the Slate? It has 3 gigabit ethernet ports, which is great for when I set up a small portable office with multiple hardwired computers pushing data back & forth. Yes, it has 5GHz radios while the Mango doesn't, but I can't say that's been an issue in some time. It does have a better processor, but if you're not using VPNs, you'll also never notice the difference. Even if you do use VPNs, you might never notice.

As far as IOT devices on the road, depending on how long I'll be away and what the hotel room is equipped with, I'll carry a Wyze cam, Google Home Mini, Amazon Fire TV stick. I carry a Samsung phone and an Amazon Fire tablet. My spouse also has a different Samsung phone & Fire tablet. I've never had any of these fail to work with the travel router in place.

The biggest hangup with devices and hotel networks is getting past the login screen. Since the travel routers are indeed routers, the hotel's network only sees the router and treats it as one device, one sign-in, while the router handles all of your devices.

I like the GL.Inet routers over the other brands due to one key feature -- it remembers WiFi networks you've connected to in the past. Most routers only can handle one WiFi network entry at a time. The GL.Inet routers work like your mobile phone / tablet / computer and will automatically join a network they've been connected to in the past without any intervention on your part. It might not mean much to the occasional traveler, but when you're a road dog and have to look at the hotel phone to see what city you're waking up in, this is awesome.

I have used the TP-Link travel routers in the past, and while they did the job, I find the ones I listed above to be superior.

 

[cobright]

I would just like help on how to hook up a travel router and use the cam OR hear any one's stories if they have had success or failure with this sort of thing... You can private message me too if you wish.
Thank you for your help. Any tips of what you have done with your special needs kiddos while traveling would be appreciated too.

It gets tricky because the WDW-Guest network has a couple of different authentication options depending on if it sees you as a computer or as a mobile device or as an IOS mobile device. In some cases you just connect to the wifi and go, others you have to load a webpage and click connect.

The other issue is that the guest wifi router may not (probably doesn't) have all the ports your amazon dot want to use and maybe not even your ip-cam.

But...

For most people, the $20 Mango is more than sufficient. It's powered by USB and will run happily off a USB battery pack and will be fast enough for any internet connection you'll come across on the road.

Beachlife beat me to linking this little monster. The Mango has one more trick up its sleeve, an OpenVPN client. Hotel wifi has gotten a little more tolerant in general lately but there was a time when a lot of streaming services (skype in particular) would not reliably work while on the road. A VPN lets you tuck all the ports your device need and tunnel it out through whatever ports are available.

A less technical option is to leave a laptop running with a software like YAWCAM. YAWCAM can be set up to take a picture every few seconds and email it to you.

The easiest solution is, as suggested above, a cellular network hotspot or phone left behind running the hotspot mode.

 

[mamabunny]

It gets tricky because the WDW-Guest network has a couple of different authentication options depending on if it sees you as a computer or as a mobile device or as an IOS mobile device. In some cases you just connect to the wifi and go, others you have to load a webpage and click connect.

The other issue is that the guest wifi router may not (probably doesn't) have all the ports your amazon dot want to use and maybe not even your ip-cam.

But...

Beachlife beat me to linking this little monster. The Mango has one more trick up its sleeve, an OpenVPN client. Hotel wifi has gotten a little more tolerant in general lately but there was a time when a lot of streaming services (skype in particular) would not reliably work while on the road. A VPN lets you tuck all the ports your device need and tunnel it out through whatever ports are available.

A less technical option is to leave a laptop running with a software like YAWCAM. YAWCAM can be set up to take a picture every few seconds and email it to you.
The easiest solution is, as suggested above, a cellular network hotspot or phone left behind running the hotspot mode.

Yep - I now take the "easy" way out, and use a cellular hotspot. It's just a lot easier - and a lot less for me to lug around.