Home Monitoring - Cellular Backup

[carverofchoice]

I’m partial to using Ubiquity UniFi lately. I’ve heard people use “Ubiquiti UniFi LTE Backup Pro” to do this (Designed specifically as a failover device: plugs into UniFi gateways, Uses primary ISP always, LTE only when wired WAN fails Clean integration for UniFi users) So that is fairly likely what I would probably look into doing if I were to do it myself since I already have a UniFi dream machine.

I’ve heard people use Peplink Balance 20X (or B One Plus) (Popular small-business router with a primary WAN port and optional LTE SIM slot (you’d have to get your own SIM mobile data account). Strong failover logic — you can prioritize WAN first and LTE only on outage)

GL.iNet Spitz AX (GL-X3000) or Spitz Plus (GL-X2000) - these run on OpenWRT as their foundation so they’re very customizable. You can set them up to normally use your ISP via WAN port. Then have LTE kick in only when WAN fails.

Netgear LM1200 (LTE Modem) + another Router that supports failover - Not a router itself, but acts as an LTE modem on standby. Connect it to the secondary WAN port of a router that supports failover (e.g., Asus RT-AX series, TP-Link Omada, or Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine). Your router decides when to switch from ISP → LTE. - similar to this, there are a whole bunch of other LTE type options. I remember when I was looking into them a few years ago there were a bunch that even had free data up to so many hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes per month for free, so if you never used it you never got charged, but if your main internet is unreliable, you might want to have a router that allows you to use settings to restrict which devices can actually use it when it switches to LTE So your other devices don’t cause you a lot of overage charges during an outage like 4K HD media streaming services.

Since you already have the Wyze mesh routers, and may want to continue using those instead of wasting money on an entirely mesh system, the simplest DIY path is:

Get a small router with WAN + LTE failover (GL.iNet or Peplink).

Put it in front of the Wyze Mesh (as the main router).

Wyze Mesh then just acts like normal Wi-Fi nodes, blissfully unaware… May want to put them in bridge mode so there is no “double NAT conflict.”

But if you use any of the above solutions, you can have any alarm system you want And they will all have cellular backup even if you ever switch to a company that doesn’t offer or provide it, including the Wyze HMS. It will also probably be cheaper than paying an alarm company for cellular backup (note When you set up an LTE account for mobile data backup, if it’s only going to be rarely used when your main internet goes out, you probably don’t need an unlimited internet plan or something really expensive).

Hope that helps to at least give you a starting point of things to look into.

[Sam_Bam]

@carverofchoice, I really enjoy reading your posts. I always get something useful from them. I read this one back when it was first posted and I filed it away in my head. And bored around my house I started purposely became bored that I had created a complicated set of A/B switches with 5 port hubs to swap to Starlink when Spectrum service temporarily dropped. I want to easily connect Starlink to my TP-Link router, and at the same time use a separate connection from Starlink wired to my main desktop (many monitors). Getting old, I could not even remember where my notes were for which button to push on the A/B boxes to make to two parallel sets of connections while Spectrum was down. I remembered your post. Took a while to find it. (Yes, I could have imposed on you to point me to it, and I know you could find it easy. But that’s part of the fun - the journey not the destination.) So month+ found it a week ago. Did some looking at stuff you had knowledge of. However, true to my nature to re-invent that wheel, I picked something different - so I would have something to whine about.

Day ago, I received the Cudy R700, ($50) advertised primarily as a Giga VPN Router, its basically a Multi-Wan Router you add south of your cable modem for #1 and add a lesser (such as cell 2nd ISP) to a configurable LAN to WAN port (more than one, if needed). And there’s a single named LAN port. The LAN port gets the TP-Link mesh main. Took 5 minutes to config including changing its password. Nuthin’ else beside the #2 LAN to #2 WAN port, was needed to get it up and running. What a small box too. 4” x 3” x 1” wow. The Cudy R700 does other stuff, but not needed right now. However, its a extremely reasonably priced Firewall also, if anyone is thinking about one.

So, thankeee. And to prove the depth of my thanks, I would buy a brew or two, if I lived close to ya.

I can remember that I already said, I always get something useful from your postings, but its worthy of saying again. Thanks.

Oh, and I have a spare WiFi network configured for fun. I renamed it to Police Surveillance Van No 3 (That ought to give the neighbors something to think about for a month or two.)

[carverofchoice]

That’s great to hear! Thanks for sharing.

There are so many cool alternative backup options out there now too. I’ve come close to setting up something fancy. I see a bunch of devices for sale now that basically give you X GB of 4G or 5G mobile data free every month and then if you go over that they just throttle the bandwidth or switch you to unlimited Internet on a lower tier all without any monthly subscription. I’ve been really tempted to get one and then set up a system where most devices can only use the primary Fiber Internet WAN, but then I would have a separate network for critical low bandwidth systems like my home assistant or home monitoring systems that get access to the fail-over WAN if the primary goes down. Then I can also have my home assistant notice when the fail-over switches on and send me a notification and my critical security will also have access to Internet for anything needed. All without having that limited free bandwidth used by big bandwidth gobblers like streaming devices which I would just have stop working until the fiber is restored.

It’s really tempting now that there are so many options.

[Sam_Bam]

That’s pretty cool. I am almost learning. Long way to go with HA. I don’t have a creative mind. I want to replace my Alexa routines with HA automations. Moving slow. I can build a race car, just don’t where I wanna race it. Now replace race car with Home assistant.

You might want to look at Starlink. They had a $5 plan. I think now, its a $10 plan. They have a $50 plan throttled to 100 mbps (in some places) and a $80 200 mbps both with no cap.

[carverofchoice]

Yeah, starlink can be a great option! I’ve considered that plan. The equipment and install cost was a duzy though I think that will be a more long term goal for though. For example, I’ve started doing my own self hosting for a lot of things, and some of them should have redundancy for when I’m traveling (example my self hosted password manager, my NAS and other critical services). Long term I want to have my NAS and docker swarms setup with redundancy between at least 2 separate locations (primary and secondary l so even a disaster or outage can’t knock it out so easily. I’m partially doing such things for fun and taking it slow. That’s similar to what you said you’re doing with HA (taking it slow). I think that’s wise. HA is notoriously known as a huge time sink if you let it. Taking it slow is good. You don’t want to get overwhelmed or frustrated with it. It’s basically the best thing out there for smart homes. It just has a little learning curve.

[WildBill]

I’m using the ER605 with two different ISPs (don’t ask.) It can support cell service and is fairly inexpensive:

[ronaldczarnecki]

Sounds like it’s backing up to the cloud I need internet service for why security to trip the alarm and activate the monitoring to call police

[Sam_Bam]

Yeah, I read about that one too. When I was searching it was the best one researched. (I am hard headed though.) I like TP-Link, and that’s the same mesh router that I have had best luck and service with of the 6+ different manufacturers I have tried in the past 5+ years. But, it was 3 times the price of the Cudy. So, I went with the Cudy at $50. Thanks @WildBill

[WildBill]

The ER605 is a TP-Link product:

Omada Gigabit VPN Gateway

[Sam_Bam]

Hmmm, now I am unsure. I must have looked at a different model. Thanks.