After the research I’ve done and talking to people I know who actually use it, I actually like & support it. I think it has a lot of potential. Time will tell…but I like that it is a transparent way to do long-range IOT (like smart pet tags) without being reliant on a platform like Alexa sidewalk.
Yes, this true.
This could be possible in theory. In practice, there are quickly becoming more than a single Helium hotspot per area especially with the large antennas being used. Also, duopolies are quickly diminishing as nearly everyone is gaining access to the choice of: Cable; Phone Company; Other Fiber (what I have which is owned by the city and not either greedy utility group); T-Mobile 5G (or other phone companies that are launching their own 5G internet routers); Starlink; Other Satellite; Other wireless like WiMax, etc.
Duopolies are diminishing quickly…and with multiple Helium hotspots overlapping, it is fairly likely that even if one ISP goes down, one of the others will have a different one that will connect. I foresee many choices being possible in the near future and it shouldn’t be hard to configure to look for one that has an active connection.
And if you get someone to do it with T-Mobile hotspot, then you can have it set up exactly the same thing as cellular backup without having to pay the monthly cost for it at all. That’s a total win-win. It also wouldn’t be hard to configure the router to simply run it through a VPN if one is concerned in any way.
Yes, this a good point, and one of the main reasons people want a backup option anyway.
Anyway, I like the IDEA behind it better than something like Amazon Sidewalk scooping up all that IOT data for themselves.
I so far haven’t found anything concerning about it, and like I said, I know guys who actually use it, so it seems pretty legit so far.
A lot of cryptocurrencies are fairly scammy, but blockchain in and of itself is pretty amazing with some awesome potential that is going to make a lot more decentralization possible (which I support) with incentives and security that doesn’t require “trust”…so blockchain itself doesn’t concern me (quite the opposite actually), but one does need to read the details and verify it’s not one of the rampant scams going around while the technology is basically in the “Wild West” for now.
I do believe this could be a really viable option for things like this.
Another option is to do something similar to what I currently do with my laptop. I connect my laptop by ethernet to one internet source and by WiFi to a different one. If one connection goes down, I don’t lose internet. It primarily goes off my main internet connection, but if that one isn’t responding, it simply uses the other. I expect that similar dual connections will become more common even with connecting to 2 wireless sources. I read that some routers will act this way with routing more than 1 internet source as a redundancy. We’re not at the point of wide adoption for that yet, but I bet it is coming, and I anticipate that it will make “cellular backup” fairly unnecessary.
Still, Wyze would be wise to cater toward the current strong expectations of the market and since a lot of people feel like they want cellular backup, they will sell several extra units if they provide that option. And in addition they can offer a subscription for it wherein they make a little extra profit too…so from a business perspective I would recommend it, but from a consumer perspective I would look at some better alternatives especially since a determined burglar can simply bring a cheap signal jammer and jam both WiFi and Cellular signals, break-in and leave (therefore making the backup pointless anyway). Even without jammers, if they run in, grab something and run out quickly (as most do), police will never get there in time anyway. So for the most part, statistically it is primarily a feel good item, rather than a truly practical one…but feeling better is usually worth the money.
