streaming movies on smart tv

M

menos22

Member
May 26, 2009
165
Colonial Beach, VA
Boat Info
1994 Sea Ray 350 Express Bridge
Engines
Twin 454 Mercruiser With V-Drives
Good Afternoon, I would like to set up the boat to be able to watch Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc. I have a smart TV. Now my understanding is I will need a WI-FI Hot spot also. My mobile phone service provider is Verizon. I am unclear how to get a mobile hot spot for the boat and will I have to pay for it and are there monthly charges. Would like to hear what others have done to get streaming TV on board and a break-down of what equipment will be required and costs. Thank you. Mike
 
You can hook up to a marina WiFi or need a hotspot. The hotspot can be a separate device or you can use your cell phone as a hotspot. Maybe you already pay for it on your phone, otherwise you have to add it to your phone or pay for the additional device. I use a Verizon Mi-fi.
 
menos22 said:
Good Afternoon, I would like to set up the boat to be able to watch Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc. I have a smart TV. Now my understanding is I will need a WI-FI Hot spot also. My mobile phone service provider is Verizon. I am unclear how to get a mobile hot spot for the boat and will I have to pay for it and are there monthly charges. Would like to hear what others have done to get streaming TV on board and a break-down of what equipment will be required and costs. Thank you. Mike
Click to expand...

Hey there, Mike. So, I was doing the phone hotspot thing for a couple of years, but it was a bit of a pain when travelling having to change all of the wifi devices to different SSIDs, or if my wife was doing some work on the boat, and one of us would go walkabout with whatever phone we were using as a hotspot. Anyway, I just did my own on-board WiFi setup, using a strong omni-directional antenna to pick up the marina WiFi, which is fed into an on-board router that creates my own network. That way, any device I use on the boat is always married to my own router, and I only have to change the configuration of the incoming login details from whatever marina I'm visiting. Some details here: http://www.clubsearay.com/index.php...ch-cockpit-lighting.82134/page-4#post-1053204
 
I use a Linksys EA6900 for my local network on the boat. It's interfaced to the ships PC (hard wired), LaCrosse Temp/Humidity/Water Level alarm gateway (hard wired), Echo Dot, Roku, Apple TV, Fire Stick, Raymarine A95, and various phones and tablets when we are on board. When at the house, it is configured as a wireless extender from my home internet. When away from the dock for more than a day (or if a big game is on while out), I reconfigure to extend a T-Mobile hot spot provided by a dedicated on board tablet and service account.
I'd love a system that automatically failed over from one hot spot to another so I didn't have to reconfigure the Linksys. I haven't experimented with all the parameters on the router yet. Maybe it is possible. I will also replace the tablet with another phone for the hot spot, as the tablet service account only allows 2 gigs of data per month vs unlimited for a phone. (Didn't read the fine print. my bad). Watch out for those "free" tablet deals.

No outside antenna, but the router has high gain antennas built in. Plenty of signal.
 
We have apps on iPhones and iPads. Then stream to the TV via a HDMI cable with this....can charge at same time as well. Perfect mirror from phone to TV....

E496A641-0356-4F6F-921C-5242E89BFEA8.jpeg


Bennett
 
Just added a Smart TV this season. Plan on using hot spot on phone (verizon) ad wifi from marina when available.
Can hit wifi from my house when at home port. Have done some testing, seems to work well until someone calls you.
Plan on using a friends "hotspot" when on long trips.
 
I’ve had a Ubiquiti bullet and a Netgear LB1121 4g LTE modern on the boat to get data from various sources, all connected up to an old wireless router, all powered with PoE, so plug and play. I also have a small computer running Plex onboard. All of this can be displayed on the smart TVs onboard, or stream Spotify, Netflix amazon prime etc.

Over the winter I started to try to upgrade and clean up the install using a Ubiquiti Edgerouter X -SFP. This is a small inexpensive router that allows the bullet and the modem to both be data sources with fail over capability, and had PoE to power the bullet and modem. I just added a Ubiquiti AC Lite, to be mounted on the underside of the arch to improve the WiFi and make it look nicer.

Read the articles on how to get data on the boat.

https://www.panbo.com/an-update-on-internet-options-strong-cellular-and-variable-wifi-results/

https://www.panbo.com/using-a-wifi-bridge-to-connect-your-boat-to-the-internet-interfaces-compared/

https://www.panbo.com/marine-internet-a-connected-year-on-the-water/
 
370Dancer said:
I use a Linksys EA6900 for my local network on the boat. It's interfaced to the ships PC (hard wired), LaCrosse Temp/Humidity/Water Level alarm gateway (hard wired), Echo Dot, Roku, Apple TV, Fire Stick, Raymarine A95, and various phones and tablets when we are on board. When at the house, it is configured as a wireless extender from my home internet. When away from the dock for more than a day (or if a big game is on while out), I reconfigure to extend a T-Mobile hot spot provided by a dedicated on board tablet and service account.
I'd love a system that automatically failed over from one hot spot to another so I didn't have to reconfigure the Linksys. I haven't experimented with all the parameters on the router yet. Maybe it is possible. I will also replace the tablet with another phone for the hot spot, as the tablet service account only allows 2 gigs of data per month vs unlimited for a phone. (Didn't read the fine print. my bad). Watch out for those "free" tablet deals.

No outside antenna, but the router has high gain antennas built in. Plenty of signal.
Click to expand...
Last year i upgraded my phone hotspot to unlimited 4G LTE hotspot with TMO for 25/mo. Was going to cancel after boating season but it very handy to have so I kept it.

-Kevin
 
Last year i used an Amazon fire tv stick to stream all my TV using PlayStation Vue. This year i am switching to a tiny PC for streaming will also have a bunch a local content stored for the times that i the internet is not available. PSVUE has been great and I even cut the cord at home putting firetv sticks on all my TVs.
 
dtfeld said:
I’ve had a Ubiquiti bullet and a Netgear LB1121 4g LTE modern on the boat to get data from various sources, all connected up to an old wireless router, all powered with PoE, so plug and play. I also have a small computer running Plex onboard. All of this can be displayed on the smart TVs onboard, or stream Spotify, Netflix amazon prime etc.

Over the winter I started to try to upgrade and clean up the install using a Ubiquiti Edgerouter X -SFP. This is a small inexpensive router that allows the bullet and the modem to both be data sources with fail over capability, and had PoE to power the bullet and modem. I just added a Ubiquiti AC Lite, to be mounted on the underside of the arch to improve the WiFi and make it look nicer.

Read the articles on how to get data on the boat.

https://www.panbo.com/an-update-on-internet-options-strong-cellular-and-variable-wifi-results/

https://www.panbo.com/using-a-wifi-bridge-to-connect-your-boat-to-the-internet-interfaces-compared/

https://www.panbo.com/marine-internet-a-connected-year-on-the-water/
Click to expand...

I have some RV friends that just purchased one of the Verizon jet-packs and the unlimited plan noted in the article. They just received it this week and have asked for a report. They are headed to AZ for a month long road trip and will see how well it works.

Bennett
 
I'm wondering if there is a router out there that would let you have 2 wireless repeaters with automatic failover? Lots of wired multi wan routers do this. I want to re-purpose a tri band, using a wireless channel as a repeater from my home wifi (doing that now), and use another channel as a repeater from my cell hotspot when away from the dock. The third channel would be the wifi access point for the boat.
Haven't found anything with that kind of configuration capability. Could I do it with multiple APs? Seems like I'd be halving the throughput with too many hops.
 
Last edited:
You can go buy some cheap TP Link router and reflash it with OpenWRT and make them into what ever you want...take a little skill and time, but you'll need a device each doing a function you described above.
 
I have an iPad with an unlimited data plan (using it now) that I use as a hotspot for the smart TV’s on the boat and I stream content from Netflix and Amazon Prime. It works better for me as a hotspot than my iPhone does. Even at my home dock where I get two bars of service the streaming is flawless. Maybe a better antenna in the iPad than in the iPhone?
The iPad has replaced my laptop for about 99% of what I do these days anyway so it’s pretty much always with me.
If I know we’re spending a few days on the boat I’ll download some stuff to the iPad from Netflix and Amazon Prime before we go so I can connect the iPad to a TV via an Apple AV adapter if cell service is sketchy at our destination.
It also comes in handy for SiriusXM. I’ve got a subscription for my car but can also stream from their app. I stream it to the iPad and connect the iPad to my Fusion stereo via Bluetooth on the boat. It’s better than paying for another XM radio and I use it in other places too.
PDF versions of every manual I could find online for my boat and things on it are saved to iBooks so the iPad also replaces hard copies of that stuff. Comes in real handy.
I thought about investing in stuff to get WiFi installed on the boat but there is no free for me WiFi anywhere near my dock and WiFi at any Marinas we go to is sketchy and doesn’t work as well as my AT&T cellular data anyway.
Besides, a lot of what others here use to pull in WiFi on their boat is too complicated for me to figure out.
If I ever do go to a place with great free WiFi I can always connect my iPad to it anyway and opt to use it instead of cellular data if I want.
 
Last edited:
370Dancer said:
I'm wondering if there is a router out there that would let you have 2 wireless repeaters with automatic failover? Lots of wired multi wan routers do this. I want to re-purpose a tri band, using a wireless channel as a repeater from my home wifi (doing that now), and use another channel as a repeater from my cell hotspot when away from the dock. The third channel would be the wifi access point for the boat.
Haven't found anything with that kind of configuration capability. Could I do it with multiple APs? Seems like I'd be halving the throughput with too many hops.
Click to expand...
I have pepwave/peplink router that use WiFi as wan. It’s supposed to do just that but I never got it to work as discribbed so I just preprogrammed the info and go in manual fail it over when needed.
 
ive been using the Verizon hotspot square and seems to work well except I don't know which one I have , but it will only really run one device. I cant stay logged onto my work laptop VPN and have a movie streaming for the kids... it buffers endlessly.
 
villain style said:
BBWhite - what are the Ipad/Iphone tv apps you use?
Click to expand...

ESPN app for all ESPN channels, SEC Network, etc. CBS app, CBS Sports app, ABC app, NBC app, my wife uses the HGTV app, FOX app, NFL app, etc. We have Dish Network at home and for some of the apps require you to sign in with your "Provider"(Dish in my case) log in. After that, all good. Live TV is available on the ESPN app and CBS Sports app and maybe a few more. CBS has something called CBS Access where you can pay $4.99/month and watch all live TV on their network.

This may have been mentioned above, but another avenue for us, is Dish Anywhere. Direct, Xfinity, etc all have the same thing where I can watch anything on my boat that I can watch at home by streaming it via the internet. Direct TV has Direct Now for example.

I did not mention the movie apps-Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc....all available with an internet signal....

Probably more than you were asking....

Bennett
 
bbwhitejr said:
I have some RV friends that just purchased one of the Verizon jet-packs and the unlimited plan noted in the article. They just received it this week and have asked for a report. They are headed to AZ for a month long road trip and will see how well it works.

Bennett
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I did. However, the modem that comes with that plan is terrible. I upgraded it with a JetPack 8800L and it immediately doubled my throughput. That device also has ports for 2 external antennas which helped a lot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,117
Messages
1,426,456
Members
61,032
Latest member
Brock340
Back
Top