In Car WiFi - your thoughts?

[fozzi58]

For those that have been buying the in car wifi, what are your thoughts on it, its operation, and value? $20 a month is yet another monthly fee I don't want...especially since I cut the cord on cable years ago to reduce monthly bills. Adding another monthly recurring fees seems silly for the occasional long trip.

I've been doing on research on headrest entertainment to keep my kids and other "guests" occupied in the back seat. I have a 2 daughters but they are 10 and 12 so the days of playing Nemo in the car are nearly over and they keep occupied mostly with their Kindles or music from their non- cellular enabled phones (Had to state that to make my point).

Then I started thinking. A decent rear seat entertainment system is going to run upwards of $1000 - $1500 installed and much higher if I go for the 4 seats and/or look for a linked system that will play off a media device (usb, sd card, dvd). That is a lot of months of unlimited wifi. A $1000 entertainment system is almost 5 years of wifi in the car and no worrying about installation, blown fuses or lost game controllers and headphones.

So while I am debating in my head which direction is more cost effective, I want to ask those who have been keeping the in-car wifi, does it work well enough to keep and is it worth it? Have you had any issues with it? Is the value for the once a week trip or even trips that are farther and fewer in between hold the value? Your input and opinion is valued. Thanks in advance.

 

[paulb55]

You can add it for only $10 per month through your cell company, at least through ATT

One option if you dont want to go that route is find a small mobile hotspot and just use that.

 

[schaffer05]

We have a mixed family. My wife has 2 kids and I have 2 kids. We had cellphones for the oldest 2 for about a year, they were using 40gb of data in one week! Needless to say, their data was quickly turned off. Then their phones were turned off. So now they have non enabled IPhones that they can use while on wifi.

We have the 3Gb free still, that expires in august. We have yet to let them use it. However, we are taking a camping trip from Missouri to South Carolina in August. The plan is to pay the $20 for the unlimited data for the month, and then only activate it for long trips like that. We have the cheap DVD players that cost 150 from Walmart and you can strap to the headrest, but they all use their iPads and iPhones anyway so they're not even in the Tahoe.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[thebishman]

I just activate it when necessary and then cancel when back in town. It's really useful though, and I've found it to be very quick speed wise.
Bish

 

[PG01]

I turn on the hotspot my phone on and done. Kindles, ipods connect and everyone is happy. If they annoy me, turn it off, done again....