Technomads: Technology Enabled Nomads
Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard are exploring the confluence of full-time travel, technology, career and community; all while embracing nomadic serendipity.
Current adventure: Full time RVing in the USA in a 1961 Vintage Bus Conversion.
Our Mobile Technology Arsenal
As technology enabled nomads (thus ‘Technomad’), our mobile technology arsenal plays a critical role in our chosen lifestyle. Our technology is what keeps us connected to our clients, family and friends as we roam, and enables to us to work & play from wherever we’re at.
We’re constantly updating and evolving our technology based on our needs to by hyper-mobile by multiple modalities (RV, car, backpacking, air travel, train travel, etc.), and to be run off of solar power.
Our Office Setup in the Bus
Computers
Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display
Chris’ Macbook Air effortlessly docks into this 27″ display via just one cord. With 2560 x 1440 resolution, this display allows him the flexibility of ultra portability and ultra screen space.
Apple Cinema 30-inch HD Flat-Panel Display
Cherie’s 17″ laptop currently docks into this 30″ Apple display with 2560 x 1600 resolution. She bought the display used from a friend, until she’s ready to upgrade her laptop.
Apple iPad 2 – AT&T
One of our iPads has a grandfathered in unlimited data plan from AT&T. This one is ideal for navigating, streaming videos and surfing the web.
Apple iPad 2 Wifi
One of our iPad’s is a white 32GB WiFi only model – which is perfect for computing, reading or surfing from bed or while on the roam.
Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch
Chris’ laptop is a late-2011 Macbook Air 13.3″. This gives him ultra portability while away from the bus and then he docks it into his 27″ thunderbolt display while at home.
Apple MacBook Pro 17-Inch Laptop
Cherie is currently using a late 2010 model of the Apple Macbook Pro 17″. Cherie is looking to move to a smaller MBP in the future now that she has a big display to dock to.
Apple Magic Trackpad
Each of our workstations sports an Apple Magic Trackpad, and we absolutely love them!
Apple Wireless Keyboard
We both have an Apple Wireless Keyboard at our desks, allowing our laptops to be easily docked.
Canon PIXMA iP100 Mobile Photo Printer
It’s portable, compact and gets the job done when we need to print something out (which we try to avoid whenever possible). It even does a reasonable job printing photos – even borderless 8×10′s!
Wacom Intuos4 Small Pen Table
Cherie uses a Wacom Pen Tablet as an interface to her MacBook Pro, primarily for hand creating the maps for our popular traveler’s iPhone app, Coverage?
Cellular & Internet Connectivity
Apple iPhone 4
Cherie has an iPhone 4 (32GB, Black) as her cell phone, and keeps a tethering hotspot plan on it as our back-up connectivity. Her service is through AT&T.
Cradlepoint CTR-350 Cellular Router
We’ve had this tiny little router since 2007. We’ve tried newer models and competitors, and nothing yet beats the reliability of this little box. It is currently our stand-by router should our primary one fail.
Google Voice
Excellent free service! They give us a phone number that will ring as many phones as we want, and is a central voice mail box. We can also call out & Text, online, to any US # for free.
iPhone 4S
Chris has an iPhone 4S on AT&T, with a grandfathered in unlimited data plan. He spends a lot of time talking to SIRI.
Millinecom Advanced Plan
Our primary mobile data comes from Millenicom – who bulk buys bandwidth. We get 20GB of Verizon 3G data for $59.99/mo via a Novetel u760 device, with no contract. We did try their 4G plan, but feel the Samsung hotspot they offer is unreliable.
Satellite Dish
We keep a Satellite Dish on a Tripod, with a HN7000S modem that we use when parked out of cellular range. We turn our HughesNet plan on/off as needed. (Link is to Datastorm Forums, great resource for info).
Top Signal 55 Cell Phone Booster Vehicle Kit
The fine folks at Powerful Signal gave us one of these to test out on the road – and we love it! It automatically resets as we’re in motion and changing towers. We’ve been able to boost a barely usable signal to stable on many occasions.
WiFiRanger Pro & Boost Bundle
After borrowing a WFR Pro & Boost, we are utilizing this setup as our primary router and WiFi boosting system. It will route our cellular data card or switch over to re-broadcasting available WiFi.
Safety & Navigation
ColdFire Hand held Fire Extinguishers
We carry a 2L extinguisher inside our coach (in the bedroom), and a 2.5G one in our bays for engine fires. RV Safety Systems is run by a fellow bus-nut.
Garmin nüvi 855
Our stand-by stand-alone GPS. While we prefer navigating by iPad/iPhone, sometimes the benefits of this unit outweighs the annoyances.
Kidde Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Alarm
Our smoke and Carbon Monoxide alert system.
Koolertron® Waterproof CCD / NTSC Nightvision Backup Camera
The backup camera we selected for our bus – waterproof, infrared night vision.
PressurePlus 8000 – Tire Pressure Monitor
This is the Tire Pressure Monitor system that we use to keep tabs on all our tires while underway. It wireless transmits the pressure & temp of each tire to a display.
PYLE 7-Inch Widescreen TFT/LCD
With dual input – this is the 7″ LCD screen we use for viewing our back-up camera on the bus, as well as the readouts from our LiFePO4 battery systems EMS.
Ryobi Non-Contact Infrared Thermometer
We use this to monitor the temperatures of our tires, hubs and other moving parts on our bus when making safety stops.
Entertainment Systems
Altec Lansing iMT620 inMotion
We love our Altec Lansing iMT620 for plugging into our iPhones to become our home audio system. It’s portable with a battery, or can run off of A/C power. The sound is quite reasonable, and the size compact.
JVC KD-R810 Bluetooth
Our sound system for the bus – receives playlists via bluetooth from our devices, as well as serves as our speakerphone system.
Camera Gear
Canon PowerShot ELPH 300
Cherie’s camera of choice– it’s ultra compact, fits in her waist pouch and takes awesome 12 megapixel photos and HD video.
Dolica 62-Inch Proline Tripod and Ball Head
A great consumer level tripod with professional features and stability of higher end models, but at a very affordable price.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 12.1MP Micro Four Thirds I
Chris’ camera of choice is the micro Four Thirds format digital SRL Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 12.1MP Digital SLR Camera.
SanDisk 4GB Ultra II SD Plus Card
Love love love this SD card. It converts to a USB device by folding in half. Eliminates the needs for a SD->USB converter device to offload photos onto devices without SD slots.
Testing - Products we are currently evaluating
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 2 TB
We picked up this wireless NAS drive recently to give it a try to be both our back-up drive and entertainment repository. So far, it’s been frustrating to get working – we’ll reserve judgement for now.
Except where noted, all of the above products we purchased (or received as a gift from a family member) at full market price – and we have not been compensated in anyway by the manufacturer or vendor to list their products here. These are all authentic recommendations for the products we utilize.
Have a product you’d like us to test out for possible inclusion in our arsenal? Be in touch – us@technomadia.com.
Many of the links ARE affiliate links – generally to our Amazon.com Affiliate link . If you do purchase a product off of the above links, we may get a small cut of the purchase at no additional cost to you. We greatly appreciate these contributions to our diesel and beer fund.. thank you!
2 Responses to Our Mobile Technology Arsenal
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Hi Chris & Cherie,
Our family of four is about to go full-time. Date is set for Feb 15th! I do all my work on my laptop, and am trying to figure out how to ensure I have connectivity whereever we go. I have a 4G Verizon card with 10gig. And, I assume there may be some WIFI available. But, what if we’re boondocking in the wilderness? Do we need to get a sattelite connection? I called HughesNet twice, and they clearly state that they’re not for RVs. Everyone I’ve talked to or found on the web just uses Verizon and WIFI. Maybe I’m worrying unnecessarily.
Do you have any advice?
By the way, we’d love to see your 1961 GMC one day!
Thanks!
Bill
Hi Bill –
Welcome to the road!
If you need to keep connected where there is no signal, then yes – a satellite dish is highly recommended. We have one in our arsenal on a tripod that we can set up when we need it. Hughes does not officially support it on RVs, the key is purchasing used equipment and activating via a vendor, or fighting your way through their customer service. You’ll need to make sure you buy an older model that is not spot beam, and avoid getting into a contract. We regularly suspend our service when we know we’ll be in cell connectivity areas for a while. Another option is a roof mounted system from Motosat.
We cover this topic is a bit in our Mobile Connectivity Article:
http://www.technomadia.com/2011/09/10-tips-to-keep-connected-us-mobile-internet-options/
For cellular, highly recommend having something on AT&T’s network too. Verizon has pretty good coverage, but there have been plenty of times where we could only get online via AT&T. Redundancy is key to keeping connected as much as possible.
Best wishes!
– Cherie