Starlink Mini | Hacker News Reader

Starlink Mini

starlink.com

23 pointsjonbaer16 comments

I really wish SpaceX would use industry-standard PoE with a normal Cat5E/Cat6 cable instead of a proprietary cable.

I don't understand why they insist on a proprietary cable, it caused us tons of problems in a commercial environment (Industrial, remote locations).

Power draw probably? Looking at the specs, StarLink draws 75-100W on average. PoE++ is rated up to 71.3W. The StarLink Mini specs say 25W-40W, so I guess it could use PoE++.

https://www.starlink.com/specifications?spec=4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet

It looks to me like you might be able to use 12v POE with an adapter. The one linked is only 12v 2amp, and the mini supposedly takes 12v 5amp.

https://youtu.be/DGoPeyKQhZQ?si=1Zu3TBxnpBhLJxIW&t=41

https://www.amazon.com/REVODATA-12V-2A-Surveillance-PlugPS57...

Built in Wi-Fi router. Can you bring your own router? Is this the direction starlink is going?

I've noticed it getting harder to use my own router. Starlinks DHCP does not like it and it causes issues, including taking several minutes to connect.

Less and less user control is obviously the direction that big tech wants, but man I hate it and hope for a reversal in the trend.

Is there a hard ethernet port on it? Maybe you can ignore or disable their wifi and add your own AP/router downstream.

I have the v1 dish, so the wifi router is physically separate. I just plug the Ethernet directly into my router box and stuck their wifi router in a drawer.

I'd be interested to hear from people with the newer hardware about whether it is more heavily integrated.

My fiber provider (Metronet) gives me a 10GbE port off the ONT that I connect my OPNSense box to. I pay extra for a static IP (otherwise I'd have to live with CGNAT, which is gross), and the way they had me configure it was to manually enter the IP information they provided over the phone.

That last part isn't ideal (I'm assuming their provisioning system doesn't support distributing static IPs over DHCP), but I love the simplicity of it.

I would take that in a heartbeat! I love the simplicity, and no waiting for DHCP after a reboot. Also no lease expiratins, which are a source of pain for me with starlink. I have a cron job that has to babysit it and down and up the interface periodically, otherwise it will get stuck and leave me with no Internet. That's especially painful when I'm not at my house so can't physically reach it...

My local fiber provider hands out static IPs with DHCP. It's really convenient not having to keep that information around constantly.

I feel like most people aren't trying to bring their whole home lab on their glamping trip, which seems to be the target use case for these.

If any community would being their home lab on a glamping trip, it would be this community.

I saw a youtube video on the mini, and acc to it, yes, there is a setting in the app to disregard its own router and pass through the ethernet port to your own router directly

The difference in the size of the TAM of consumer vs military application must be wild.

Seems radically useful for military apps. Somewhat useful for RV/camper vans. Cool either way.

Discussions

(63 points, 1 day ago, 14 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40936995

(54 points, 21 days ago, 70 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40747869

Did anyone figure out whether or not the deorbiting of Starlink satellites will cause ozone depletion? Seems pretty scary.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/researchers-warn-of-ozone-risk-wi...

I hope it comes to Europe soon too. I would use this instead of my 4G backup.

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