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mk313

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Feb 6, 2012
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I am trying to use an iPad (Pro 9.7, but I also have an Air 3 that I could use, but I don't think that matters) with a cellular connection as a hotspot to run a nest camera at a rental property we have that is currently unoccupied. It works OK, but so far the camera has stopped working twice in the past week. Every time it does, I have to drive 90 minutes round trip to reset it. Both times so far, when I get there the iPad's cellular still appears to be working but for some reason the camera has stopped connecting.

Is it possible to remotely access an iPad? It would be great to handle everything from home, rather than make the drivel
 
Sorry, nope. There are no apps for that.

Maybe if you jailbreak (if that's even possible on your iPad's current firmware).
 
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Doesn't Team Viewer offer this functionality? I use it from the iPad to access my MBP and a dell laptop, but I understand it works the other way around (haven't tried it, though)
Huh, I hadn't heard of that software before, but it does seem like it might do that. I'm downloading it now & will give it a try, thanks for the tip.

Update: it looks like it can only remotely control Android devices (and computers, etc) but not iPads. Must be an iOS thing. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 
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I don’t know whether this camera is inside or outside, but if you need outside security, you may want to look into an Arlo or a cellular trail camera. Not sure whether that will suit your needs, maybe not.
 
I don’t know whether this camera is inside or outside, but if you need outside security, you may want to look into an Arlo or a cellular trail camera. Not sure whether that will suit your needs, maybe not.
Thanks, it's an interior camera. If I can't get this figured out, I'll check out some cellular enabled cams & see if that works. Thanks for the tip.
 
Our WISP is unlimited but slow and unreliable. So as a back up we use a Net Gear LTE modem which we can easily swap to when our WISP goes down. All I do is change the input to our Airport Extreme. The rest of our network remans unchanged. I know this isn’t your problem but…

An LTE modem and cheap wired or wireless router could replace your iPad and give you the option to remote into the router for maintenance, etc..

GetRealBro
 
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Our WISP is unlimited but slow and unreliable. So as a back up we use a Net Gear LTE modem which we can easily swap to when our WISP goes down. All I do is change the input to our Airport Extreme. The rest of our network remans unchanged. I know this isn’t your problem but…

An LTE modem and cheap wired or wireless router could replace your iPad and give you the option to remote into the router for maintenance, etc..

GetRealBro
Thanks Man! If I can't get this working, I'll give that a try. I have an extra airport at our house, so all I would need is the Wireless modem. That sounds like a solid backup plan. Appreciate it.
 
I am trying to use an iPad (Pro 9.7, but I also have an Air 3 that I could use, but I don't think that matters) with a cellular connection as a hotspot to run a nest camera at a rental property we have that is currently unoccupied. It works OK, but so far the camera has stopped working twice in the past week. Every time it does, I have to drive 90 minutes round trip to reset it. Both times so far, when I get there the iPad's cellular still appears to be working but for some reason the camera has stopped connecting.

Is it possible to remotely access an iPad? It would be great to handle everything from home, rather than make the drivel
I use SplashTop SOS to remotely view iPads. There is no remote control of an iPad that I know of.
 
Thanks Man! If I can't get this working, I'll give that a try. I have an extra airport at our house, so all I would need is the Wireless modem. That sounds like a solid backup plan. Appreciate it.
FWIW the SIM we use in our NetGear LTE modem is out of our iPad Mini, that is part of our shared AT&T 12GB wireless plan. I switch it back to the iPad Mini when we aren't using it in the LTE modem.

GetRealBro
 
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I am trying to use an iPad (Pro 9.7, but I also have an Air 3 that I could use, but I don't think that matters) with a cellular connection as a hotspot to run a nest camera at a rental property we have that is currently unoccupied. It works OK, but so far the camera has stopped working twice in the past week. Every time it does, I have to drive 90 minutes round trip to reset it. Both times so far, when I get there the iPad's cellular still appears to be working but for some reason the camera has stopped connecting.

Is it possible to remotely access an iPad? It would be great to handle everything from home, rather than make the drivel

Could you do this with a Raspberry Pi? Setup cellular, dynamic DNS, remote in and then access the camera?
 
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I don't know about the cellular part but there are plenty of instructions available on how to set up the RPi as security cam.

Yeah, it’s not something I’m personally familiar with but I did a very quick web search and apparently you can use a cellular dongle. I also read a headline that a new model has it built in or something?
 
Could you do this with a Raspberry Pi? Setup cellular, dynamic DNS, remote in and then access the camera?

Thanks for the suggestion. A raspberry ok is beyond my programming abilities and I want to get this working pretty quickly. It’s a good suggestion though and I know they are pretty cheap. Maybe I’ll dig into the instructions online and see about building one. Could be a fun project that would work longer term. Appreciate the thought.
 
Thanks for the suggestion. A raspberry ok is beyond my programming abilities and I want to get this working pretty quickly. It’s a good suggestion though and I know they are pretty cheap. Maybe I’ll dig into the instructions online and see about building one. Could be a fun project that would work longer term. Appreciate the thought.

I was just thinking for you to run Linux on it, no programming necessary. I don’t know how feasible it all is to achieve what you want, but given your 90 minute round trip each time it’s worth investigating. If the camera has a web interface it might be quite simple, log into it from the Pi.

I use a Pi with Raspbian to run my network wide adblocker (Pi-hole).
 
I was just thinking for you to run Linux on it, no programming necessary. I don’t know how feasible it all is to achieve what you want, but given your 90 minute round trip each time it’s worth investigating. If the camera has a web interface it might be quite simple, log into it from the Pi.

I use a Pi with Raspbian to run my network wide adblocker (Pi-hole).
Pi-hole's pretty well documented and supported though, with a nice fancy web-based GUI.

Some of the guides for RPi-based security cameras are pretty old and might require some dabbling with python. There's SSH or VNC for remote control.
 
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P.S.
Reading again, it looks like the iPad is only needed for internet. I know I've had issues with both AT&T and Verizon where the iOS device can still get internet and still shows hotspot connected but the tethered devices aren't getting any data. I've had to disable personal hotspot then turn it back on to fix.

I have the following mini router in the office which I USB tether to an old iPhone 7 on Visible service. I use it for accessing smart wifi switches connected to my phone and laptop chargers.


Alas, right now I can't access the router admin page which means LTE/tethering probably crapped out and there's no way to fix it from my end. All I can do is hope it magically fixes itself or wait until I can get back to the office.

The problem here is when the LTE/internet connection fails, there's really no way you can fix things remotely.

Perhaps a USB LTE modem paired with a Nano router like the above would be more reliable than iOS tethering? Or maybe try using an Android device as wifi hotspot.

I would've recommended MiFi hotspots but the ones I've used had issues as well (overheat/stopped working after a few hours).
 
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I was just thinking for you to run Linux on it, no programming necessary. I don’t know how feasible it all is to achieve what you want, but given your 90 minute round trip each time it’s worth investigating. If the camera has a web interface it might be quite simple, log into it from the Pi.

I use a Pi with Raspbian to run my network wide adblocker (Pi-hole).
Huh! I guess I thought you had to build & program everything on a Raspberry Pi (I've never actually used one). I'll have to give that another look. Thanks again.
 
P.S.
Reading again, it looks like the iPad is only needed for internet. I know I've had issues with both AT&T and Verizon where the iOS device can still get internet and still shows hotspot connected but the tethered devices aren't getting any data. I've had to disable personal hotspot then turn it back on to fix.

I have the following mini router in the office which I USB tether to an old iPhone 7 on Visible service. I use it for accessing smart wifi switches connected to my phone and laptop chargers.


Alas, right now I can't access the router admin page which means LTE/tethering probably crapped out and there's no way to fix it from my end. All I can do is hope it magically fixes itself or wait until I can get back to the office.

The problem here is when the LTE/internet connection fails, there's really no way you can fix things remotely.

Perhaps a USB LTE modem paired with a Nano router like the above would be more reliable than iOS tethering? Or maybe try using an Android device as wifi hotspot.

I would've recommended MiFi hotspots but the ones I've used had issues as well (overheat/stopped working after a few hours).
Yup, iPad is just for internet. That seems to be the same issue I'm having, the internet link just craps out. It does seem to come back on sometimes (I also have a couple of lights on wemos attached to it and those seem to work more reliably than the webcam). I was back over there today & I put the web cam on a wemo smart switch, hoping that if it disconnects from the iPad hotspot that turning the camera off & on might resolve the issue. I don't know if that is actually what's going on, but since I had to go over there anyways, figured it was worth a shot.

Interesting tip on the mini router. I have something similar at home (a Hootoo Travelmate), but I didn't know you could connect an iPad/ iPhone for USB tethering. That's another avenue I can look at, although it seems to have a similar issue where the wireless link just stops working.

It's looking like the Raspberry Pi or a USB LTE modem might be my only real options.

Thanks everyone for all the replies. They are very useful.
 
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