Picture this: You embark on an exciting midweek adventure, defying the conventional weekend getaway routine. However, you need internet to join video calls while driving so as not to burn vacation days. Your plans quickly unravel as you find yourself in the middle of nowhere without a signal. The clock is ticking as a meeting looms. You then stress out, rushing to get to a place with signal. But stopping also means losing precious driving time that could be used to get to your destination. This has happened to us multiple times now.
Enter Starlink, or so we thought. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Team built Starlink – an ambitious satellite internet venture. You buy special hardware, pay a monthly fee, and get internet everywhere.
Starlink Options: Roam vs. Mobility
There are several hardware/service packages available. At the time of this writing, there were two that applied to us: Roam and Mobility.
Both systems come with an antenna about the size and shape of a laptop. The antenna connects to a WiFi router with a cable. The router supplies power to the antenna. The router has to be plugged into AC power, meaning you need a home-style wall plug, which many vehicles do not have. One solution is to use an inverter or a battery-generator, like a Jackery.
Roam, the more affordable option at $600, is designed for stationary use with a clear line of sight to open sky. That means you can’t be moving while using it, nor can you have obstructions like most of the metal parts on top of your car. Mobility, which comes with a heftier price tag of $2,500, solves all this by providing a flat antenna that can be mounted on the roof of your vehicle, enabling internet access on the go. However, it requires drilling a hole into the vehicle’s roof.
Roam: False Hope for Connectivity in Motion
The extra cost of Mobility (in addition to a more expensive monthly data plan) and punching a hole in the roof of our new Defender were non-starters, so we opted for Roam. Now, it clearly says on the Starlink website that you have to be stationary while using Roam. While the internet may suggest that Roam can be used while in motion, our firsthand experience debunks this myth. We received a clear warning message in the Starlink app, stating that service was suspended while in motion. This may have worked in the past, but it doesn’t any more, and I’m pretty sure that error message was not exclusive to us.
Testing Roam’s Capabilities
Before knowing it wouldn’t work, we experimented with various scenarios. First, we tried it in our apartment, near a big window, but to no avail. The system repeatedly signaled that it wasn’t ready. Then we tried it on the ground outside. That worked. Perhaps, not surprisingly, when they say open sky, they mean it. I’m sure if there were only a few trees it would have been fine, but next to a window in our apartment, it barely sees 180 degrees of sky. Still, I thought since cars have windows on all sides, maybe that would work, but it didn’t (it might, in some cars). We tested it with our car parked and the system plugged into our Jackery Explorer 1000 Pro. Antenna inside the car? Nope. Outside the car? Yep. When we started driving, we received a warning message that it suspended service because it detected motion. There is a service plan add-on that lets you use Roam in motion (assuming you get past the car roof metal issue), but speed is limited to 10 mph – another deal breaker. We immediately took it home, packed it up, and returned it.
Starlink Conversion Options
Besides the internet telling us Roam would work inside our moving car, another promising sign was that there are companies that sell “conversion” kits that allow you to cut away Roam’s built-in stand to make it flat and more portable, but this unfortunately, also voids the warranty. Then there are systems that let you convert wall power into DC, so you can plug into a cigarette lighter instead of the wall. All good signs. We were prepared to do all of the above if the unmodified unit passed our test, but it didn’t. Again, maybe this did work at one time, but not any more.
Moving Forward
In the end, it was what the Starlink’s website said vs. what the internet said. We thought it was worth a try. The good news is we just saved you the trouble of trying the exact same thing!
My completely made up conspiracy theory is that the $2500 Mobility hardware and the $600 Roam hardware are basically the same thing on the inside, but they want to discourage people from getting the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost. At first, they just added the stand to discourage mounting it to your car roof. But then people devised a way around that with the conversion kits. So then SpaceX modified the firmware to detect motion, and it all came crashing down for the conversion crowd. Maybe existing customers are grandfathered in and/or don’t get the firmware update that disables using it in motion, but our brand new one as of July 2023 was too smart for that. Just a theory.
Our new plan is to wait and think about it some more. Maybe Starlink will lower the price for the roof mounted unit and/or create more attractive service plans for in-motion use. Maybe we’ll buy a used one.
Note: you are charged for the remaining days of your monthly service date, even if you cancel within the 30 day period. For us, this was $50 even though we only used it one day.