Starlink Mini 2 arrives, but small businesses still have no real plan
Starlink has launched the Mini 2, and the Hacker News thread quickly turned to what's missing: a proper self-service business offering with fleet management. Commenters note that any fixed, high-bandwidth IoT device with a SIM could run on Starlink, yet SMBs are stuck hacking residential plans and fearing a ban. Others question whether always-on internet defeats the point of escaping into the wild.
I want so badly for Starlink to offer a sensible, well-priced self-service B2B offering with fleet management.
- rmm
This has completely changed my industry (hard rock mining). A lot of the time drillers would be in the middle of nowhere looking for resources and would be sometimes days away from providing results (which also lead to lots of dodgy situations where drillers would know some results before market…) now it’s instant live feed. It’s made revising drilling plans trivial. Very cool
- cwt137
Recently, I've been watching ultramarathon races (Western States, UTMB, Javalina Jundred, etc.) live online. All of them have been doing live video shots of the race leaders with a camera man on a mountain bike using a Starlink Mini on the back (with networking gear and batteries in a backpack). This new Starlink Mini 2 will be a more compact solution for the cameraman and possibly give the producers of the live broadcast more options and maybe more interesting shots.
- artdigital
I wanted to get one so bad because I’m a very frequent travelled and the idea of Starlink sounded so interesting
I just checked a few weeks ago and “Roam” does no longer include international coverage at all. Only “Roam unlimited” does, and only for 30 days at a time which entirely defeats the purpose for me. Also no way to replenish this quota or buy additional, you have to go back to your country for it to reset.
My SIM card already gives me 14 days of roaming included, so Starlink is just marginally better for my use case.
I’m sure it’s regulations related but still a bummer :(
- arjie
Smart. Everywhere we take the Mini we also haul a portable battery. A fun thing we did a few times was that we took the whole thing on a weekday to Golden Gate Park and my wife and I worked while my daughter and grandparents played around and saw things and then they came back and we ate lunch and they went back around to see stuff. Lots of fun.
Park was practically empty and it was a bright and sunny day.
- porphyra
They should totally sell a foldable solar panel for the ultimate offgrid set-it-and-forget-it internet solution.
- tarpitt
Starlink is an interesting option for RVs, but I can't use it because they don't offer static IPs or even ip addresses that aren't behind NAT.
- noodlesUK
I want so badly for starlink to offer a sensible well priced self-service B2B offering with fleet management. Any kind of fixed, high bandwidth IoT device that currently has a SIM card could easily use a starlink. As it stands SMBs who want this have to screw around with residential starlink and live in fear that they’ll get banned.
- asats
And it seems to have a normal USB-C port now! Excellent, having to order that old weird cable of theirs was a pain, especially when one broke out in the wild.
- modeless
Removable battery is cool. Does "quick-swap" mean you can switch the battery while it's operating? I always thought it would be a good idea for devices like this to have a tiny secondary battery or large capacitor in the main unit that would let it keep going for a few seconds while you swap the main battery.
- Tepix
Starlink Mini improved the power consumption a lot. Does Starlink Mini 2 improve things further? The page lacks specs.
I read elsewhere the battery has 71Wh and lasts 4.5h. That's 15.77W/h if it indeed uses 100% of the battery's capacity.