Hi there,
I’m thinking about what kind of opportunities there is for a portable media center you can have with you in the car, train or whatever.
I imagine that the media center would create its own WiFi, so that devices would be able to connect to it and access the media.
I know you could do something with a Raspberry Pi, but how could this work in practice? What would be an easy way to access the media from an iPad fx? What software could be used?
As a bonus, it would be pretty cool if the media center could connect to a hotel WiFi and then create a hotspot from that.
Edit: This would be used when on the move. So you would have the media with you on the media center.
My Plex server runs in my home and all my media is available outside my home. A travel server seems like a solution for a problem that doesn’t really exist.
If you are on the road or simply travelling a place with bad internet, then what?
Not sure if this helps, but e-sims are extremely cheap and can be set up on the go through an app these days. You could get a 5g plan in the area with bad internet and use it as a hotspot to download content to your other devices. I use Nomad, but there are a lot of providers with plans that are unlimited or pay by the gig—all affordable with time periods as short as 7 days.
A $10 solution, in a pinch, is a good choice.
It’s not a bad solution and I have used eSIMs before when I was traveling in Asia. However, all of these “unlimited” eSIM plans has a lot of buts. Either the speed is limited to close to unusable for streaming and/or you are limited to only use x amount of GB when using hotspot.
Also depending on the country, the coverage can be awful.
At least in the case of a Jellyfin server, you can download media locally when you know you’ll be without internet
True, but if your devices, in this case; iPads with only 64GB, it quickly gets filled up.
When I know I’m travelling, I always download a few select movies and the next few episodes of whatever we’re currently watching to my devices.
Plex allows me to download using my PlexPass. My family/everyone else that uses my server download the media they want via my JellyFin server (serving the same media as my Plex server).
You read, you walk, you get to see places…
Genius! Why didn’t I think of that 😂
I use Plex’s download feature to make sure I always have music available. The same could be done for other media but I don’t bother.