Hi all,
We are planning to go on a 3 day cruise with our little one.
I have a spare Xiaomi Xiaofang camera which I was wondering if it can be used in AP Mode without any internet access to monitor him while he is sleeping?
i want to connect to the camera from my phone in adhoc mode and just view the stream. Is that even possible?
Thanks
Not an option when he is sleeping. We have 9 cabins on the cruise and I m hoping to be able to monitor him from the adjacent cabin.
Ah, that changes things a bit. It might be possible, but don't count on it.
First, legal disclaimer out of the way. Don't do it. Don't ever leave a child unattended anywhere at any time for any reason. Even at night at home when they sleep, you must stay awake and watch over them like a hawk at all times. Forever. But seriously, if you do have a balcony and the child is able to crawl…no, just no.
You'd need to hack the camera to get access to an rtp stream. Get it to connect to a router that you can take on the ship. Connect your phone to the router, make sure you can access the rtp stream using whatever app you choose that supports that. To make absolutely sure it works, turn on airplane mode on the phone and toggle wifi back on, turn off the router and camera, make sure the router is NOT connected to internet, make sure your phone will not try to connect to any router that has internet, power router back on, then power the camera on (sometimes things work fine when it detects an internet connection; we're double checking that everything will work even if no internet is available at all). If this works, then you should be good to go. It MAY work in an adjacent cabin, but can almost guarantee it won't in a cabin across the hall (I've tried to get phones to connect to each other ad-hoc, was a no-go). If the cabins are outside or balcony cabins, then you will likely have more success getting a signal further away (the signal can pass through the glass pretty easily, it just needs to defy physics a small bit to come back in, no biggie).
Assuming a balcony room, you might actually do better to get a lower powered travel router. Why? Because it can be powered by a powerbank. Set it out on the balcony. It'll get the signal from the camera and push it across the side of the ship. You MIGHT (if you're really lucky) be able to pick it up from several rooms down. Might. Yeah, you could use a more powerful router outside…if there was an outlet near the balcony, or if they didn't confiscate extension cords.
yea we had the same fear in booking a balcony room, so we opted for an interior room instead.
Getting a signal to the room immediately adjacent to you should be possible. Getting a signal to the room immediately across the hallway, I'd doubt it. To get a signal through the doorway the door would need to be open. They're metal (you'll notice some people decorating theirs with magnets), and that kills wireless signals.
@josetann: we have 3 rooms right next to each other. So if we take the middle room, maybe i can manage to get a signal in either of the adjacent rooms?
Also, how are the Baby monitors which work P2P? they claim to have a range of 1000feet or 300m (50m indoors)
@Jit0809: 50m indoors assumes the walls/doors/ceilings/floors aren't made of metal.
I wouldn't be surprised if it worked in the adjacent room, though you might have to fiddle with placement some. I also wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work at all.
My suggestion, don't spend hundreds of bucks on a baby monitor just for a three night cruise. If you already have one (or know someone who can lend you one), I think it'd be worth trying.
Do you not have a reasonably sized pram (i.e. not a monstrosity that barely fits through a regular sized door)? Just let him fall asleep in that. Stick the pram in the space just inside the cabin door of whatever room you're in. It's just a three night cruise, you'll survive.
@josetann: Yes we do have a stroller which is light weight. That is the backup plan if nothing else works. He sleeps btr in the bed than in the strolller.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Even if the camera did support that, the phone would have to be near enough to pick up a signal from the cameras. Lots of metal on the ship. You can have a great mobile signal in a balcony room, and absolutely nothing in an interior room right across the hall. You would need to have an internet plan for a minimum of two devices (one being the camera, one being the phone), and figure out a way to get the camera to authenticate to the ship's wifi (if you can spoof the camera's MAC, you can login using a laptop, then stop spoofing the MAC when you power on the camera; it SHOULD work). Don't expect it to be fast enough to stream, though motion detection could probably be used (it should be able to handle sending a low resolution photo at least once a minute, but it's possible that the internet would be too slow even for that; YMMV). In other words…no.
I'm assuming you're looking at booking three in a room? Check to see how much it would be for four; it's often not much more, and sometimes actually costs LESS! Offer to take a trusted friend/family member for free, all you expect in return is that they watch your son for a bit each day. And maybe vacate the cabin for 30 minutes at night :) Along those lines, also see how much it'd cost for two twin rooms; just depends, it's usually cheaper for four in a room vs two in two rooms, but not always.
We are 19 of us, everyone has booked their own twin share room except us. We are 3 of us including our 1year old. Wondering what techniques do others apply in such scenarios. He sleeps around 9pm which means we cant leave the cabin past 9pm either.
Do cruise ships have intercoms to communicate between cabins?
They have phones. Which a one year old will just love to play with, so you'll probably be disconnecting it if you don't want to find out how much it costs to call a random number from a cruise ship.
Told you my technique. We've taken my mom on multiple cruises. Took my brother and his wife on a cruise, deal was that we didn't have to watch our kids at all (we did, but didn't have to). It was nice to be able to keep looking at Mayan ruins while my brother had to change a dirty nappy.
Either roster shifts or leave him alone? Welcome to parenting, I hardly see my wife at all now, one of us works then hands the 1 year old o to the other while the other works.
Unless walkie talkies work and you can leave his transmitting constantly as a ‘baby monitor’ type thing
We cruised with a 5&7 year old and felt fine leaving them to sleep… but the stewards frowned upon jt
2-way radios can work pretty decently considering all the metal they have to go through, but unless they're very powerful and it's a really small ship, you won't reach one end to the other especially with an interior cabin. On Voyager it was able to pick up a couple decks up, or about half a ship length away (but not both). Won't even get into the legality of frequencies in various ports of call.
Ooh interesting. One to consider for our next trip
We’re going around with sapphire princess. Seems to be a fairly large ship with a capacity for 2600 guests. Although all our cabins are concentrated in the aft side between 2 decks.
are there baby monitors that you can buy which transmit point to point between 2 devices ?
Here's another suggestion. Check with the cruise line, see if they offer babysitting services. A lot do. Sometimes it's a standard offering (i.e. it's in a dedicated room near the kids' club area, you sign up for certain times and if there's a spot available, bingo!). Sometimes it's run like an unofficial offering (it's still a legit service, but basically a crew member can sign up to be available for babysitting duties, if you want a babysitter and one's available, they'll come to your room and watch up to X kids for $XX/hr).
Check out https://boards.cruisecritic.com/ . Find the section dedicated to the cruise line you're going with, search a bit, ask if you don't find what you're looking for. You're more likely to find answers specific to the cruise you're going on.
If that option is available, it only serves the purpose while he is awake and during the day. When he is awake, its not a problem as anyone within the family can look after him. Its more so when he sleeps. Takes 3 naps during the day.
Scratches head
Not once has anyone ever complained about how difficult it was to watch our kids while they slept.
if it were our child, one of us would be in the cabin with him while he sleeps. Or as mentioned above, see what child minding services are available.
I enquired with the cruise ship, they dont have a baby minding service onboard. Just kids entertainment areas from 3 onwards.
Just take him with you…