Best RV Tech: A Guide to Gadgets on the Road
Lauren GrijalvaDescription
There are some great tech items out right now that make RVing less stressful and more enjoyable! Full-time RVer Lauren Grijalva shares some of her top tech items for life on the road. Let us know what tech items you’re enjoying right now!
Hi, my name is Lauren, and today I'm going to tell you about some of our favorite tech items that you can have as an RVer. These five items can make RVing easier and more enjoyable. The first item on our list is an RV GPS with backup camera. If you've ever tried to back up an RV you know how challenging it can be. Having a camera on back of your RV is invaluable. It can help you maneuver into tight spaces and prevent you from hitting something that you might not have otherwise seen. A GPS made for RVs is great. It allows you to enter the dimensions of your rig and takes this into account when giving you a route. This keeps you from going under bridges that are to low or down roads that are too narrow for your rig size. You can buy these items separately, but Garmin makes an RV GPS and backup camera combo. The next item on our list is a dash cam. I think everyone should have a dash cam. But it's especially important for RVers. You're literally pulling your home around behind you and that's pretty precious cargo. Dash cams recordings are invaluable when clearing up questions about an accident. This can protect you from legal liability. They can also be used to capture great driving moments as you travel around the country. We absolutely love our Rexing V1 dash cam. We feel like it's the best one on the market. For the next item on our list, we're gonna head up to the top of the RV. The third item on our list, is the weBoost signal booster. If having a cell phone signal, to you, is important when you're out traveling we highly recommend the weBoost. As you can see, we're kind of out in the middle of nowhere right now and cell phone signal can be hard to come by. The weBoost can take even the smallest, weakest signal, and turn it into a much better usable signal. We work on the road and our cell signal is our wifi so it's imperative that we have a good strong signal wherever we go. Number four on our list is a wifi hotspot. Now a lot of people like to RV, camp, to get out in the middle of nowhere and totally unplug. And we totally get that, however, we live on the road and work on the road, so we have to stay connected wherever we go. Campground wifi could be spotty and unreliable so we chose to get a hotspot to have internet access wherever we go. When we first started RVing, we used to use our cell phones as hotspots and use that. But we quickly realized we were running out of data a lot earlier than we thought we would. So we knew we needed to find a better option. One of the best internet options out there for full time travelers, is Verizon's pre-paid, unlimited plan, using their jet pack wifi. You can connect up to 15 devices at one time, and it's truly high speed, unlimited data. For the final tech gear item on our list we're gonna head back outside. If you like to camp without paying for hookups from time to time, a portable solar panel is a great investment. Solar in general, is wonderful, but unless you dry camp more than you camp with hook ups. It might not be worth it to invest in mounting a full solar panel system on top of your RV. A portable solar panel is perfect for anyone who dry camps occasionally, and just needs to keep their RV batteries charged. So as you can see, there are some really great tech items for RVers, these are just a few of our favorite things. Feel free to leave a comment below letting us know some of your favorite RV tech items.
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lol!! I have everything on your list except Verizon hotspot....I, too found the backup camera with Garmin didn’t work well at all but the dash cam with Garmin made for only one device in my window while driving so less distracting!
I agree with Chuck. Whenever you mention a gadget, it would be nice to have it listed somewhere so we can further check them out with customer reviews & prices. Thank you for the Videos since they are very helpful!
It would be nice to have a list of your gadgets and company links to them in the remarks so I can check them out.
Another gadget that I think is requires is a good voltage monitor box - not just a surge protector. This is especially true if you have 50 amp service as there are campground faults that can blow all your appliances. in a blink of an eye - open neutral. Also low voltage can damage air conditioners and possibly residential refrigerators. Some of us use the little plug-in device that checks for open neutral, open ground, and reverse polarity but it only checks one branch of the 50 amp service. I wish someone would make one that checks both branches - it would to plug into a 50 amp plug.
I think tire monitors are essential for safe travels. We have a motorhome and tow a car. If the car has a tire problem, it is doubtful that you will be aware of it until someone passes you pointing at your coach. I have never had a travel trailer of fifth wheel but I seen them pulled to the side of the road with blown tires and extensive damage. Tire monitors will not prevent blowouts but will tell you if it happens and may warn you beforehand when a tire is loosing pressure. They are also a great way to check tire pressures at the start of you travels which we are all told to do everyday we are on the road (but few of us do!).
The Garmin GPS w/ back up camera is a joke. While the gps works well the camera doesn’t. We pull a 41’ Montana and the wireless signal from the camera rarely worked if ever. Garman told us that the signal from the camera was not strong enough to reach the GPS unit mounted in the cab of our F350 and we would need to hard wire the camera. This was NOT the option we wanted and gave up on the camera.