I bought the beryl thinking its USB 3 port would not only allow me to connect my iphone (and instantly tether) but also to charge it at decent speed at the same time.
I have discovered it cant do this.
Basically my beryl isa router in the car. I get unlimited 5g data with my carrier. The plan was to get in the car connect it to USB and away i go. With knowlege that the iphone is automatically feeding the Beryl internet but then charging it effectivly too.
I have tried a powered USB3 hub connected to the beryl and then the iphone connected to the USB3 hub, this actually works - however after a short while i get a the “trust this computer” message on the iphone looping constantly.
The reason why i’d need USB tethering is because iOS wireless tethering is unreliable and i do not want to mess around turning tethering off and on etc.
With USB tethering it just works.
Any ideas on how i could improve or work around this?
I’m aware it’s not intended as a charger. But the concept of getting in the car and plugging in an iPhone to a Beryl works. It’s just the charging that I wish I could improve.
Apple won’t allow wireless charging whilst also connected to a cable, so can’t do this either.
If the phone is left there as a hotspot device it’s possible the battery going bad won’t be noticed. I just had an S8 in a Lifeproof case give me a bit of a surprise when I opened it to discover the battery was well on it’s way to ‘spicy pillow’ stage (aka starting to bloat). Had I not been replacing it with something else we might not have noticed it until TOO LATE.
Most phones aren’t designed for 24x7 duty cycle. The heat generated from this may impact the life of the device. Some phones are worse at this than others. Check that the phone you’re hoping to use for this is up to the task.
Phone antennas are generally not as great as what you’d get from a device with an external antenna.
Some tethering gets interrupted if the phone reboots, requiring manual intervention. Which is no big deal unless you’re expecting the setup to be ‘hands off’.
Many phone plans do not support using a phone as a router. Sure, the phone is capable of it, but the carrier may decide to drop or throttle your connections if it’s detected being used for a router. It doesn’t always happen, just check how your carrier handles this before getting your hopes up.
I make these points not because using a phone this way is a bad idea, for some situations it can be pretty handy. But not all.
that’s been my experience also, several splitters don’t actually seem to pass power to the phone, and others don’t seem to pass the phone to the Slate.
I’ve seen some comments elsewhere about the voltage being an issue, and that if it’s “too low” the Slate doesn’t end up being able to pass enough to a connected device. At some point I think I changed the 12vdc-USB buck converter that’s powering the Slate, and it’s possible this replacement isn’t up to the task. But then I’m down a whole other rabbit hole finding a 12vdc-USB adjustable power supply that’ll suit the install.
It may depend on the smartphone and USB adapter. I have an Android Samsung S21+ 5G smartphone and the Y splitter cable tethers and charges with both my GL-AR750S Slate and GL-AXT1800 Slate AX.
check out 8086 consultancy on tindie… he is uk based and makes quite an array of cheap, very useful little adapters and pcbs that should be integral to all of our devices; unfortunately the pedestrian consumer isnt aware and only a small tech-dork niche need them enough to appreciate and use them…
there are uUsb and usb-c power data splitter / mergers, dual power ups/fast switching adapters, and more…
i am not paid by ^^^^^ , i am just a satisfied customer that appreciates his ability to see gaps where i see gaps and to create sensible solutions.
you could usb c power split to phone, and use 2 dual power adapters for the router and phone, running the 2d power input of each into a dual port power bank or similar configuration…
