IoT SIM card

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

I have a SMS commanded device which on command will remotely hard bounce my internet router overseas in Europe should it lock up for any reason. I talk to it via simple SMS commands from my smartphone in the UK.

When we are not overseas the router allows us to monitor the property security and facilities.

Since the re-introduction of roaming charges a UK SIM can only roam for a defined number of days before it has to show activity in the UK. I guess this is to get round competition issues of UK providers undercutting EU providers. I am therefore very restricted if I use a UK SIM in the overseas device for an extended period without bringing it back to UK for a 'refresh'. I could have two SIMs and swap them out after each visit but that means I must visit very regularly which many not be always possible.

I could install an EU SIM in the device but these are very expensive for just a few SMS messages every now and then. EU SIMs with very low tariff do not always allow outgoing SMS messages to non EU locations.

There are providers offering IoT SIMS that are only for telemetry and monitoring services (no telephone) which purport to be worldwide and very low cost but equally look a little dodgy. International might just imply any country for use and not cross zone connectivity. The IoT SIMs also seem to be restricted to business use. Has anyone had experience of these ?

Given a functional SIM the system works well.

As an alternative I could get very complicated and have a watchdog monitor that pings an IP address and if no reply assumes the router is down and bounces it. A simpler solution would just be to reboot the router on a timer every week/month. The problem will be that it only needs one heavy thunderstorm the next day after a reboot and the router will probably lock up and we loose connectivity.

Any thoughts or experience of such appreciated.

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

UK EU GSM roaming solution

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Raspberry Pi on the router that periodically does a ping to check the IP is still up. There are scripts around that will do this.

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

John beat me to it! .

You could also program an Arduino (or Pi) to reset the router after a power outage – they would reboot after an outage. (or could be arranged to run on a simple UPS system if you wish).

You would probably need to get into the router to do this – normally they have a small pushbutton (in a small hole) which has to be pushed with a paperclip or similar to reboot them, so you would need to get at the switch itself, and arrange the PI/Arduino to replicate the pushbutton action.

Regards

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Even a mechanical time switch normally in 15 minute intervals can power cycle your router, unless you think a 13 minute off period at 2am every day is a catastrophic loss of internet time. However you can't rely on it having the same IP unless you are using a DDNS service or your security system provides it. Then the advantage of a pi based system is that it can send you an email everyday with the current IP address.
However you could look into internet based systems that can send SMS, or just ask a local foreign friend to send the message, or a relative in the UK on receipt of an email.

[Author]

Posts