Visible was horrible, Wyze camera & Ubifi with Mofi work well
I don't use a security system yet. The Ring + an extra iphone with the Visible unlimited data plan is an idea I've be thinking about.
In a nutshell, I found Visible to be a flop and Wyze to be a success.
Visible for data plan didn't work for me
I tried a similar setup using Visible and it was a disaster. A friend we met at a campground who had Visible and was happy with it. So I thought unlimited data hotspot for $40 (or down as low as $25) would be awesome for travel in the RV. And the Visible cap at 5mb download would be fine, most everything runs well enough with that speed (Netflix, etc).
I had troubles for months trying to get good data. In talking with my friend, she really just uses her phone for talk, very seldom for data. I played around with it for about 3 or 4 months. Tech support was crappy - no human to speak to, just chat or tweets (twitter is better than chat, btw). Not even email. So you always get a different person with classic canned answers. I am a very tech-savvy person and found their tech support to be the worst I've ever dealt with. For an open case, if they send you a message saying "we fixed it, can you try again", they close the case immediately before you even respond, so if it doesn't work, you have to start a new case all over again and wait for it to get escalated. At one point my account was down for over two weeks with no talk or data (something had to be "released" on their server was the eventual response) and they said I wasn't eligible for a refund for the downtime.
It wasn't a hardware issue: I tried several iPhones (6, 7, and new SE), about 12 different camping locations, and two SIM cards. Sometimes I couldn't get any data plan, or I could get data for a few minutes then it would drop. 90% of the time it was useless. 90% of the time the speed was closer to 1mb if I got any data. The only place I got good data for a couple days was when I first tried a new SIM card in a location that got 5 bars of coverage. After that, it was back to crap-o-la service, for data.
On a positive note, they say it is limited to one hotspot device, but I read that they can't enforce that on an iPhone, and sure enough, I could connect multiple devices to my phone. I did get it connected to a wi-fi extender (which also had an ethernet port for my Wyze camera system) which then connected all the devices to the hotspot which would get around the one-device restriction if Visible ever found a way to enforce it. I tried a couple wi-fi extenders until I found one that really worked well.
Ubifi cell/data service with Mofi Wi-Fi Router is working well
In the end, I went with the Ubifi service which is an AT&T MVNO offering unlimited data for $99 a month - truly unlimited, no throttling. It runs on the LTE bands. I have been SO HAPPY with their service and support. I think their sim might work on various hardware, but I went with their setup of a Mofi router (MOFI4500-4GXeLEW V3) (~$315), which was recommended by another camper who was happy with the service and hardware. The Mofi antenna is much better at picking up signal than our phones - it has two omnidirectional paddle antennas on it. We camp in a lot of state parks and national parks which tend to be in weak cell coverage areas. It gets best coverage if it is sitting in front of a window, of course. Sometimes I can leave it mounted behind the TV with good coverage; other times I have to set it in front of the window. But that is no different than finding a cell tower with your phone.
It also has 4 ethernet ports and the wi-fi signal reaches very far, much farther than the hotspot on the phone. And it lets me control what cell tower band I want to connect to, which I couldn't do on the phone. Sometimes the strongest band isn't the one with the fastest data. Its interface has a LOT of information and controls. As for Verizon vs AT&T coverage, I thought Visible, since it is a Verizon service, would have better coverage than AT&T but I haven't seen that to be the case in any locations where the signal is LTE (Visible only runs on LTE bands), so the AT&T LTE Ubifi service has been good. When the AT&T LTE coverage is weak, I compared it to the Visible coverage (the sim still connects) and Visible was not better.
My Roku TV also uses the Mofi wifi, along with the computers, phones, cameras and temp sensors.
Weboost for the very remote areas
I do have a Weboost with a directional antenna for locations that are No Service or barely one bar of service. That in combo with either the Mofi or my phone (if 3G or Edge area - yes, there are still spots with those!) have gotten me some connectivity (enough to text and maybe talk at every location), even boon docking in Valley of the Gods. Sometimes it has gotten me decent enough data coverage, too. But if the cell signal is 3 bars or more, the Weboost hasn't added any value. It has not improved the data speeds as some of the advertising suggests. At $650, it is an expensive product for its limited performance. But if you really want to get at least some coverage, it does do that. In the 3G zones, I have to use my phone only since the Mofi is 4G/LTE. I think it is the Yagi directional antenna that is the most important part of this setup. I do not like the Weboost device in terms of being able to monitor it's performance (for example, it says if all lights are green, it is working, but all lights are green even if the antenna isn't connected...).
Wyze Outdoor Cam
I use a Wyze camera for security, with a base station, and it works well. I can pull it up on my phone wherever we are to see what is going on at the RV. I can setup a camera inside (to check on the dog) and outside, both connected to the same base station (which is using one of the ethernet ports on the router). The outdoor has worked for motion, but not for sound - perhaps the outdoor cam doesn't have sound detection, even though it does have a microphone and speaker on it and I can listen to sound on it. Looks like the indoor Cam has sound alerts, but not the outdoor Cam. I might add an indoor cam to my setup to get alerted if the smoke alarm goes off or fridge is beeping.
I like that there is no required plan for it to work and record videos, but not that the free plan has a 5 minute cool down between the 12 second recordings. I would consider switching over to Ring (which I have at home) but was hoping to keep the cost down. The battery charge has lasted almost 4 months, we don't get a lot of detection triggers.
One reason for selecting Wyze Outdoor Cam was the ability for it to record to a local storage SD card, without internet. I planned to use it to record video when we are completely off internet and away from the RV, but haven't had that situation yet.
SensorPush thermometers
I also have a series of remote monitoring thermometers (with humidity) from SensorPush setup to monitor the underbelly storage by the pipes (to alert me if they get near freezing), to monitor the interior (to alert me if it is getting too warm for the pooch), and in the fridge. The one it the fridge actually alerted me this week to a failure in the cooling of it before it became a big issue. And I'm able to monitor the precise temps to the tenth of a degree in the fridge and freezer as we are testing out fixes to the cooling unit. Better than the "beer feels cold, must be working" test system :}. These sensors have bluetooth reporting but I added a gateway that is wi-fi connected to my Mofi router to be able to monitor these when away from the RV. We can monitor these sensors thru the phone app or browser from anywhere.
In the end, the Ubifi Mofi and Wyze were an easy setup, and I was able to connect additional gadgets to the network.
Karen
