blog-ctms-me-eg0pab.txt (10114B)
1 [1]Dom Corriveau 2 [2]About [3]Bookmarks [4]RSS [5]Uses [6]Wants 3 4 Offgrid internet-in-a-box project - Part one 5 6 Posted on Jan 17, 2025 7 8 For fun, I like to invent scenarios and then build a tech setup for it. One of 9 the builds I think about a lot is having a completely offgrid (and obviously 10 offline) portable internet-in-a-box. This is the first steps in that build, 11 laying out the requirements and choosing the hardware. 12 13 The scenario 14 15 Let me define what is a portable internet-in-a-box. 16 17 In this scenario, I am imagining I am going to be living in an offgrid cabin 18 for a year. The cabin has limited power availability and zero internet access. 19 No home internet and no mobile data. Over the course of a year, I want to be 20 able to consume media (TV, movies, music, books, podcasts), access information 21 about topics (e.g. Wikipedia), read info technical websites (e.g. 22 StackExchange; AskUbuntu), and do hobby projects on a PC (install packages and 23 apps). After all, playing with computers is my hobby. 24 25 Even though I’m a bit of a prepper, this isn’t a prepper build (it could be 26 used in that scenario, too, I guess). In a prepper build, I would want life 27 saving information such as medical info, foraging for food, topographical maps, 28 etc. My offgrid scenario here will have some of this information, I will be 29 living in an offgrid cabin for an entire year. But, this isn’t a doomsday 30 build. 31 32 Project boundaries 33 34 I do have some rules for this build: 35 36 • Cannot spend any money, not that I have any money to spend. Needs to all 37 done with parts I already own. 38 • It should be a finished build. Can’t “borrow” parts from something else 39 just for the build and then disassemble this build to put things back. 40 • The project has to be fun. Don’t get hung up on having the “perfect” setup, 41 have fun building a potentially and most definitely useless PC. 42 43 Project details 44 45 The requirements for this build a low. I am not anticipating a lot of people 46 accessing the data and all the media is formatted to reduce storage space, 47 which also makes the hardware requirements lower. The things I want this build 48 to do is possible by any computer in the last 10-15 years. 49 50 MVP requirements 51 52 • Play SD videos with captions 53 • Listen to music and archived podcasts 54 • Read eBooks 55 • Run a web server 56 • Use aptly on localhost as the apt packages source 57 • Install archived flatpaks and Docker containers as necessary 58 • Play Luanti with VoxeLibre at 45+ FPS (essentially a Minecraft clone) 59 • Play selection of retro games with wired gamepad 60 • View/edit markdown notes 61 • View/edit doc/xls files 62 • Open encrypted volumes 63 • Run Kiwix locally and with Docker for multi-device access on small LAN 64 • Access password and MFA databases (just in case) 65 • Run for 8 hours from 170Wh power station 66 67 I am choosing this power station as the energy source because it can easily be 68 charged from a single solar panel. Part of the scenario is figuring out how to 69 keep consistent power to the build without using the limited power available to 70 the cabin. The build needs to be standalone. 71 72 Networking 73 74 Separately but a part of this build, is a small GL.iNet travel router. This is 75 part of the project so there can be a lightweight LAN. The GL.iNet travel 76 router uses around 1w and runs from USB power. 77 78 I imagine with this scenario I am still bringing some sort of a mobile device 79 and I’d like to access the data on the build from that mobile. I also doubt I 80 would be going without my wife, who will also want to access the data from her 81 mobile. 82 83 Choosing right machine 84 85 Lenovo Ideapad 110s 86 87 I picked up the [7]Ideapad 110s from the Goodwill Finds site for $20 a year ago 88 or so. I as looking around at used ultra-portable laptops and I figured $20 89 (plus shipping) was low enough to try it out. It didn’t work out for me as an 90 EDC laptop, but I never stopped tinkering with it. 91 92 The specs: 93 94 • 11 inch 1366x786 screen 95 • Intel Celeron N3060 (Braswell) CPU. Dual core; No hyper-threading; 1.6 - 96 2.4 GHz. 97 • 2 GB DDR3L soldered RAM 98 • 32 GB eMMC flash storage 99 • A 2280 m.2 SSD slot with a 128 GB off-brand SSD installed (my addition) 100 101 Notes on testing this laptop for the builld: 102 103 • External USB drive works fine, mounts no issues. There is a single USB 3.0 104 port, so speeds are good. 105 • Video playback is fine for the standard definition quality TV shows, 106 movies, and YouTube videos. 107 • Is x86, so will run the flatpaks and docker containers I have in my offline 108 archive. 109 • Played Luanti and with some tweaks it can run between 40-60 FPS. 110 • Battery constantly runs out, even when off. So, when plugging in to use, 111 there is a spike of energy usage (40 watts) while it fills the battery. 112 Once the battery was full, it settled around 8w. Interestingly, with the 113 battery disconnected, it uses less power (5w), even when the battery is 114 full. 115 • When playing videos or Luanti, no noticeable spike in energy usage. 116 Charging still uses the most energy. Once full, no real spike. Went up to 117 10w. 118 • Playing a video at full screen with brightness at max and sound on, while 119 also accessing a streaming a video to another device, this laptop only used 120 16w under that load. 121 • Since this device has a screen, keyboard, and trackpad built it, it is an 122 easier setup than using the NucBox G3 with the lapdock. Less parts, less 123 cables. But, significantly less compute and performance. 124 125 GMK NucBox G3 + UPerfect Lapdock 126 127 This is a minuscule x86 [8]mini PC my wife got me for my birthday last year. It 128 performs surprisingly well for how small of a package it is. 129 130 The specs: 131 132 • Intel Alder Lake N97 CPU. Quad core, no hyper-threading; 3.6 GHz clock 133 speed 134 • 12 GB soldered DDR5 RAM 135 • 256 GB 2242 m.2 NVMe SSD 136 137 Although this setup has much more compute, the NucBox doesn’t have a screen or 138 any peripherals. Building with this PC requires significant more work and much 139 more complicated than an all-in-one device. Additionally, it uses more power 140 than the Lenovo laptop. I have to weigh out if the increased power usage and 141 setup complexity are worth the extra compute. 142 143 Testing results: 144 145 • Lapdock uses 11w while charging (and screen on) and 17w charging screen off 146 (weird). 147 • NucBox + lapdock power on surge to 25w 148 • Interesting thought: NucBox surges up to 28w while under load installing 149 Debian. I think it can peak around 40w. With the battery removed from the 150 Lenovo, it can never peak this high. 151 • Luanti gameplay locked at 60 FPS at default settings (no tweaks), but using 152 34w. 153 • Idles at 24w when screen is off. That’s weird. With no display, it must be 154 raising the CPU usage. 155 • 28w with external drive connected and watching movie. 156 • Something I’m discounting here is the lapdock charging. The lapdock is 157 using 11w to charge. Take 11w off of my totals and the usage is way lower. 158 • So, uses 23w with the lapdock fully charged, while playing a movie at max 159 brightness and sound on. The Lenovo in the same scenario uses 14w. 160 161 RPI + UPerfect Lapdock 162 163 This is the RPI 2 Model B. Threw it in, expecting it to use less power, but 164 unsure how it will perform. My expectations were low going into the testing. 165 166 • The desktop performs surprisingly well. 167 • Like the NucBox, it does not have a screen or any peripherals. All this has 168 to be added to the build and increases complexity. 169 • CPU and RAM usage is low when playing video, another surprise. 170 • Video playback was missing a lot of frames, so won’t work for my use case. 171 It absolutely has to play all content smoothly. 172 • It was using 18.5w altogether, with external drive and lapdock. This is 173 roughly the same, if not higher, than the Lenovo, but being an unsupported 174 arm32 chipset and still needs the lapdock. It is only about 5w less than 175 the GMK. 176 177 Hardware choice 178 179 After all my testing, I decided to go with the Lenovo Ideapad 110s laptop. The 180 main reason is it has significantly less complexity in the setup and I think I 181 can work around the lower compute performance. In addition to have the screen, 182 keyboard, and trackpad all build it, it also has an SD card slot, a headphone 183 jack, and its own battery. 184 185 The NucBox would perform better, but is essentially useless without any 186 peripherals. In my scenario I might regret not having more compute. But, if the 187 lapdock dies or a keyboard fails, I have no way of using it. This is the same 188 scenario for the Pi. Plus, they both use more energy, which would cut down on 189 runtime from a small power station. 190 191 The next posts will be about what data I will be accessing, how I organized 192 that data, and what I’m using to access or serve that data. 193 194 - - - - - 195 196 Thank you for reading! If you would like to comment on this post you can start 197 a conversation on the Fediverse. Message me on Mastodon at [9] 198 @[email protected]. Or, you may email me at [10] 199 [email protected]. This is an intentionally masked email address 200 that will be forwarded to the correct inbox. 201 202 • [11]offgrid 203 • [12]offline 204 • [13]projects 205 • [14]prepper 206 207 [15] [16] [17] [18] 208 2025 © Dom Corriveau | [19]Never Monetize | [20]A.I. policy 209 210 References: 211 212 [1] https://blog.ctms.me/ 213 [2] https://blog.ctms.me/about 214 [3] https://feed.ctms.me/ 215 [4] https://blog.ctms.me/index.xml 216 [5] https://blog.ctms.me/uses/ 217 [6] https://blog.ctms.me/wants/ 218 [7] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-IdeaPad-110S-N3060-32-GB-Subnotebook-Review.257770.0.html 219 [8] https://www.gmktec.com/products/intel-alder-lake-n97-mini-pc-nucbox-g5 220 [9] https://masto.ctms.me/@cinimodev 221 [10] mailto:[email protected] 222 [11] https://blog.ctms.me/tags/offgrid 223 [12] https://blog.ctms.me/tags/offline 224 [13] https://blog.ctms.me/tags/projects 225 [14] https://blog.ctms.me/tags/prepper 226 [15] https://github.com/cinimodev 227 [16] https://masto.ctms.me/@cinimodev 228 [17] https://www.youtube.com/dominiccorriveau 229 [18] https://blog.ctms.me/index.xml 230 [19] https://www.nevermonetize.com/ 231 [20] https://blog.ctms.me/ai-usage