What if my internet is down ? I will be left in dark and smartthings will be dead ? Can I set my cellular hotspot as secondary wifi connection ( i have an extra phone with 10 gb monthly free data) JUST IN CASE MY INTERNET IS DOWN OR SOME INTRUDER CUTS MY CABLE AND COME IN WITH NO ALERTS ?
There are routers that allow for cellular backup if your primary connection goes down. See the link below:
The SmartThings hub doesn’t have wifi, only Ethernet plug. A router with cell backup is the only choice.
Buy a range extender with an Ethernet port on it. Connect it to your Wi-Fi hotspot and plug your hub into the extender. This wouldn’t work as a secondary connection but if you have 10gb/month that should be more than enough to cover your hub as a primary connection. (Not a good idea if you have LAN devices connected to your hub)
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I picked up a Netgear LB2120 which is designed provide cellular failover for a wired network. Bonus: it works on FreedomPop.
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Interesting let us know how that works for you.
The nice idea about this is you could completely isolate your smartthings network and home devices from your regular home wifi network, if that was what you wanted.
Actually, I’ve isolated mine using a SoHo firewall - all my IoT devices are on VLAN1 all my Compute is on VLAN2 and my Entertainment Systems are on VLAN3 … there are small openings on a point to point basis so that the IoT can control Entertainment for example, but IoT cannot reach directly into Compute and Entertainment cannot reach directly into Compute but Compute can reach both (IP:Port specific combinations).
I also have a Guest VLAN that allows friends to connect, but they are all segmented and cannot even talk to other hosts on that same guest VLAN …
The fact that I run InfoSec for a company may be part of this madness 
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Recently had an extended internet outage from a fiber cut, and the backup worked great. Used about 100mb of my freedompop free plan over a day or so. So far, working well, no complaints. Only downside is that it takes a few minutes (3-5 or so) to perform the cutover because it ICMP echo requests to determine if the primary network is up.
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Does the LB2120 bridge the connection when its on WAN? I have konnected and other stuff that I would like to remain working
my apologies if my response doesn’t answer your question.
I tried it in bridge mode. Hated it.
1 - it didn’t play nice with my cable modem’s built in router/WiFi. I had to put that into bridge mode also and configure another router downstream.
2 - it took several minutes to realize that the internet was down. Then it took several more minutes to reboot so it could pass the cellular IP address to the router.
I use mine in router mode behind the cable modem’s router. the handover to cellular takes no more than a minute with no reboot. It also keeps the home automation network separate from my computer/streaming network, which is good for preventing accidentally streaming netflix over cellular.
My only problem with this setup is that I cannot access my foscams from the smartthings app at home because they are on the other network and I don’t know how to configure cascading NAT. I get around this by turning on VPN to trick the cameras into thinking i’m away viewing remotely.
I ordered one but if it doesn’t work for me in bridge mode…I will have to return it. I am using Konnected so I need to be on the same LAN for it to work. Did anyone get bridge mode working successfully?
The other option is to setup fail-over on my UniFi USG but I heard that doesn’t work so well. And I will probably use up my data very quickly.
Also what are you guys using? Freedompop or T-Mobile
The LB2120 does DHCP in router mode, so if your panel is ethernet, just use a small unmanaged switch to connect both it and the hub to the modem’s LAN port.
I’ve not tried it, but I’ll bet a wireless access point would also work.
I’m using a Project Fi data-only SIM. It uses the same data pool as my cell phone and anything over 6gb is free.