Considering Hopper. Can Joey be mobile?

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bfollowell

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Nov 26, 2012
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Evansville, IN, USA
My home is down to pretty much my wife and I most of the time so, even though we six TVs, we never have more than two going at any given time. We have the main television in our living room and most of the other watching is done in our bedroom. Occasionally though we will want to watch from our great room, kitchen, den or workout room, though this isn't very often.

I want to have HD available from both active viewing locations, not HD on the main television and SD on the second TV like most of the older Dish receivers. For that reason, we're considering upgrading to the Hopper system. However, I hate to have one or two Hoppers and a slew of Joeys scattered around the house, wasting all that money every month, knowing that we'll never need to view at more than two locations at any given time. Would it be possible to have the Hopper console at our main living room location and then have all of the other runs hooked up to one common "node" or line, through a splitter, and then just be able to move the Joey to whichever location we wanted as we wanted to view from somewhere else? Again, the Joey would probably remain in our bedroom 90% of the time. We would just like to be able to move the Joey to one of the tertiary locations as the need arose.

The just announced, wireless Joey sounds like it would be right up our alley but, unfortunately, that isn't coming for several months. Does what I'm proposing sound feasible? Has anyone else done anything similar?

Thanks.

- Byron
 
Using a USB WIFI Adapter you can make any Joey into a Wireless Joey now...

Just be aware it is not as good as what DISH is coming out with which is using its own private 802.11ac network.
 
I have a Joey with the USB wireless adapter and it works flawlessly all over the house. I move it between guest rooms and the basement and wife's office. For it to work well, you need a good 802.11N wireless router, I use the Apple Time Capsule router.
 
Scott,

Thanks for the quick reply. That definitely gives me something to think about then. That would make things a whole heck of a lot easier to do what I want and not have to run or re-run a bunch of cable. The most I might need to do would be possibly to add a wireless access point or extender if I have any low signal locations in the house. Just to clarify, the traffic would be routed through my home network, not the Internet, correct? It's just that we don't have real, wired, high-speed Internet available.

Are there any other posts or online resources available that better explain this.

Thanks again for the info. I'll look into this. This will definitely help in our decision to upgrade or not.

- Byron
 
Correct, the Joey links to the Hopper over the home network, internet access not needed. Mine works better without extenders, just the base station. Here's the adapter, scroll to bottom: Order From Store
 
OK, thanks for the info guys. I think I'm going to jump on this tomorrow. If I call to upgrade, does it require a home visit by an installer or will they just ship it to me at home? If I'm planning to use wi-fi to connect my Joeys, I wasn't sure if there would be any changes that would need to be made to the existing wiring or not.

- Byron
 
bfollowell said:
OK, thanks for the info guys. I think I'm going to jump on this tomorrow. If I call to upgrade, does it require a home visit by an installer or will they just ship it to me at home? If I'm planning to use wi-fi to connect my Joeys, I wasn't sure if there would be any changes that would need to be made to the existing wiring or not.

- Byron
Click to expand...

Also, be aware, the current Joey is not "officially" supported for wireless operation. The installer will install a 1 Hopper/1 Joey system at 2 TVs. He won't be able to help you make the Joey wireless, that is something you'll have to do on your own. He will have to wire up at least one of your secondary TVs with coax cable running back to the node. Anything you do after that with wireless is on your own.

Also, since the currently available Joey is not supported for wireless, Dish isn't going to support that install, meaning you won't be able to call and get assistance if that wireless Joey setup isn't working properly. If the Joey is hooked into the coax that the installer connected it to, and doesn't work, you can get assistance with that, or if something is wrong at the Hopper.

All that said, you may (or may not) want to wait for the official wireless Joey, but that is likely several months away.
 
I wanted to follow up on the idea of a USB WiFi connection for a Joey...If I stick the WiFi adapter into the Joey, will it automatically link up with the Hopper if I pull the coax connection? Or is there anything else I would need to do/configure to make it happen (my Hopper is already broadband connected with a WiFi adapter)?

Thanks.
 
tbradshaw said:
I wanted to follow up on the idea of a USB WiFi connection for a Joey...If I stick the WiFi adapter into the Joey, will it automatically link up with the Hopper if I pull the coax connection? Or is there anything else I would need to do/configure to make it happen (my Hopper is already broadband connected with a WiFi adapter)? Thanks.
Click to expand...
I'm curious about your question too. Over the weekend, I tried a generic USB Wifi adapter and that didn't work. I also tried hooking up a Joey via Ethernet to a second router that I set up as a wireless bridge; it obtained an Internet connection but for some reason, it won't communicate with the Hopper. But I ordered a Dish Wifi adapter in the meantime and hope it arrives later this week. Maybe that'll do the trick.
 
It's not a supported install but just hook up coax and link normally. Connect the wifi adapter and configure it. Once connected pull the coax off and it should continue working. You might have video quality and linking issues depending on your network.
 
lucky86 said:
It's not a supported install but just hook up coax and link normally. Connect the wifi adapter and configure it. Once connected pull the coax off and it should continue working. You might have video quality and linking issues depending on your network.
Click to expand...

By "configure it" do you mean that something will pop onto the screen to set it up (even though it's not supported)? Regardless, I'll probably pick up a wifi adapter and try it shortly.

The Dish wifi adapter is just a standard adapter, isn't it? No special Dish mojo, is there?
 
It's the one dish sells, the only one officially compatible. Just plug it in and g through the wifi set up wizard like normal . That is what I meant by configure. It isn't officially supported and it may not work well, but it will physically work.
 
It is a netgear WNDA3100. You can get them from the dish website. I didn't have to configure it, just plug and play.


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To recap:

  • A current Joey can be made wireless by adding the Dish Wifi USB adapter. Although not supported by Dish, many users here have this functioning without issue.
  • The overall experience is dependent upon the wireless network connection quality and bandwidth. A decent quality N router is recommended. A good connection is needed, but nothing "unusually" good, if that makes sense.
  • With a decent wifi connection, the experience is virtually identical to a wired Joey.
  • The Hopper must also be connected to your home network, preferably via a wired connection.
  • The Joey must be initially installed via coax. After the initial setup process, the Joey can be disconnected from coax and operate entirely wirelessly.
  • Any random USB adapter will not work. The Dish/Netgear adapter is the only officially supported adapter. There may be other adapters with the same chipset that maybe, might possibly, if lucky work, but don't count on it.
  • The Dish USB adapter is actually a Netgear WNDA3100v2. The "v2" part is critical, a "v1" adapter will not work.
  • The adapter is only $25.00 with free shipping directly from Dish. The Netgear equivalent can be had on Ebay for a few bucks less.
  • The Joey w/adapter communicates with the Hopper over the home wifi network like any other wireless device.
  • When initially plugging the adapter into the Joey a setup wizard is displayed, It functions like the setup wizards of many other wifi devices - select the desired network, enter the password, etc. Options can later be changed through the setup menu.
  • Once the basic wireless network setup is done, the Joey should find the Hopper without further action.
  • Although things will work with both Hopper and Joey connected wirelessly, it is not recommended as it doubles the amount of wireless bandwidth needed.
 
Last edited:
So my Dish-branded Wifi adapter arrived today and it was a snap to connect it to the Joey and set it up to my network ... and the video worked immediately without having to connect the coax. Very easy. Still don't know why my wireless bridge never worked despite providing an Internet connection but now, that hardly matters.
 
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