Elon Musk introduced the Starlink Mini on X recently, and showed off a few of its unique new features.
We’ve updated this article with additional Starlink information such as pricing and mobile data plan.
SpaceX has now officially begun sales of the Starlink Mini to select early customers.
Specs
The Starlink Mini is about the size of a 14” laptop or Macbook, which means it is ultra-portable and can fit inside a backpack for easy carry. While it doesn’t appear to support power over USB-C, it does come with a 12V barrel jack and RJ45 Ethernet jack, as well as built-in Wi-Fi support. As for the Wi-Fi support, expect Wi-Fi 6 with 802.11ax and 3x3 MiMO support on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. It has also been confirmed to have mesh support, which means you can link multiple Starlink Minis or Starlinks together to create a mesh Wi-Fi network.
The Starlink Mini will be 63% lighter than the standard Starlink dish, and about the size of a piece standard-sized paper.
Price
The most interesting part of this is the fact that it is expected to cost half of what current Starlink dishes cost – so within the $250 to $300 USD price range. Elon Musk, while unclear, also implied that the subscription price would also be lower for the Starlink Mini, enabling more affordable internet access.
For now, the United States limited offering places the price at $599.
SpaceX’s goal is to reduce the forward-looking price of the Mini, especially for regions around the world where connectivity is unaffordable or unavailable. However, in regions with high Starlink saturation - like North America, Starlink Mini places additional demand on the satellite network.
Roam Data Service
The Starlink Mini features a “Mini Roam” service, which is an additional $30/mo for 50GB of Mobile data that can be used anywhere in the United States, and is $1/GB for additional data. The Mini Roam service requires you to continue your regular Residential Starlink Service, even while roaming.
Speed
Of course, with a loss in size also comes a loss in speed – even if it’s still blazing fast. The Starlink Mini seemed to cap out at around 100 Mbps at a latency of 23ms, which is about half as fast as the top speeds for a regular Starlink dish, but with similar latency.
Even with the loss of speed, this is still more than fast enough to play video games and stream 4K video. Perhaps not at the same time, but the Mini is clearly designed for a single user.
Update: The Starlink Mini is indeed capped to 100Mbps max download speeds.
Starlink for Tesla?
The Mini is a good first step for possibly bringing Starlink capabilities to Tesla cars, which Elon Musk confirmed in 2022. Some enterprising users have either suction-cupped or mounted their starlinks to their glass Tesla roofs, or with special mounts for the Cybertruck already. The Mini will be a key item for going camping in your Tesla in the future - perhaps with the new Model Y Air Mattress!
Tesla could one day offer Starlink connectivity in Teslas, either as a backup to cellular connectivity or as a main source. However, Starlink connectivity requires line-of-sight, which likely means that Tesla would still require a cellular connection in their vehicles for times when vehicles don’t have a clear view of the sky. Using Starlink could help lower Tesla’s bandwidth costs and improve connectivity in remote areas.
Interestingly enough, some Superchargers already have Starlink functionality, with a transparent experience of vehicles automatically connecting to Supercharger Wi-Fi for data, including for Software Updates!
Release Dates
Musk mentioned that while the Starlink Mini isn’t available just yet, it will be rolling out to select areas in the next few months. Nothing further has emerged on where these areas are, but we could expect them to be in North America, where Starlink has done most of the new dish testing, such as with the more recent Starlink Flat High-Performance dishes.
Update: Starlink Mini has begun rolling out to early Starlink customers in the United States. No word yet on other regions.
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Tesla purchased SolarCity, a large solar and backup installer, back in 2016 and shortly thereafter began installing its unique Tesla Solar Roof, regular Tesla Solar panels, and Tesla Powerwalls for both commercial and residential customers.
However, as the years have passed, Tesla has lost its interest in the actual installation portion of the business. They’re more than happy to continue producing Solar Roofs and expanding Powerwall production, but for the most part, their in-house rate of installations has slowed drastically.
Since Q2 2020, Tesla has seen a 10% or greater drop per quarter in the number of in-house Solar Roof, Solar, and Powerwall installations every quarter.
Third-Party Certification
Tesla has instead begun to certify third-party installers throughout North America and Europe for Powerwall and solar panels and within the United States for Solar Roof.
Tesla launched the Certified Installer Program in 2020 and said it has approximately 2,000 certified installers in over 14 countries—and those certified installers have set up over 1 million installations. James Bickford, Tesla’s Director of Global Sales, Residential Energy Products, announced the expansion of the Certified Installer Program and its new push on LinkedIn.
The Certified Installer Program provides several things to get third parties ready to install and commission Tesla’s home energy ecosystem, including virtual and in-person training, on-site training, custom installation tools, and the Tesla One Software Platform.
In addition to those supports, Tesla’s Partner Platform offers marketing support resources and a dedicated access system for a personal Account Manager from Tesla.
Tesla One Dashboard
The Tesla One dashboard offers third-party installers a one-stop-shop platform for managing quotes, installations, and repairs in one mobile app.
It is a convenient-looking application that lets third-party installers see what tasks they need to perform for specific installations and also helps them scale particular installations to customer requirements.
While this isn’t a new direction for Tesla overall, we’re seeing a distinct move in the energy business from Tesla as a first-party installer of its products to a more hands-off approach where local electricians and contractors will install Tesla products under its auspices.
We’re interested to see where Tesla continues to go with this, as they’ve seen their Powerwall business expanding in the last few years, while Tesla Solar and Solar Roof have dropped off many people’s radars lately.
Tesla has sent out its first batch of event invites to its “We, Robot” event – the Robotaxi Event. Invitees must confirm their attendance no later than midnight on Sunday, October 6th.
In order for a chance to get an invite – Shareholders had to confirm their shares and participate in a raffle. The selected winners started receiving emails last night.
It seems that space for the event is extremely limited and that tickets will be issued on a first-come first-serve basis. We’re not sure if Tesla intends to add another wave of invites at this point, but we’ll keep an eye out.
Event Details
Event details haven’t been issued just yet, but once invitees confirm their RSVP, they will receive another email with the next steps and exact event details. The tickets remain non-transferable, and unlike other Tesla events, not everyone is receiving a +1. It appears some invites let you add on a guest, while others are just for the invitee. The event is for those aged 21+, and IDs will be checked upon arrival.
In terms of timing, the doors open at 5 PM local, and check-in begins around 5:30 PM. The remarks for the event will begin around 7 PM.
Those who have received invites have confirmed that “RSVP Received” is displayed on the Tesla Investor Relations site after clicking through. It seems that the actual tickets themselves will come as a separate e-mail.
We’re super excited to see what Tesla will reveal – this event is one of their most anticipated, and we expect to see the Robotaxi driving around on Hollywood set stages as part of the demo.
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