Roku use in RV without internet

[JimS]

Just got an RV trailer and would like to cast from Android phone to TV. Threw in the Roku for the last trip figuring it would work. Don't have hot spot on the phone (could add it to the plan but data throttling above limits may make streaming things this way an issue). Turns out I need a wifi connection between phone and Roku to cast. Some of the later or higher end Roku devices can provide their own wifi for connection apparently but seems like the easiest would be to throw an old router at it for wifi. Going to try that. Any thoughts? Anyone done something like this?

 

[JimS]

Did some testing today. It can't be done - at least that's my conclusion. My cell phone wouldn't maintain connection to the wifi without WAN connection (at least I think that's the reason). And I read several places that Roku expects a WAN connection to get started. After the screen casting is running it is reported that the WAN connection isn't needed. So it won't used much hot spot data but you have to have a WAN connection. And my phone isn't a high enough model to support video out the USBC connector. Looks like I am out of luck. And I think Firesticks are similar on this. I would love for someone to prove me wrong.

 

[JimS]

Think I got this working! Did some reading and some places said it needed a dns server ip even if it wasn't valid. Also discovered I had grabbed an old router that didn't have dhcp enabled so that's on me (Doh!). It seems that if the Roku must be set up on a network with internet access. But once set up it can work with that same exact local network without internet (for only the local things of course!). So I set up a router with the same ssid and password with dhcp and set gateway and dns to the fixed IP of the router. The addresses don't match home network - just the wireless settings are exactly the same. Found some comments that the network had to be available when Roku was powered up but the order of startup doesn't seem to matter. I'm about 99% sure this will work for android screen casting but the true test will be on the road...

 

[JimS]

Sequence does matter on the phone. If the wifi and cell are both on and you try to load a video or something from the internet it tried to get it through wifi and just stalls. I can turn off wifi and start whatever I want to watch. Then pause it and start wifi and start casting to tv. Then unpause the video. Once the connections are established they seem to continue on the same interface.