Hi There, 

I am looking into getting a dedicated tablet for timelapses. I was wondering if anybody has used the Kindle Fire for timelapse purposes. THey are, as we speak, $40 which is a bargain. In my short experience Wi-FI tethering with iOS devices (iPhone 6 plus and iPad Mini first gen) is extremely shaky and unreliable with Nikons d5300, d7200 and d750. So, I much rather to attach a cable to the camera. 

Cheers!

Just remember that you need a bit of performance for the image transferring and processing, not sure about how the fire performs.

Thanks! I guess I will either get it and try it or get a nexus 7. Cheerios!

I use two Samsung Galaxy tab 3 lite. Very stable, good autonomy, very cheap (less than 100€).
Qdslr dashboard 2.9 is ok with canon 1dx (wifi with D link)  and 6D (wifi direct )

I'm using a galaxy tab 3 via USB for my D800, and an iPad mini via wifi with a D600.  Both are running the latest version of DSLRdashboard without any problems.  The tab 3 was bought from amazon for £65.  Be careful though, some tablets do not support on-the-go USB connections.  I think this includes the Fire.  HTH

This post was last modified: 2016-03-03, 12:43 by steinardo.

Not a tablet, but using my old HTC One X+ for this purpose via USB OTG to my old EOS 40D.

One potential issue I see for long timelapses is running out of power on the mobile/tablet. I have tried to investigate if it is possible to get an OTG that supports simultaneous charging of the host (i.e. the mobile/tablet) but I can't find a firm conclusion of whether this is possible.

Has anyone pursued this and succeeded?

(One can get around this issue by using wifi, but my old 40D doesn't have that).

You could use the TPLink router for Wifi and then use a power bank to power both, TPLink and Mobile device via USB.

A small update. I got the Samsung Galaxy tab 4 (I guess I should had gotten the tab 3?)just to find out that it doesn't offer OTG support. I will return it, but I was wondering if there is a list somewhere about which tablets work through USB and which ones through WI-FI.

Here is my issue, every time I tried connecting using the internal wifi with all of my cameras (Nikon D5300, D7200 and D750) and it would not connect reliably. Sometimes it connects, but mostly it just shows the dark screen with the icons for connection on the top and it doesn't matter how many times I press "nikon )))" it doesn't connect. This is why I was leaning towards just tethering physically, it would use less battery, but also it should be more reliable.

Seriously any help is appreciated.

If you really want to change the tablet, I'd still recommend the Nexus 7 2013 - it offers otg but it's very reliable via wifi too. I always connect my D750 via wifi and it works flawlessly. My recommendation would be to try to get the WiFi connection going.

One thing that you should take care of no matter what: uninstall the Nikon WMU app, if you have it installed. It will frequently break the connection, even if it's not launched. I guess that could be your problem. Otherwise I think you should be able to use your tab via Wifi to connect the Nikons without any problems.
Another thing to check would be, if probably another device is using the same WiFi channel - so just go somewhere else and see if the problems persist.

Thanks man!... I totally have the nikon app installed (darn!) WMU. I will try all of this.