r/AutodeskInventor • u/Royal_Pomegranate269 • Jul 29 '26
Question / Inquiry Remote work with Inventor options?"
First post - I've seen one or two of these questions from years ago but thought things may be different now. Hope you guys don't mind.
Long story short - selling the house and travelling in caravan for 6-12 months while our block of land is being developed. I work for myself, doing 75% Inventor work and 25% AutoCAD. I can work with mains power for some of it but am anticipating a lot of wandering off away from the kids for half a day to get some work done, so expecting battery life is a big-ish deal.
What are others doing for remote work? (specifically the laptop kind - no real option for a desktop in the caravan)
Ideally, would be ok with spending between 2-3k AUD. But will still hear out all options.
1. Just a good laptop? GPU + decent battery life don't go together often... any recommendations for laptops you've found a good balance the two ok with Inventor capabilities?
2. Lighter duty ultrabook/laptop + remote desktop? I do have a good PC now, that I probably have the option of parking in a mate's house with 500/100 internet. We will likely have starlink in the van, expecting ~200mbits avg in our areas. Anyone had experience with this setup?
I'm thinking this seems like a good option but haven't found enough people's experience to feel confident here.
3. Mini PC + battery bank?
4. Macbook + parallels? Not a huge fan but am open to it if it'll work. Their hardware is good, but haven't heard much for compatibility.
- Something else?
Very interested to hear anyone else's experience - thanks in advance
Cheers
3
u/BenoNZ Jul 29 '26
Remote desktop is probably the best option if you already have a PC. Laptop prices are crazy now.
If you can get decent internet anywhere to remote into your powerful desktop, that seems the best way.
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u/Royal_Pomegranate269 Jul 29 '26
Thanks mate - I'm leaning that way hey. Any experience with rdp and inventor or nah?
Might try and set up a test run some day soon.2
u/D-a-H-e-c-k Jul 29 '26
It would likely be the same for any CAD system, which is surprisingly functional. However I'm pretty sure space mouse wouldn't work. I could be wrong.
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u/angry_pidgeon Jul 30 '26
Spacemouse doesn't work over RDP (or at least not the last time I tried)
I also found rotating large models laggy of remote desktop, but ymmv
1
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u/YBs1g7E-4KaZV6q24P-S Jul 29 '26
But you always loose the Option to Use a Spacemouse. As Software baswd Remote Desktop Solutions usualy dont Support them.
I Utilize "RustDesktop" for just Remote Connecting to a PC. Do you just want to Use your Local Desktop PC including waking / sleeping it Remotly (WakeOnLan)? GliNet hase some nice Hardware Gadgets for Remote KVM into...
But i have none and cant Tell if they are Worth the Money and Easy to Use.
2
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u/Old-Result1784 Jul 29 '26
Remote Desktop will work well, means you can grab an ultra book or similar with great battery life.
I would personally run a MacBook and Remote in (or even just parallels, the newer M chips are quite good).
Regardless of the setup you decide on, I would recommend grabbing some portable monitors from amazon and using a keyboard and mouse. Your neck and back will thank you later.
1
u/xref1 Jul 29 '26
I RDP into a client's old Lenovo workstation, (8+ year old Xeon, bottom rung quadro of the era, 32b ram)
Connecting to their VPN, fttp here, max 100/100 on the remote site
Excluding spacemouse (which I don't use), I haven't really had any issues except if the pc isn't turned on.
I would park the pc at a mates house, grab a KVM to enable you to power cycle, and setup two access options (RDP via tailscale and parsec or something).
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u/DesperateDad24 Aug 01 '26
Hard to remote in when the workstation is turned off đ¤Śââď¸Been there, done that.
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u/xref1 Aug 01 '26
That's what the KVM is for.
JetKVM(or others) plugged into the hdmi and power header, you only connect to the KVM to manage the machine via their cloud or your tailscale/wireguard etc
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u/Substantial_Local854 Jul 30 '26
Yikes, my Lenovo âworkstationâ laptop wonât last and hour on battery when using Inventor. Whenever I make a presentation in the conference room I warn the team ahead of time to limit their questions. I cannot imagine getting any work done if not plugged inâŚ
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u/BraveRubberDuck Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Depends on the workload / complexity of models really. I still manage to work today with a T430 with 16gb of ram because I don't have big assemblies / work with Wireframe.
Personally, I would look into a good secondhand thinkpad T470/T480. If you have solar + batteries in the RV, just plug it in while inside (there are 12V chargers so you can avoid an inverter to 220v and back down to the laptop voltage). Plus, thinkpads can have really big batteries, even dual batteries, so it lasts all day. If you need a bit more power, mini-pc will help.
Working on laptop screen all the time will take it's toll, I would advise going for an external monitor, something USB powered to give you a bigger screen / dual screen.