Non-Internet use of the camera can be challenging, but has evolved recently (there used to be a 90-minute limit). You will need the most recent firmware.
At this time, the cameras WILL work with a hotspot, but working with a hotspot brings on its own set of challenges. For me, I couldn’t get the camera to set up until I activated my travel router in Repeater mode. After that, the travel router was no longer required.
My travel cam connects direct to my phone hotspot without any issues now. Depending on your phone and your service provider, you may experience other hotspot challenges. Searching the articles here may help resolve any issues you encounter.
As long as your cam has been set up to use your hotspot and the hotspot is active, the camera will work as normal.
As soon as you disconnect the hotspot, you lose all live motion alerts. This is expected – the camera has no way to report them. It does not buffer the alerts, they simply will not happen.
However, if you have your camera set up to record ‘events only’ to the SD card, then those motion activated recordings will still be made (the entire minute where motion occurred). When you playback that stream, the app will automatically jump from one motion event to the next.
If you have the camera set up for continuous recording, then the entire stream will be recorded, but there will be no flags as to where motion occurred (other than the usual green box tagging that you can watch the entire stream for).
Right now the biggest off-line limit is if you have no cell signal to activate the hotspot to “prime the pump” and get the camera started, and pointed at what you are interested in recording. There is a workaround for that if you need it (too many words to add here).