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WiFi 6 Pod

This product is our flagship hardware for running SPR.

Available Now​

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About the Pods​

They started shipping in July 2024. Available in two colors, the pods have a 4.5” diamater and 2” height for the enclosure.

PI5 PodPI5 Pod

Key Product Features​

  • Simultaneously supports 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz or 2.4 and 6ghz bands
  • WiFi 6 speeds, reaching over 1gbps for 160mhz channels with 2 spatial streams
  • Enclosure strength makes it a good travel router
  • Pi's built in wifi can be used for wireless uplink
iperf3

What's Included Inside​

  • The pod is built with the Raspberry Pi 5, extended with a custom built mPCIe hat
  • Custom SLS Nylon Printed Enclosure available in White or Black
  • 4GB PI5
  • PI5 Power Supply
  • PI5 Active Cooler
  • Powered PI5 Hat sits on top and connects to the PCIe extension
  • An Dual-band Dual-channel WiFi 6 mt7916 card for mPCIe
  • 3x Laird FlexPIFA Antennas
  • FFC Connector for PCIe
  • 64GB USB Drive
PI5 Pod

Extendability​

  • Can be augmented with a WiFi 6 USB Dongle for tri-band support
  • Can be augmented with a USB Ethernet Dongle for a second ethernet port

Upgradability​

  • You can swap out the PI5 for one with 8GB of RAM if you need more
  • The WiFi card can be swapped out
  • M.2 WiFi HAT available
  • The USB Drive can be upgraded or replaced with an SSD

Power over Ethernet (POE)​

  • We have POE variants of the Pod
  • IEEE 802.3af/at/bt, 25W Power Delivery,
  • Need POE? Join the wait list

Setup guide​

Install the SPR Pi 5 Image​

For running SPR on a Raspberry Pi 5, the latest image is available here

You can download spr.img.xz and flash it with a tool such as the Raspberry Pi Imager, or if you prefer to write the image using the command line:

# On a mac, write the image to the external disk (rdiskX).
# Be careful to make sure you identify your removable drive correctly.
$ xzcat spr.img.xz | dd of=/dev/rdiskX bs=$[1024*1024]

Completing the Setup​

  1. Plug in your Pi SPR to your local network using a ethernet cable, and boot
  2. On Pis, the built in WiFi hosts an open AP "sprlab-setup". Join the open AP and go to https://192.168.2.1 or https://spr.local.
  3. Alternatively, without connecting to the open AP, visit https://spr.local to run through the UI setup. This is a mDNS name, if it does not resolve: Check your router DHCP table to see if you can locate the Pi SPR or scan for it with ping/nmap.
  4. The setup will guide you through configuring your SPR networking and adding your first device, as well as setting a UI password.

Post Setup Tasks​

  1. Optional: Enable a WiFi uplink
  2. Enable DNS Ad Blocking and other DNS Blocklists for the network
  3. Configure VPN Devices
  4. Configure service reachability under the Firewall Services tab

Follow the SPR Setup Guide​

If you prefer to run on an existing image, or run from a fresh Ubuntu server install, you can Follow the SPR setup guide

Setup Debugging​

Why is it loud?​

  • If the fan is spinning loudly, this indicates that the pi5 is not booting

Use the official pi5 power supply!​

  • The Pi5 requires their official power supply for USB boot

The Pod boots off of USB​

  • Boot your PI5 off of a USB drive. Optionally you can remove the cover (carefully), and boot off an SD card.

If you can not find SPR​

  • Check for the setup ap named sprlab-setup
  • Try checking your router logs for the DHCP

Connecting with HDMI and a keyboard​

  • If all else fails you may need to disassemble the pod.
  • Remove the power cable
  • Remove the 3 screws on the enclosure and carefully open the top, to not detach the antennas
  • Unscrew the four screws holding the HAT and PI5 to the enclosure
  • Remove the pi5 from the enclosure and connect HDMI, a keyboard

If you do not see the wifi card​

The mt7916 cards require 32-bit dma support. You can try to force this on with the following command, as the overlay setting may not always work on Ubuntu after an update:

fdtoverlay -i /boot/firmware/bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb -o /boot/firmware/bcm2712-rpi-5-b.dtb /boot/firmware/overlays/pcie-32bit-dma-pi5.dtbo

Also double check that /boot/firmware/config.txt contains dtparam=pciex1

Lastly, you may try to open the enclosure and ensure that the wifi card is in the slot and did not come lose

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