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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. Enable DNS Ad Blocking and other DNS Blocklists for the network

  2. Configure VPN Devices

  3. 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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