Standard hardware setup
To make use of the setup, as well as wearing the pod, you (or your child) will need to carry around:
- A raspberry pi zero w with an appropriate power supply
- A 433MHz RileyLink with power link
- Android phone with Android APS check compatible phones here
- (Ideal but not essential) a Wear watch
A typical setup is to use a power bank (5000mah is plenty for a day) kept in some kind of case together with pi, RileyLink and perhaps the phone.
With this standard setup, no soldering / electronic skills are needed. (If you do have such skills however, you may want to make a more compact pocketable rig - see 'DIY rig setup' link in the wiki).
Example 1 of rig in a case:
Example 2 of rig in case supplied with Omnipod:
Example 3 of rig setup showing sizes (this is with Shinngo Slim power bank, but see note below):
In using this setup, ideally you need a power bank supporting 'pass through charging'. This means it does not cut the output supply when it is being charged. (Sudden loss of power to the pi can trash the sd card). Here are some power banks, their price and their theoretical duration on the rig (current consumption estimated at 150mA, no phone plugged):
| Model | Energy in mAh | Price | Full charging time in hours | Theoretical rig powering duration in hours @150mA | Pass-through charging | Number of USB ports | Weigth in g | link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| generic | 25000 | e27 | 10-12 @2A | 166 | Yes | 2 | 450 | Amazon |
| Laptone | 5200 | £11 | 5 @1A | 34 | Yes | 1 | 135 | Amazon |
| Spigen F706C | 5000 | e11 | unknown | 33 | Yes | 2 | 109 | Amazon |
| Shinngo slim | 5000 | $10 | unknown | 33 | See below | 2 | 119 | Amazon |
| Duracell | 3350 | £16 | unknown | 22 | Yes | 1 | Amazon | |
| Duracell | 6700 | £20 | unknown | 44 | Yes | 1 | Amazon | |
| Duracell | 10050 | £28 | unknown | 67 | Yes | 2 | Amazon |
(Note that despite claiming passsthru, the Ravpower 26000mAh is not helpful as there is a brief blip when you plug it in to charge that causes the pi to reboot, so not recommended. The Shinngo Slim, linked above, maintains power OK when connecting charging, but usually reboots when you remove it from the charge - so not ideal).
If you haven't got such a power bank then you need to safely shut down the pi from the command line before you charge the power bank by typing at the SSH shell:
sudo shutdown now