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).

If you want to test a power bank, do the following tests:

1. Plug your mobile phone into the bank and see it begin to charge.
2. While watching your phone plug the battery into a charger.
3. Does your phone stop charging for a second? In that case you have a 'blip on charge'.
4. Does your phone stop charging your phone completely? - Your battery does not support pass-through charging if it does
5. Does your battery begin to charge? If not, your battery does not support pass-through charging.
6. While watching your phone, unplug the battery from the charger.
7. Does your phone stop charging for a second? In that case you have a 'Blip on remove from charge'

The ideal battery pack will:

• Not 'Blip on Charge'
• Continue to provide power throughout
• Not 'Blip on remove from charge'

If you have 'blips', you can still use the power bank, but it's recommended you shut down the Raspberry Pi before blipping the power.

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	Blip on charge	Blip on Remove from Charge	Number of USB ports	Weight in g	link
generic	25000	e27	10-12 @2A	166	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	2	450	Amazon
Laptone	5200	£11	5 @1A	34	Yes	No	Yes	1	135	Amazon
Spigen F706C	5000	e11	unknown	33	No	Yes	Yes	2	109	Amazon
Shinngo slim	5000	$10	unknown	33	Yes	No	Yes	2	119	Amazon
Duracell	3350	£16	unknown	22	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	1		Amazon
Duracell	6700	£20	unknown	44	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	1		Amazon
Duracell	10050	£28	unknown	67	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	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 using Android APS; click on the "SHUTDOWN" button on the OmniPy tab. Alternatively you can use ssh to shut the raspberry pi down:

sudo shutdown now

The shutdown procedure takes typically one minute on the Raspberry Pi Zero. Wait for the green led of the raspberry pi to turn off completely. After that you can take the raspberry pi off the usb power to start charging your mobile powerbank.