Ubo Pod is a versatile Raspberry Pi development platform that combines consumer-grade quality, customization, and open-source accessibility. Designed with developers and end-users in mind, Ubo Pod enhances your Raspberry Pi projects with headless operation, speech interactions, LED feedback, a color display, and a keypad. These features can be integrated directly into your applications to improve the user experience.

Designed for Developers, Ubo Pod is customizable and comes with an SDK, tutorials, and example apps. You can connect your VS Code environment using Remote Tunnels for seamless development.

The default Ubo Pod app allows you to deploy Docker containers headlessly and run popular Pi applications like Home Assistant, Pi Hole, Ollama, and Portainer out of the box.

Ubo Pod Contents

Ubo Pod uses a Raspberry Pi (supports models 4 & 5) as its core. It integrates a set of hardware peripherals to provide the best possible user experience (UX). Our goal is to help developers start projects quickly, regardless of their experience level, while providing a polished, consumer-grade UX for end-users. The modular design ensures easy customization, repair, and upgrades.

Exploded View

Additional Views

Headless UX

Ubo Pod emphasizes headless operation, reducing the need for a keyboard and mouse. Our intuitive GUI system, based on the Kivy framework, utilizes the onboard LCD and keypad, which can also be integrated into your own applications.

Headless WiFi Onboarding

Pass WiFi credentials and connect your pod to the Internet headlessly by scanning a WiFi QR code with the front camera. This feature simplifies updating network credentials.

Remote Access Made Easy

Remotely connect to your Ubo Pod and access deployed applications from anywhere. We support various methods/services, including SSH, VSCode Tunnel, Cloudflare Tunnel, Ngrok, and Tailscale. Future support for Raspberry Pi Connect and VNC is on our roadmap of upcoming features.

Install Apps Headlessly

Ubo Pod offers a user-friendly approach to install any app (using Docker containers) with just a few clicks, headlessly. Special OS images with pre-installed apps can further enhance the end-user experience for specific use cases.

Seamless UX

Ubo Pod is designed to offer a seamless experience for both developers and end-users. Take advantage of a programmable graphical user interface (GUI), a color LED ring, microphones/speakers for auditory interactions, a front camera, and an IR blaster/receiver to create rich, interactive applications.

Safe AI Agents

Ubo Pod includes several AI applications that run locally, ensuring data privacy and security. Use local voice recognition and large language models (LLMs) to enhance functionality. We plan to support open-source Large Action Models (LAMs) and Hyper Agents (HAs) in a secure, sandboxed environment. On the Pi 5 model, you can install Google Coral TPU (M.2 PCIe) to accelerate vision and audio/speech AI applications. Discussions are underway to include LPUs (Language Processing Units) for faster on-device processing.

Fully Control Your Raspberry Pi Headlessly

We are integrating all Pi utility controls into the main system GUI, allowing you to headlessly pair Bluetooth accessories, change audio channels, switch between monitors, and more.

Hardware Specifications

• Display: 1.54 inch TFT IPS, 240 x 240 pixels resolution
• Keypad: 7 buttons on a soft-touch silicone keypad
• Microphones: Dual stereo microphones, capable of recording 48 KHz audio
• Speakers: Stereo speakers, up to 48 KHz, <0.1% THD with 1 Watt per channel
• Audio Line Out: 40 mW output power into 16 Ohm at 3.3 VDC, THD -75 dB at 20 mW, SNR 90 dB with 16 Ohm load; jack insertion detection
• LED Ring: 27 individually controllable RGB LEDs (SK6812), NeoPixel compatible
• Camera: Supports Raspberry Pi official camera module V1, V2, and V3*
• Computer: Supports Raspberry Pi 4 and 5
• Thermal: Active thermal management, supports overclocking
• Power Button: Offers safe shutdown and power-on operation
• IR Receiver: AC-coupled response from 20 kHz to 60 kHz, all data formats, 5 m range
• IR Transmitter: 940 nm, omnidirectional, with high radiant power and speed
• Zigbee/Z-Wave/LoRa Radio: Optional third-party USB dongle​
• Temperature Sensor: ±1 °C accuracy over -25 °C to +100 °C range, (PCT2075 by NXP)
• Ambient Light: 0 to 120 Kilolux [klx] with resolution down to 0.0036 lx/ct (VEML7700 by Vishay)
• Privacy: Physical privacy curtain for camera and hardware disconnect switch for microphones
• Storage: NVMe (Pi 5) and MicroSD storage
• AI: Support for Google Coral TPU (Hailo accelerators will be supported in the future)
• Dimensions: 5.1 x 3.9 x 2 inches (130 x 99 x 52 mm)
• Weight: 0.75 lb (340 g)

Ubo Pod HDK & SDK

A key aspect of this project is to build something great for developers, providing full freedom and control based on a strong foundation. Therefore, Ubo Pod was designed to be as flexible and customizable as possible.

We offer standalone, interchangeable, and modular components as part of a Hardware Development Kit (HDK) that can be used for custom hardware builds. We also collaborate with startups to tailor the existing design for new, application-specific hardware.

Additionally, we are introducing a Software Development Kit (SDK) to facilitate and accelerate third-party application development and integration. This includes a toolchain for testing and deploying applications.

To assist with designing new experiences and GUI widgets, we are also open-sourcing all of our Figma designs under permissive licenses. Designers can expand on the existing design principles and templates to target new experiences and user journeys.

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