Preperation & Planning

This guide has been written to help you prepaire your household and/or business for HotspotBnB. There is very little preperation and planning required with HotspotBnB, since it is intended to be a rapidly deployable solution. This guide also presumes you have little to no general technical knowledge.

Expectations

Obtaining HotspotBnB: - HotspotBnB is a free software which operates devices called Single Board Computers. More specifically the type know as: Raspberry Pi. HotspotBnB can be downloaded from our GitHub Repository - Releases page.

Target Device - If you have a Raspberry Pi already you can use and enjoy HotspotBnB immediately. If you don’t already have a device, they can be purchased online and in you hands in a matter of a day.

Setting Up HotspotBnB: - After unboxing the device and ensuring the Micro SD Card is inserted (containing the latest version of HotspotBnB), you must connect the device to your internet router/modem using the Ethernet Cable provided or via Wi-Fi by configuring the appropriate files on the MicroSD Card. See a detailed guide here: GitHub Repository - Releases Then connect the Power Cable to the power outlet. You should also connect the HDMI Cable to a display if you wish to oversea the boot-up sequence.

It takes around 30 minutes for the device to boot up and self-build and configure, so please be patience. Upon successful completion the HotspotBnB dashboard will be accessible from any web-browser of any device on your network - simple enter the following hostname (http://hotspotbnb/) in the web-browsers address bar. If you experience any difficulty use the target devices IP address instead of the hostname. The hostname can sometimes take time.

Our Team … There’s xx,000’s of software dependancies underlying this software package, and behind each one there’s teams of people.

The technology is still early stage, (it’s 2021 at the time of writing this). And technology can take months and even years to hit maturity.

Sony Manufacture the Hardware in Pencoed in Wales, the physical technology is called a Single Board Computer, more specifically they’re Raspberry Pi’s. At the time of writing this there are 30million+ Single Board Computers in circulation and HotspotBnB’s is being developed for all kinds of these devices. But at this stage we are especially focused on the Raspberry Pi until our user base reaches critical mass. So if you have one already then great, download HotspotBnB for free from our GitHub Repo, and you’re good to go.