Hardware · Build guide

Probe Provisioning

Build a Wavelify Wi-Fi survey probe: a compute module on a PoE carrier with a tri-band Wi-Fi 6E USB radio. One PoE cable for power and network; the probe surveys passively over the air and streams to the cloud. Flash one golden image, boot, claim — done.

↓ Download golden image (.img.xz)Flashing how-to

What you need

Three parts. The carrier gives you PoE + NVMe; the compute module is the brains; the USB adapter is the tri-band radio that does the passive survey while ethernet stays the uplink.

Carrier · PoE

PoE Carrier Board

Compute-module carrier with PoE, NVMe, USB-C and DC12V. Powers and networks the probe over a single ethernet run.

Module: Standard compute module
Power: 802.3af PoE · USB-C · DC 12 V
Storage: NVMe (M.2) + eMMC/SD
Network: Gigabit Ethernet (PoE)
I/O: USB-A 3.0, USB-C (flash)

Compute · eMMC

Compute Module

Quad-core compute module with onboard eMMC. Use the eMMC variant — we flash the golden image straight to it over USB.

CPU: Quad-core ARM64
RAM: 2 / 4 / 8 GB LPDDR4
Storage: 8–32 GB eMMC (on-module)
Variant: eMMC (not SD-only)
OS: Debian Bookworm arm64

Radio · Wi-Fi 6E

Tri-band Wi-Fi 6E USB Adapter

Tri-band Wi-Fi 6E USB 3.0 adapter. Monitor-mode capable across 2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz — the probe's survey radio.

Bands: 2.4 / 5 / 6 GHz (Wi-Fi 6E)
Standard: 802.11ax
Interface: USB 3.0 Type-A
Capture: Monitor mode (radiotap pcap)
Driver: In-kernel + linux-firmware

Why this build

One PoE cable

Power + network over a single ethernet run — wall- or ceiling-mount anywhere, no outlet.

Ethernet uplink

The wired link is the uplink, so the tri-band USB radio is free for full-time passive capture.

True 6E survey

Captures 2.4 / 5 and 6 GHz — most Android survey apps can't even see 6 GHz.

Raw PCAP, not iw

Monitor-mode pcap → cloud scapy parse gives deep 802.11 IE data (Wi-Fi gen, width, security, MU-MIMO…).

Flash the probe (eMMC)

The module’s eMMC is flashed over USB with the rpiboot usbboot utility — no SD card. On macOS:

↓ Download the golden image — wavelify_golden_v3_2026-06-11.img.xz

One-time: build the flashing tool

Install the usbboot flashing utility (skip if you already have rpiboot).

brew install libusb pkg-config
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/raspberrypi/usbboot
cd usbboot && make

Put the carrier in rpiboot mode

Set the carrier’s boot switch/jumper to rpiboot (a.k.a. nRPIBOOT / boot-disable), connect the carrier’s USB-C to your Mac, and power the board. Then expose the module’s eMMC as a USB disk:

sudo rpiboot     # waits, then the module eMMC mounts as a USB disk

Find the eMMC disk

The module eMMC is the ~7.8 GB disk that appears after rpiboot runs.

diskutil list     # note the new /dev/diskN (e.g. disk8)

Write the image

Decompress and dd straight to the eMMC. Double-check diskN — the wrong disk gets wiped.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk8
xz -dc ~/Downloads/wavelify_golden_v3_2026-06-11.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/rdisk8 bs=4m status=progress
sync && diskutil eject /dev/disk8

Boot & claim

Flip the boot switch back to boot-from-eMMC, plug the Wi-Fi 6E adapter into a USB-A port, and power the probe over PoE. It comes up on DHCP over ethernet. Open its setup page, sign in with the default admin / 12345678, and claim it into your site from the console. From then on it self-updates over the air.

Tip — the same golden image runs on every probe. Updates ship over the air (the dashboard shows “Update available” with a one-click apply and automatic rollback), so you flash once and never SD-swap again.

Ready to build your first probe?

Grab the golden image, flash a module, and have a live Wi-Fi survey probe on the wall in minutes.

↓ Download golden image How claiming works →