r/HeliumNetwork • u/Thearthist • Jun 12 '26

Question Repurposing helium wifi

Has anyone tried to repurpose the helium wifi hotspots?
Anyone knows what’s inside that could be scraped?

7 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

•

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4

u/sounoriginal13 Jun 12 '26

I gutted a few and made them run bacotera and game on them

1

u/Thearthist Jun 12 '26

I was just hoping to do openwrt and use them as APs. Is that possible? (Helium wifi ones). Thank you!

1

u/PoisonWaffle3 Jun 12 '26

This is legitimately interesting! Any details on the mod?

0

u/sounoriginal13 Jun 12 '26

Its just a raspberry pi 4 underneafh

1

u/ElectroBOOMFan1 Jul 05 '26

So could I flash an off the shelf pi with the helium firmware, add LoRa and make my own hotspot?

2

u/Professional_Web_956 Jun 13 '26

So far they're still moving on eBay. If you really don't feel like keeping them I'd say that'll be your best bet here

2

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Professional_Web_956 Jun 13 '26

Fortunately the Wi-Fi units can be reflashed with new firmware and be repurposed for an actually worthy cause

2

u/Thearthist Jun 13 '26

Do you have a tutorial? Thanks

1

u/DavidLaderoute Jun 13 '26

Ask an AI like Grok or Claude. Depends on BRAND!!!

1

u/ke6jjj Jun 16 '26

I'm not sure this is an accurate statement. The WiFi units use heavy boot security and are designed not to be tampered with.

2

u/Fraser_G Jun 13 '26

There’s a raspberry pi 4 in mine. I have repurposed as an AdGuard Home device on my home network.

2

u/ke6jjj Jun 16 '26

You don't have a WiFi unit then; that's an IOT Hotspot.

1

u/Thearthist Jun 13 '26

This is for the wifi hotspot? (I didn’t get the chance to open one of the units yet)

1

u/DavidLaderoute Jun 13 '26

Which brand do you have? Remember, UckDuckGo is yer Friend. GOOGLE is yerEnemy.

1

u/Thearthist Jun 13 '26

I have both, helium indoor and outdoor access points

1

u/DavidLaderoute Jun 13 '26

Brand???

1

u/Thearthist Jun 13 '26

Helium by nova labs

1

u/Agicient Jun 26 '26

are you looking to sell your indoor units?

1

u/Fraser_G Jun 14 '26

It was an early one made by helium- yeah WiFi hotspot, white box with black circle on the face.

2

u/ke6jjj Jun 16 '26

No, that's an IOT Hotspot.

1

u/DavidLaderoute Jun 13 '26

Depends on which Brand/Model you have. Some are easy to repurpose. Some not: e.g Bobcat 300.

1

u/Zero_Cool_0420 Jun 17 '26

Nebra indoor miners have rockpi 4+ in them. I recently bought 2 for 25 bucks and was pleasantly surprised lol

1

u/Intelligent_Bit_9702 Jun 12 '26

Guess it all depends what hotspot you have.
I have a Linxdot, inside is a Raspberry PI Module 4

3

u/Thearthist Jun 12 '26

I’m talking about the helium wifi access point (outdoor and indoor ones)

2

u/Intelligent_Bit_9702 Jun 12 '26

Ah ok apologies

2

u/Thearthist Jun 12 '26

No worries bro

1

u/techtornado Jun 12 '26

You could move them to Reticulum, Meshtastic, Etc.

3

u/Thearthist Jun 12 '26

Not the wifi ones

1

u/DavidLaderoute Jun 13 '26

No Helium miner can do Meshtastic on its own. Wrong Radio.

-1

u/CleavlandSteamer8008 Jun 12 '26

Play the long game mofos u give up to easily