If this is a stock Pod and you do not already have an administrator shell, start with Open your Pod and get root access. The illustrated guide covers the parts, opening the enclosure, Tag-Connect wiring, interrupting boot, setting account passwords, joining Wi-Fi, and verifying SSH after installation.
- Pod 3 with an SD card: use the separate SD-card procedure linked from the guide; back up the card first.
- Pod 3 without an SD card, Pod 4, or Pod 5: the documented serial path uses a TC2070-IDC harness, an FT232RL adapter with 3.3 V logic, and three signal wires. Match your board revision and connector orientation to the photos.
- Pod 5: complete initial setup in the Eight Sleep app first, as described in the current upstream procedure.
The serial console uses 921600 baud. The guide distinguishes commands for your computer, the U-Boot prompt, and the Pod's Linux shell. The documented boot arguments target slot A; do not substitute an unverified partition or save temporary boot arguments permanently.
Credit for the original bootstrap and wiring instructions belongs to free-sleep. Installing free-sleep is not a prerequisite for sleepypod. Original sleepypod Pod 5 photos supplement that procedure.
Verify id -u returns 0 after a normal boot. Complete the guide's update-service and network preparation, then follow Install and update Core. Run the installer on the Pod from the serial console; you do not need to configure password SSH first.
The optional installer SSH step accepts your computer's public key and configures key-only access on port 8822. Keep the serial session available until a second terminal can connect successfully:
ssh -p 8822 root@POD_IPRun id -u and sp-status in that new session, then shut down, disconnect power, remove the harness, and reassemble as described in the guide. Open http://POD_IP:3000 on the same network and confirm the timezone and selected side.
For existing installations, see deployment, debugging, and the script reference.