Transform a MNTD Helium Hotspot into a Home Server
Let’s Make A Server
MNTD Blackspot Helium Hotspot – it’s a small device that uses LoRaWan to allow IoT devices to connect to the internet. In broader terms, it broadcasts a long-range lightweight internet for small devices and sensors. If you have a MNTD blackspot or other RAK Helium Hotspot, then you can turn it into a personal home server.
As a home server, it can host applications like Jellyfin for streaming your TV and Movie library, Home Assistant for your smart devices, Nextcloud for a suite of productivity apps, a Minecraft Server, and so much more.
This Helium Hotspot actually uses a Raspberry Pi 4B (4GB RAM) under the hood. And that means we’re going to configure it to run everything a regular Raspberry Pi can run.
If you change your mind at any point, you can restore your backup and turn it back into a helium hotspot. This is a relatively low-risk project.
Requirements
A Rak helium hotspot, compatible models include:
Rak v2
MNTD Goldspot
MNTD Blackspot
Any USB-C power supply
A small screwdriver
A microSD card reader – these things are a few bucks on amazon or ebay
Optional
(recommended) Ethernet cable
This will be helpful for remotely accessing this from your computer. Wifi does work, but far less reliable than ethernet
Anti-static mat
Raspberry Pi 4 case
Step 1. Disassembly
You’ll need to disassembly your Rak MNTD hotspot. Follow the video guide for in-depth disassembly. Disassembly begins at 02:28 in video.
Before full disassembly, remove the MicroSD card from the hotspot.
It’s located under a flap on the side with the antenna output & three rubber plugs.
Step 2. Backup the SD card
We’ll use Win32 Disk Imager to create a backup of this MicroSD card. If you’re on Mac, follow this guide. Name your backup “Helium_Backup”.
Make sure that your backup location has AT LEAST free space equal to your MicroSD card (ie. 64GB microSD --> 64GB free space // 32GB microSD --> 32GB free space)
Step 3. Install Raspbian OS Lite (64bit)
We’ll use Raspberry Pi Imager to install Raspbian on the SD card. Open the program and select your SD card – double check that you are selecting your SD card. Then hit the settings icon at the bottom.
Write down your hostname
Configure your ssh login settings here
If you’re planning on using wifi, configure that here
Now pop that microSD card into your raspberry pi (SD card logo facing down). Plug it into power and ethernet (if applicable). We’ll remotely access it via computer.
Step 4. Connect via SSH
SSH is a secure way to remotely access your raspberry pi. It has a slightly technical CLI (command-line interface) but follow along with the steps below. Open the program we’ll use to SSH:
On Windows: Powershell
On Mac: Terminal
Remotely access your raspberry pi by entering:
ssh username@hostname.local
Replace with your username and hostname. If prompted to connect, type “yes”.
First, we’re going to update your repositories. To do that, use this command:
sudo apt update
Upgrade your system:
sudo apt upgrade -y
Step 5. Install Docker
We’re going to download the Docker installation script:
sudo curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
If this doesn’t work, you might need to install curl. To install curl, use this command:
sudo apt install curl
Then install that docker script:
sudo bash get-docker.sh
Add your current user to the docker group:
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
Reboot:
sudo reboot
Wait 60 seconds, then reconnect and log back into to the Raspberry Pi:
docker --version
If it returns a version number then it installed correctly.
Step 6. Install Docker-Compose
Let’s install docker-compose, a tool for configuring docker containers before spinning them up. You might need this in the future when installing some other docker containers.
First, install Python pip:
sudo apt install python3-pip -y
Then install docker-compose:
sudo pip3 install docker-compose
Let’s check if that worked:
docker-compose --version
If it returns a version number, then it’s confirmed as installed.
Step 7. Install Portainer
Portainer is a hub for managing your docker containers. To install, run this command:
sudo docker pull portainer/portainer-ce:latest
Start portainer:
sudo docker run -d -p 9000:9000 --name=portainer --restart=always -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v portainer_data:/data portainer/portainer-ce:latest
It’s that easy — we now have a Portainer container running on our Raspberry Pi.
Let's access it in our web browser. But first, we need to know where to access it:
hostname -I
In your web browser, type that hostname in then type “:9000” — it should look something like this:
192.168.1.50:9000
Set up your admin account. And BOOM. Portainer is up and running.
Step 8. Example App - Home Assistant
What do you say we spin up a home assistant container?
In our Raspberry Pi SSH, we’re going to navigate to our ~ folder. Then we’ll make a folder called “homeassistant” to store our files:
cd ~
Make directory:
sudo mkdir homeassistant
Go to directory:
cd homeassistant
Find current location:
pwd
pwd command printed a path to your config. You’ll need this for the next part.
Now just copy the text below and change MY_TIME_ZONE and PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG. (find your timezone here)
docker run -d \ --name homeassistant \ --privileged \ --restart=unless-stopped \ -e TZ=MY_TIME_ZONE \ -v /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG:/config \ --network=host \ ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable
For example, mine looks like this:
docker run -d \
--name homeassistant \
--privileged \
--restart=unless-stopped \
-e TZ=America/New_York \
-v /home/montotech/homeassistant:/config \
--network=host \
ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable
Now access your Home Assistant container via web browser at:
YOUR_IP_ADDESS:8123
The IP address is the same as Portainer. But the port is “:8123”
If you forget your Raspberry PI’s IP address, return to your SSH session and type:
hostname -I
For a list of some other docker applications, check out Linuxserver.io. Look specifically for applications that have the arm64 tag.
IF YOU NEED TO RESTORE BACK TO HELIUM HOTSPOT
The process of returning it into a Helium Hotspot is very straightforward.
Back up your current SD card using the same steps in Step 2 of the guide.
This time, name your backup “Raspi_Backup''
Restore your original Helium backup image.
Reassemble the hotspot.
Double check that the antenna wire is connected to the board.
That’s It!
Congratulations! If you made it through this tutorial, give yourself a pat on the back. You just learned some solid fundamentals for setting up a homelab.
Now you have access to a Raspberry Pi 4B too — so you can configure it to run any RPi4 applications.
Hope you enjoyed this project. Thanks for reading!