The ALPON X4 keeps remote and unattended sites online and recoverable. It pairs the Raspberry Pi CM4 with multi-network connectivity (LTE Cat 4, dual-band Wi-Fi, dual Ethernet) and the ALPON Cloud agent. When one path drops, the failover manager swaps to the next available link in under a minute. A hardware watchdog and a 10-year RTC battery keep the device recoverable when the OS hangs or power is lost.

The ALPON X4 is the IoT-focused edge computer; the ALPON X5 AI is the AI-capable variant. The ALPON X4 is built on the Raspberry Pi CM4 with no AI accelerator, while the ALPON X5 AI is built on the Raspberry Pi CM5 and adds an NPU plus an NVMe M.2 SSD slot.

If your workload does not need on-device AI inference, the ALPON X4 is the right pick. For a full side-by-side breakdown, see Compare ALPON Devices.

The ALPON X4 fits deployments where compute, multi-path connectivity, and remote manageability matter more than raw on-device inference:

• Industrial gateways: bridging Modbus, MQTT, and OPC-UA traffic to the cloud.
• Remote monitoring: solar farms, water treatment plants, and pipeline telemetry.
• Smart cities: traffic sensors, environmental monitoring, parking systems.
• Fleet and asset tracking: cellular and GNSS positioning.
• Digital signage and kiosks: places where wired internet is unreliable.

Every ALPON X4 retail unit ships with:

• 1 × ALPON X4 edge IoT computer
• 1 × USB-C power adapter (27 W)
• 1 × 3-pin screw terminal block connector
• 4 × antennas (2 × LTE, 1 × Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, 1 × GNSS)
• Quick-start guide

The DIN-rail mount kit, IP67 outdoor antenna, and Edge add-on modules are sold separately. Verify the contents of your specific SKU at sixfab.com/product/alpon-x4.

Order units, antennas, and accessories from sixfab.com. For volume pricing, custom variants (PoE, memory, storage), or evaluation loaners, reach out through Sixfab contact.

The host compute is the Raspberry Pi CM4: a quad-core Cortex-A72 (BCM2711) running at 1.5 GHz with up to 8 GB LPDDR4 memory and on-board eMMC up to 32 GB (8 / 16 / 32 GB variants). The CM4 handles the operating system, networking stack, and application containers.

The GPIO Add-on port uses an RJ45 physical socket but is not Ethernet. It exposes six configurable CM4 GPIO pins at 3.3 V logic with SPI5, UART4, UART0, I2C2, and I2C3, plus a 5 V / 1 A power output gated by GPIO 21. Plugging an Ethernet cable or PoE injector into this port causes permanent hardware damage.

No. The ALPON X4 has two Ethernet ports with different speeds and capabilities:

• ETH: 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet over the secondary network controller. Use for management, ALPON Cloud traffic, and low-bandwidth uplinks.
• ETH/G: 1 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet on the native CM4 PHY. PoE+ capable on applicable variants. Use for performance-sensitive traffic and PoE power input.

Two DIP switches under a silicone cap on the rear face control the hardware watchdog and CM4 boot mode. Both ship OFF by default:

The hardware watchdog runs independently of the OS. When enabled (SW1 OFF, the default), the CM4 must toggle the watchdog trigger line at regular intervals. If no trigger arrives within the timeout window, the watchdog cuts power, waits briefly, and re-applies it to force a cold reboot.

The ALPON X4 has four LED indicators. The RGB LED is reserved for user applications and is freely programmable via GPIO. The remaining three are driven by ALPON system services:

No. The ALPON X4 is built for always-on industrial deployments and does not expose sleep, suspend, or low-power profile switching. Typical power consumption is 7 to 14 W with a 27 W maximum under full load. If your deployment is battery-powered and needs duty cycling, gate the upstream supply with an external timer or wake-on-event circuit.

The ALPON X4 measures 111.16 × 99.9 × 33 mm without antennas and weighs approximately 457 g. The fanless aluminum enclosure is rated IP40, with an operating range of -20 to +60 °C and a storage range of -40 to +85 °C.

Yes. The ALPON X4 includes a TPM 2.0 chip wired to the CM4 over the SPI bus. It is suitable for secure boot key sealing, attestation, and credential storage. Use it from userspace with the standard tpm2-tools package:

sudo apt install -y tpm2-tools
tpm2_getcap properties-fixed

The ALPON X4 ships with five independent network paths, all managed by the ALPON Cloud agent with automatic failover:

• LTE Cat 4 (up to 150 Mbps DL / 50 Mbps UL, theoretical) with on-board eSIM (eUICC SGP.22)
• Wi-Fi dual-band 2.4 / 5 GHz, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth 5.0 / BLE
• Ethernet: 1 × Gigabit Ethernet (ETH/G) and 1 × 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet (ETH)
• GNSS positioning (GPS plus multi-constellation)

The cellular module covers a broad global LTE Cat 4 band set:

B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B7 B8 B12 B13 B18 B19 B20 B25 B26 B28 B34 B38 B39 B40 B41 B66

The product supports only 4G / LTE networks, with no fallback to 2G or 3G. For full RF specs see Connectivity & Antenna Specifications.

Yes. The ALPON X4 has an on-board, soldered eSIM (eUICC SGP.22) ready for remote profile provisioning. There is also a physical nano-SIM slot for a third-party SIM. The active profile is selected from ALPON Cloud under the device's eSIM management panel. A starter Sixfab data plan is available through the same console.

Yes, with two important conditions:

1. Connect the device's earth pin to the panel's ground connection.
2. Use external antennas. The bundled antennas are designed for exposed mounting; inside a metal panel they will be heavily attenuated. Use the optional IP67 combination antenna with a 3-meter cable, mounted on the outside of the panel.

The ALPON Cloud agent monitors every active interface (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, LTE) with cloud reachability probes. When the active path fails, the agent switches the default route to the next-priority interface that has a confirmed uplink. Recovery typically completes in under one minute. Priority is configurable per device from the ALPON Cloud console.

Yes. Sixfab offers an optional 3-meter IP67-rated outdoor combination antenna that covers LTE Main, LTE Diversity, Wi-Fi, and GNSS/GPS with surface mounting. Use it when the device is installed inside a metal enclosure or indoors away from windows.

The ALPON X4 accepts three independent power inputs:

Typical power consumption is 7 to 14 W depending on workload and active radios. The maximum is 27 W with all radios active and peripherals drawing from the USB ports. Always size the upstream supply for the 27 W peak, not the typical figure.

The USB-C port on the ALPON X4 is sink-only (power in). It does not provide USB data or power output during normal operation. To attach USB peripherals, use one of the two USB 2.0 Type-A ports on the side of the device. The combined output for both Type-A ports is 1 A maximum; exceeding it cuts power to both ports until the device is fully shut down and powered on again.

No. The ALPON X4 is fanless by design. The aluminum enclosure acts as a passive heat sink and dissipates heat across the full operating range of -20 to +60 °C. There are no moving parts. For installations near the upper temperature limit, mount the device on a thermally conductive surface and leave at least 50 mm of clearance around the enclosure for natural convection.

The ALPON X4 operates from -20 to +60 °C ambient and tolerates storage from -40 to +85 °C. The aluminum enclosure is rated IP40, which protects against solid objects larger than 1 mm but not against water ingress. For outdoor or splash-prone deployments, install inside a sealed industrial enclosure with the optional IP67 outdoor antenna.

The device ships with ALPON X4 OS, a Sixfab-customized 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS Lite (Bookworm) image for the Raspberry Pi CM4. It includes the Sixfab Connect agent, ModemManager, Docker, OpenSSH, mDNS, the VPN client, and the hardware watchdog daemon pre-installed. Other operating systems are not supported. Re-flashing the device with a stock Raspberry Pi OS will break access to system services like the cellular failover manager and the watchdog.

The default user is alpon with password sixfab.

The hostname is derived from the MAC address as alpon-<MAC>, so you can reach it over mDNS on the local network:

# 1. By hostname (mDNS)
ssh alpon@alpon-<MAC>.local

# 2. Or by IP
ssh alpon@<DEVICE_IP>

When the local network is unavailable, use the browser-based remote terminal in ALPON Cloud. It works over cellular alone. You can also attach a monitor to the HDMI port and a USB keyboard for direct console access.

Use the standard Debian user-management commands:

# 1. Create a new user
sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash <your_username>
sudo passwd <your_username>

# 2. Grant administrative (sudo) privileges
sudo usermod -aG sudo <your_username>

After creating your own admin user, change the alpon password to something long and random. Do not delete the alpon account.

ALPON X4 OS is Debian-based, so updates use the standard apt workflow:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo reboot   # only if a kernel or firmware package was upgraded

The ALPON X4 ships with a hardware-backed security foundation:

• TPM 2.0 on SPI for sealed storage and secure boot keys
• Factory-provisioned device identity bound to ALPON Cloud
• Signed ALPON X4 OS packages delivered through authenticated APT repositories
• Per-user SSH keys and password rotation through ALPON Cloud
• Hardware watchdog (SW1) for autonomous recovery from hung services

Containers are the recommended deployment unit. Two paths are supported:

1. ALPON Cloud (recommended for fleets): push container images to the device through the Sixfab Connect console or API. Cloud handles versioning, rollbacks, secrets, and health.
2. Direct Docker (single device): SSH in and use docker run or docker compose up -d against your registry.

Build every image for ARM64 (Cortex-A72). x86_64 images will not run.

The CM4 is ARMv8 (64-bit), so containers must be built for linux/arm64. Use docker buildx with the --platform linux/arm64 flag, or build natively on the device.

# Cross-build from a workstation
docker buildx build --platform linux/arm64   -t <your_registry>/myapp:1.0   --push .

Yes. Map the host device files into the container:

docker run --privileged   --device /dev/gpiochip0   --device /dev/i2c-1   --device /dev/ttyAMA0   <your_registry>/myapp:1.0

For docker-compose, set privileged: true and list the same paths under devices:.

Container stdout / stderr is captured by the Docker JSON-file driver and forwarded by the Sixfab Connect agent to ALPON Cloud, where logs are searchable per device and per container. For local debugging, use docker logs -f <CONTAINER> over SSH.

Sixfab Connect is the fleet-management console for ALPON devices. It handles device registration, health monitoring, remote terminal access, container deployment, OTA updates, eSIM profile management, and network failover configuration. Every ALPON ships with a Sixfab Connect agent pre-installed.

1. Open connect.sixfab.com and sign in.
2. Scan the QR code on the device label, or select Manual registration and enter the serial number.
3. Bind the device to an organization and asset group.
4. Power the device on. First provisioning takes up to 3 minutes.

The device appears as Online once the Connection Status LED turns solid green.

No, but it is strongly recommended for production. Without ALPON Cloud you lose remote terminal access, OTA, fleet health visibility, eSIM management, and the network failover console. The device still functions standalone with SSH plus local Docker, but you give up the operational layer that makes large fleets practical.

Yes. The Sixfab Connect agent uses mutually authenticated TLS for the control channel and the remote terminal. Container images and OTA payloads are pulled over HTTPS. Per-device credentials are issued at provisioning time and rotated automatically.

The ALPON X4 is certified for:

CE FCC IC UKCA RoHS WEEE REACH PTCRB

Carrier and regional certifications include Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and GCF, with ICASA and RCM in progress on applicable variants. The full conformity declaration list is on the Safety & Compliance page.

The ALPON X4 ships with a 2-year limited warranty against manufacturing defects under normal use. The warranty does not cover damage from out-of-range power input, connecting Ethernet or PoE to the GPIO Add-on port, unauthorized modification of the OS image or hardware, operation outside the rated environmental envelope, or physical and electrostatic damage.

• Supplying voltage outside the 9 to 30 V DC input range on the terminal block
• Plugging Ethernet or PoE into the GPIO Add-on port
• Re-flashing the device with a non-Sixfab OS image
• Operating outside the -20 to +60 °C ambient envelope
• Impact damage, liquid ingress, or ESD damage

See Safety & Compliance for the full list.

The ALPON X4 complies with the EU WEEE directive. Do not dispose of it in unsorted household waste. Return the device through an authorized WEEE collection point, a local electronics recycler, or to Sixfab for responsible processing. Erase sensitive data from the eMMC before disposal.