DIY Streaming Backpack for IRL Streaming with a Raspberry Pi and Speedify

DIY: IRL Streaming Backpack with a Raspberry Pi and Speedify Network Bonding Technology

The Concept: a Budget IRL Streaming Backpack

A streaming backpack (also called a streamer backpack or IRL backpack) is a bag that carries what you need to live stream on the move: the internet connections, the device that combines them, and the batteries that power everything. Commercial options do the combining with a dedicated hardware box. The Speedify team set out to build a cheap, do-it-yourself version of the LiveU Solo, the popular live-streaming hardware. The LiveU Solo combines cellular connections in hardware (link aggregation) and transcodes video in real time to keep video quality steady while you move around outside.

So the Speedify team installed Speedify on a Raspberry Pi 4. Speedify combines internet connections in software, which covered the combining part of the job right away.

The requirements for this setup:

• stay close to a standard IRL streaming setup on the outside, with cables concealed in the backpack as much as possible.
• keep the stream stable while moving around outside by combining internet connections: sending data over several 4G/5G cellular connections from different carriers at the same time.

The video from a phone or camera had to go through Speedify to Twitch.

And since all of this happens in a backpack, the setup had to be easy to control without a monitor or keyboard.

DIY IRL Streaming Backpack Components List

After researching streaming backpacks and camera equipment, the Speedify team settled on a smartphone, preferably one with the video capabilities of an iPhone 11 Pro or newer (see here a few suggestions). The test used an iPhone 7, which was more than adequate. If the iPhone is your whole setup, see how to stream IRL outdoors with an iPhone.

The cost for this can be $0 if you already have a smartphone with those capabilities. If not, add the cost of an iOS or Android phone, starting from a few hundred dollars. The smartphone connects to the internet over Wi-Fi from the Raspberry Pi.

The computer is a Raspberry Pi 4, for an additional $55, kept cool and protected in a $10 GeeekPi Acrylic RPi 4 Fan case.

A battery pack ($38) powers the whole setup.

The smartphone sits on a $23 Smatree telescoping selfie stick, and a Cocoon GRID IT! Accessory Organizer ($11) holds everything together. Any backpack works; the build used a Jansport backpack that was already lying around.

Finally, you need your internet connections. You can borrow phones from friends to tether or plug in a few USB cellular adapters. The build used two phones tethered to the Raspberry Pi over USB.

This brings the budget to about $175 plus the cost of the smartphone, if you don’t have one, and the dedicated streaming software, if you need to livestream on multiple platforms at once. This is still cheaper than the Gunrun backpack, and you may not need to buy all of this equipment if you already have similar items.
Of course, if you’re looking to create a home studio for streaming, you’ll have to go higher.

Software You Need for a Raspberry Pi Live Streaming Backpack

As mentioned before, one of the core elements of this live streaming backpack is Speedify, an app that can combine multiple internet sources into one connection for more stable and secure live streaming, video calling and web browsing. You can easily set up Speedify on your Raspberry Pi using the instructions here.

And, as mentioned above, if you want to live stream to more than one platform at once (Twitch, YouTube, Facebook Live, Instagram and others), you need a dedicated streaming solution. Here are some examples:

• Streamlabs OBS: apps for both iOS and Android
• Streamyard: runs in the browser
• Melon: runs in the browser
• Restream: runs in the browser.

Final Steps: Get the IRL Streaming Backpack Up-and-Running

The Speedify team first tried building OBS on the Raspberry Pi, but it proved too unstable, and the streaming quality was limited by the Raspberry Pi’s hardware.

So the build uses the Raspberry Pi as a router that combines internet connections, sharing the combined Speedify connection with the smartphone over Wi-Fi, which keeps the setup easy to operate from a backpack.

You can use any streaming solution that supports your smartphone’s operating system (iOS or Android).

All you have to do is:

• connect your smartphone over Wi-Fi to the combined Speedify connection from the Raspberry Pi (check out this guide on how to set that up).
• start the livestream from your smartphone, either through the dedicated streaming solution or directly from the social media platform’s app.

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