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OLO Appliance

The OLO Appliance is robot-side software that manages the connection between ROS2 and the web portal, and executes your code locally. It provides the OLO SDK runtime, manages script execution and scheduling, and connects to the OLO Portal for visualisation, AI-assisted code development, and deployment.

Deployment Options

Cloud Sim (No Setup Required)

When using Cloud Sim, the OLO Appliance is automatically provisioned for you. The platform dynamically creates, boots, and connects a virtual appliance to the portal - no installation or configuration required on your part.

How it works:

  1. Select a Cloud Sim robot from the portal
  2. The platform automatically spins up a simulated robot environment with a connected appliance
  3. See your robot's digital twin in the Visualiser and program it in the SDK Playground

This is the fastest way to get started with OLO and is ideal for learning, prototyping, and testing code before deploying to real hardware.

Hardware Appliance

Pre-configured hardware devices available from OLO Robotics. Multiple form factors available from compact edge devices to industrial enclosures.

Setup:

  1. Connect power and wait a minute for the device to boot up.
  2. Connect to Appliance's temporary WiFi access point.
  3. A captive portal appears allowing you to configure the device in the next steps.
  4. Choose the network WiFi (if needed, or ethernet). Your robot and Appliance needs to be on the same network. At this point, you'll access a new link to continue the set up process.
  5. Wait a few minutes for the Appliance to be fully updated.
  6. Register the appliance from the OLO Dashboard using the Add Appliance button (the onboarding screen, or the "+" card in the robots grid). Enter a name for your appliance and the portal will generate an OLO_APL_DEVICE_API_KEY.
  7. Copy the device key immediately -- it is only shown once. Apply OLO_APL_DEVICE_API_KEY to the appliance runtime configuration and restart the appliance process. The robot ID is automatically resolved from the server on first boot.
  8. Appliance appears in OLO Dashboard.
  9. Spin up your ROS2 robot and make sure it's on the same network as the Appliance. You may need to follow manufacturer instructions to enable or run the ROS2 driver.
  10. You may need to install additional robot-specific driver components (e.g. meshes) onto the Appliance which you can do through Maintenance > Terminal section of the portal using bash command syntax.

To rotate an existing key, go to Account & Security > Appliance Device Keys in the dashboard.

Self-hosted Installation

Using this option, you install and configure the appliance on your own hardware.

Download from Docker and follow the instructions.

Register the appliance from the OLO Dashboard using the Add Appliance button. The registration flow generates the device API key you need for your container:

  • OLO_APL_DEVICE_API_KEY

Copy the device key immediately -- it is only shown once. Inject it into your deployment environment and recreate the container so the new environment variable takes effect. The robot ID is automatically resolved from the server on first boot. Follow steps 8-10 above.

To rotate a key, go to Account & Security > Appliance Device Keys in the dashboard. After rotating, update the container env and recreate the container for the change to take effect.