Sourced from
docs/quick-start/setup-wizard.mdin the firmware repo.
Set up the device
From first power-on to a configured device: join the setup network, walk the onboarding wizard, land on the dashboard. About ten minutes; no serial console.
The whole flow at a glance - every step is detailed in the sections below. On a touchscreen board the device shuts its setup hotspot down once it is on your Wi-Fi and the wizard follows it to the new address automatically:
1. Power on
Power the board over USB-C. What you see depends on the mode chosen during flashing:
- Orchestrator shows its own setup Wi-Fi network name and a sign-in QR on the display. Continue below.
- Notifier shows Bluetooth pairing guidance instead - there is no Wi-Fi or web UI in that mode. Jump to the Notifier quick start.
2. Join the setup network
Two steps, in order - the same two the device screen shows:
- Join the setup network shown on the panel:
- Network:
Nimbus-setup(a second device numbers itselfNimbus-2-setup, and so on) - Password: shown on the device screen (unique to your device) - or just scan the QR to join automatically
- Network:
- Open
http://192.168.4.1. A setup page usually opens on its own once you join. If nothing opens, visithttp://192.168.4.1in your browser.
Don't use nimbus.local for this first hop - it is a LAN name and can resolve to
a different Nimbus. The setup page opens the wizard already signed in; there is
no token to copy.
3. Walk the wizard
The wizard asks for two required things and lets you skip the rest:
| Step | Required? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Connect to Wi-Fi | Yes | Scan, pick your home network, type its password. 2.4 GHz only; SSIDs are case-sensitive. |
| Provider key | Yes - one verified key | Paste an API key and click Verify. Mistral is the recommended starting point - free tier, and the voice default; OpenAI and Anthropic work too. Have the key ready before you start (see Get your provider key); you cannot fetch one now, on the device's own Wi-Fi. Keys are write-only: shown as "set", never displayed again. |
| Operating mode | Skippable | Defaults to what the installer chose; changeable later (a change restarts the device). |
| Telegram | Skippable | Add a bot token later under Assistant → Connectors → Telegram. |
| Voice | Skippable | Dictation and spoken replies default to Mistral. |
| Device name | Skippable | One name drives the setup network SSID, the LAN address, the Bluetooth name, and what the assistant calls itself. |
On a touchscreen board, keep the wizard open while the device joins your Wi-Fi: the setup network shuts down after handoff (to protect the panel from its own radio), and the wizard carries you to the device's new LAN address automatically. "Home Wi-Fi connected + setup hotspot off" is the healthy end state, not a failure.
The long-term memory's embedding provider defaults to OpenAI, and it is a set-once choice: changing it later erases the vector memory (every stored embedding becomes unreadable to the new model). If Mistral is your only key, open Memory & Files → Memory settings and switch the embedding provider to Mistral before your first conversation - while the memory is still empty and there is nothing to lose.
What works with which provider
Any one verified provider runs the assistant. A few features are tied to a specific provider or key - honestly, today:
| Feature | Mistral | OpenAI | Anthropic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conversation, tools, sub-agents, routines | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dictation (speech-to-text) | ✓ (default) | ✓ | - |
| Spoken replies over Telegram | ✓ (default) | ✓ | - |
| Spoken replies on the device speaker | - | ✓ | - |
Image generation (image.generate) | - | ✓ | - |
| Long-term memory embeddings | ✓ (switch before first use) | ✓ (default) | - |
| Web search | needs a separate Tavily key (Assistant → Tools → Web search) | same | same |
4. The dashboard
The wizard ends on the device's dashboard at its LAN address - health, battery, memory, and sessions at a glance, with Home, Chat, Memory, the Assistant page (one flat subtab row: Models, Connectors, Tools, Skills, Routines, Usage, and Safety), and Device settings. You sign in once per browser; the sign-in QR on the device screen gets any new browser in.
Full tab-by-tab detail: the web UI reference.
Next: Your first conversation.
How it works → Orchestrator World