I could have sworn that I've written about this before, but looking back over the posts in this blog, I don't see it....
Most people have a fire safe for their important papers where they keep things like passports, titles, diplomas, small valuables, irreplaceable photos and family memories etc. These are often small boxes that are designed to survive a fire and can easily be taken with you should you need to suddenly leave your home due to some emergency.n
The Digital Bug-Out Box (DBOB) is a version of this for your electronic valuables.
Think about how many of the things you hold dear or depend on exist in electronic form. Photos, home movies, financial statements, medical information, etc. What would happen to these things if you suddenly had to leave your house, apartment, etc.? Maybe some of these things are in "the cloud", but I think all of us are starting to doubt trusting cloud providers completely to take care of our precious, personal or private information.
Beyond these obvious things, there's a lot of other data we cherish and depend on. Music collections, books, films, personal projects and even video games often exist now online in the form of electronic files.
Imagine if you could have something like a fire safe that automatically kept these electronic things safe.
This idea came to me when I was using a Raspberry Pi to monitor one of my Bluetti solar generators. It was awkward having the little computer board just sort of dangling off one of the USB ports of the Bluetti for power, and I thought that maybe there's enough room inside the case to cram it inside there. Once I thought about this, I realized that if I crammed the Raspberry Pi inside the case, I would have a self-contained, portable general-purpose computer or "server" that could be used when the power goes out or taken almost anywhere. So I started thinking about what I might do with such a thing and the idea of using it to preserve precious electronic files was born.
Since then I've experimented with designs that go much further than simply slapping two off-the-shelf components together. The current design is modular, allowing the amount of backup power, storage and computing resources to be customized to some degree.
The most basic configuration consists of a roughly 300Wh of standby capacity, DC output via USB-A and C, 100W solar charging input and maybe an inverter for AC output (I'm not 100% sure this is worth it). On the compute side a single board computer with a multicore RISC-V processor with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and 1TB of redundant storage would be standard. Physically, the device resembles a large lunchbox or small cooler with a sturdy case and an integrated handle. Weight is around 15lbs depending on exactly what components are used.
I've considered making it fire-resistant but there are some very hard problems combining useful levels of fire resistance with a device that has electrical and radio connections, so for now I'm setting that aside. If there is a demand for it, a variant could be designed that provides fire resistance perhaps at the cost of loosing some connectivity options.
Under normal conditions the device works similar to a NAS. While atached to utility power, it maintains it's internal charge and connects to the local WiFi network. To other devices on the network it looks like a regular storage device (a network drive), and a "client" application is available that can be installed on computers and phones to automatically back them up to the device.
In addition to simple file storage, the device also appears as a network printer. When you print to the device, it stores the document as a PDF. This allows virtually any type of information to be stored on the device in format that can later be read by almost any type of computer. These files can be accessed directly via the network drive, or though a web-based search interface hosted by the device. The device also provides other web-based applications for viewing photos, watching videos and listening to music. It's possible to provide other applications although I'm cautious about this because the applications must be written to run efficiently, otherwise they could jeopardize the primary utility of the device.
When the power goes out, or when you have to hit the road, the device can provide it's own WiFi network you can connect to. Once connected, you can continue to use the device just like before.
I've considered some additional functionality as well that would allow these devices to work together. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where several groups of people come together with these devices and could benefit from being able to share resources and/or expand their network coverage across a larger area. So long as measures are taken to ensure the privacy of personal data, there's no reason this sort of collaboration couldn't be part of the system, and I have several designs in mind for implementing just such a thing.
When time allows I'll complete a prototype unit and do some field testing. Personally, I think the most challenging part for me is creating the device and os-specific client software since I long ago gave-up mobile device application development. I'd like to think there is some "universal" application interace I could target to develop these programs, but given that they will, by their nature, need access to most of the data on the devices I don't think that's an option. The network filesharing and "printer" interfaces for storing files on the DBOB could cover a lot of this, but they require conscious effort on the part of the person using it and that feels less than ideal for a device that is intended to be as helpful as possible in an emergency.
Jason J. Gullickson, 2026