Pip-Boy: Fallout's Wrist Computer, Every Model Explained

The Pip-Boy is a wrist-mounted computer made by RobCo Industries and issued to the people of Vault-Tec's Vaults. It tracks its wearer's health, maps the area, stores notes and data, and in later models picks up radio and measures radiation. Every Fallout game puts one on the player's arm, where it works as the menu screen, and the TV series gives one to Lucy MacLean. (Vault Dweller's Survival Guide; Fallout 4; Fallout, "The End")

What a Pip-Boy is#

The Pip-Boy is a personal computer you wear. The original Fallout's manual, written as a Vault-Tec handbook, says Vault-Tec picked the RobCo Pip-Boy 2000 as the Personal Information Processor for its Vault dwellers, because information might be the most valuable weapon there is against the end of civilisation. It's small, worn on the wrist, stores a good amount of data and uses what the manual calls super-deluxe resolution graphics. (Vault Dweller's Survival Guide)

The maker is RobCo, the company founded by Robert House, and Fallout 4's loading screens call the Pip-Boy the ultimate in personal computing devices. (Fallout 4)

What it does#

The core features stay the same across the series. The Pip-Boy tracks the wearer's condition and stats, records notes and quests, keeps a map of everywhere they've been, and has a clock and calendar. The manual for the original game even jokes that the Pip-Boy 2000 handles all calendar dates after the turn of the century, and carries a three-month limited warranty. (Vault Dweller's Survival Guide; Fallout)

Later models add more. The Pip-Boy 3000 brings a built-in radio, a Geiger counter that clicks near radiation and a light for dark places. Fallout 4's Mark IV also plays holotape games such as Atomic Command and Red Menace, and can open Vault doors when plugged into the right console. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

Not everyone thinks it's a good thing. In Dead Money, Father Elijah sneers at the Courier's Pip-Boy as a crutch that tells you where to go and what to do and dulls your brain. (Fallout: New Vegas: Dead Money)

Every Pip-Boy model in the games#

• Pip-Boy 2000. The Vault Dweller's model in the original Fallout, with a black monochrome screen. The Fallout 2 manual calls it one of the holiest artefacts in the world, with few working units left, and the Chosen One carries one too. (Vault Dweller's Survival Guide; Fallout 2 manual)
• Pip-Boy 3000. Given to the Lone Wanderer at their tenth birthday party in Vault 101, in Fallout 3. The Vault's technician, Stanley, says the A series is heavier than fancier models but built to last, and it locks onto the arm. (Fallout 3)
• Pip-Boy 3000A in the Mojave. Doc Mitchell, who grew up in Vault 21, gives the Courier his old Pip-Boy after patching up the bullet wounds that open the game. A gold, diamond-studded version called the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion can be won from Mick in Freeside. (Fallout: New Vegas)
• Pip-Boy 3000 Mark IV. Fallout 4's model, with the dials moved to the right and a latch instead of a lock. Vault 111's frozen residents weren't given any, so the Sole Survivor takes one from a dead Vault-Tec worker. (Fallout 4)
• Pip-Boy 2000 Mark VI. Issued in Fallout 76 to every dweller leaving Vault 76 in Appalachia 25 years after the war. (Fallout 76)

The Pip-Boy in the TV series#

The show's Pip-Boys are sleeker and metal-bodied. They're standard issue in Vault 33, and Lucy is wearing hers when she climbs out to look for her father. (Fallout, "The End")

They existed before the war too. In the season 1 finale Cooper Howard plants a listening device in his wife Barb's Pip-Boy, which is how he overhears Vault-Tec's plan to stage the end of the world. (Fallout, "The Beginning")

Season 2 puts them at the centre of its finale. Robert House offers to guide the Ghoul through the Vault under the Strip if he puts a Pip-Boy on his wrist, then talks to him through it. In Vault 32, Steph switches on a Pip-Boy from Hank's keepsake box and uses it to call the Enclave and order "Phase 2". (Fallout, "The Strip")

Why the Pip-Boy matters#

For a Vault dweller the Pip-Boy is a coming-of-age gift as much as a tool. Vault 101 hands it over at the tenth birthday party, and for the Sole Survivor it's one of the few working things left from the Vault they were frozen in. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

For more on the shelters that issued them, see the Vaults and Vault-Tec.