Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#41

Post by piceas » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:27 PM UTC

ungawatkt wrote: post #16

bediger4000 wrote: post #3

I've got one of mine collecting weather data https://github.com/bediger4000/station I'm hoping to detect the "tide" in the atmosphere with barometric pressure readings, but I haven't done anything towards that. I'd also like to have an automated way to pick out high/low temperature for the day. I've got 2 thermometers taking temperatures. There's data loss caused by both sensors quitting and operational issues, so I…

I'm doing something similar on my rpi3, but indoor. A few environment sensors + a basic thermostat script to control my box-fan-in-the-window-plus-smart-plug "HVAC" (not that its been anything interesting as far as control during the summer: ON). Data collection is mostly temp, CO2, and PM since I can somewhat calibrate those, plus pulling down the 24 forecasts from NOAA twice a day, all into a sqlite DB with grafana…

My version is a zero 2 with a humidity sensor controlling a dehumidifier via the tradfri plug. Works great.

Time to first graph was quickest with influxdb for me.

Zerotier and nats.io connect the things.

I want to sprinkle some pico w's around for door/window position monitoring.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#42

Post by cbm-vic-20 » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

electric_dreams wrote: post #22

cbm-vic-20 wrote: post #11

Buried inside a PiDP-11, connected to a VT420. Used mostly for IRC. Though I am considering using it to build a bedside radio/clock/alarm that doesn't report back to FAANG. https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11

How do you know it doesn't report back to FAANG?

Because I will build it and verify the code (either open source or my own) won't report any telemetry to them.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#43

Post by VTimofeenko » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 11:48 PM UTC

jamesu wrote: post #10

Using a 4 as a wireless bridge. I've tried using them to host servers (mainly storing data) but been burned too many times using sd cards, and once I inevitably add in an ssd/hdd the value of using the pi vs just getting a cheap significantly more powerful x86 system starts to dwindle. Would love to come up with a project that makes good use of the GPIO pins though.

Recent-ish firmware allows to boot Pi from USB, which IME have been much more durable than sd cards

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#44

Post by bediger4000 » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #5

bediger4000 wrote: post #3

I've got one of mine collecting weather data https://github.com/bediger4000/station I'm hoping to detect the "tide" in the atmosphere with barometric pressure readings, but I haven't done anything towards that. I'd also like to have an automated way to pick out high/low temperature for the day. I've got 2 thermometers taking temperatures. There's data loss caused by both sensors quitting and operational issues, so I…

I wouldn't mind building a weather station at some point as well. It's not something I really need but it would be neat. In conjunction with that, I could also use an RTL-SDR dongle to make a receiver for satellite weather data from various publicly available weather satellites. The other idea I've toyed with is an automatic plant watering system, in service of my aspiration to start growing my own hot peppers (ghost…

DO NOT use a DHT-11 or DHT-22 sensor. Absolute garbage. Spring for the Bosch sensors.

As far as processing the raw data, I'm more interested right now in deciding if I should average which two of the thermometer or barometer readings I've got, and also deciding what to use as a high/low temp for the day - I've had some data dropouts and server crashes where I missed the noon/1pm high temp.

I did get GOES satellite data with a RTL-SDR once a couple of years ago. The antenna is more important than they'd lead you to believe, as is where the antenna is - you pick up a lot of fuzz up to some degrees above the horizon if you place the antenna in an urban setting.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#45

Post by baremetal » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 12:01 AM UTC

Still trying to find one to buy to replace the one that died. But they are out everywhere every time i check

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#46

Post by kmanlives » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 12:19 AM UTC

blockwriter wrote: post #25

mindcrime wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly now is not the best time to get started, as Pi prices and availability are in a Bad Place due to the Chipageddon[1] situation. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/27/chipageddon-ho...

I don't know if I got lucky or not, but I went into a MicroCenter, because I burnt the RPi 4 I was using for a hobby project and they had the RPi 400 kit in stock. They somehow had one loose RPi 4 2GB. MicroCenter will only sell them in store, it seems.

I just hit MicroCenter with my daughter to build a RetroPie this weekend. They would only sell one per household per day (this was in Georgia). I would've bought a second if it were allowed.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#47

Post by PenguinCoder » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 1:31 AM UTC

I have a raspberry pi Zero W as my garage door opener[1]. Wired into the interior buttons and send relevant signals to an open or close the door. I got tired of replacing batteries in the remotes due to heat/freezing cycles. Hooked up a SignalWire SMS number to a webhook that the PI is listening on. Now I can send an SMS text to the garage door to get it to open.

Have other pi's doing many things, but that's the most creative so far.

[1] https://blog.penguincoder.com/garage-opener-1/

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#48

Post by PenguinCoder » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 1:35 AM UTC

jeffdubin wrote: post #19

Raspberry Pi B: Stream a local ham radio repeater (weather spotters) to Broadcastify Raspberry Pi Zero: Brachiograph Raspberry Pi 4B: Octoprint Raspberry Pi 4B: Home Assistant Raspberry Pi 4B: NAS (running Kopia as backup target w/ USB HDD, not speed-critical) Raspberry Pi Zero 2W: ham radio-related software for portable use (e.g. WSJT-X, etc.) using cell phone via WiFi as display/input via RDP To do: MiniDexed synth…

> Raspberry Pi Zero 2W: ham radio-related software for portable use (e.g. WSJT-X, etc.) using cell phone via WiFi as display/input via RDP

I would be interested in a write up about this or hearing more. I let my HAM lapse, but recent got into GMRS. No test required for the license, and way more 'simple'.

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#49

Post by dav43 » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 1:41 AM UTC

pi4B: Nextdns client, tailscale, shared network drive, log aggregator for other devices on my network and also data end point for some iOS Apps (Overland GPS tracker)

Re: Ask HN: How are you using your Raspberry Pi?

#50

Post by ksaj » Wed, Aug 03, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

I use mine mostly for educational pursuits. For example, I have a clusterHAT with a bunch of Zeros on it, which I used to learn MPI.

I also use a pi as a home central server, and other pis for related things around that.

I actually love using the Pi4 with 8G RAM as a desktop with two monitors. I'm not a gamer, so I don't feel any lag.

Lately I've been re-learning a lot of my old electronics project material with the newer Pi Pico microcontroller. I'm actually putting a larger project together with it, that will hopefully go online and not just be for myself.