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Ten million Raspberry Pis

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#21

Post by pipio21 »

creshal wrote: post #2

I wonder how many of them are just collecting dust in peoples' desk drawers. We ordered two of the original ones for our office to play around with them, but only now, after 4½ years, I finally managed to find use for one as music player, after I decided I was too lazy to plug/unplug the speakers from my laptop.

That was my fear before buying it. Now I have 10 or so.

I use them more or less this way:

-One for the TV, it lets me watch things that the smart TV can't.

-Three controlling my 3d printers with octoprint.

-Two on each car for recording video with cameras and GPS info.

-Three or so for controlling DSLR cameras and motors for panoramas, 3D scanning and so on.

They are extremely convenient for making things for other people(job or family), like prototypes, as I don't need to interface(or spend time) with their computers, I can just give them a computer!! all without breaking the bank.

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#22

Post by wlll »

creshal wrote: post #2

I wonder how many of them are just collecting dust in peoples' desk drawers. We ordered two of the original ones for our office to play around with them, but only now, after 4½ years, I finally managed to find use for one as music player, after I decided I was too lazy to plug/unplug the speakers from my laptop.

I built a robot with mine:

https://blog.willj.net/category/robotics/

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#23

Post by rwmj »

wlll wrote: post #22
creshal wrote: post #2

I wonder how many of them are just collecting dust in peoples' desk drawers. We ordered two of the original ones for our office to play around with them, but only now, after 4½ years, I finally managed to find use for one as music player, after I decided I was too lazy to plug/unplug the speakers from my laptop.

I built a robot with mine: https://blog.willj.net/category/robotics/

Mine sits there quietly, connected to a GPS receiver, providing a sub-millisecond accurate NTP source for my network.

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#24

Post by nikon »

I found quite a good use for mine. I'm sure I could achieve it with something like DD-WRT, but it was fun:

Installed Debian on a Pi 3 Model B. Put the device in a case[0].

Installed dnsmasq[1] to manage local DHCP/DNS. Forwards to Google DNS. Also have everything running on a local search domain, along with some reservations.

Installed OpenVPN along with a dynamic DNS daemon[2] so I can VPN into my home network from anywhere. Good for setting up things for download while at work for example.

[0] http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/development-board-enclosures/9...

[1] http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html

[1] http://freedns.afraid.org

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#27

Post by wepple »

creshal wrote: post #2

I wonder how many of them are just collecting dust in peoples' desk drawers. We ordered two of the original ones for our office to play around with them, but only now, after 4½ years, I finally managed to find use for one as music player, after I decided I was too lazy to plug/unplug the speakers from my laptop.

I've recently dusted off my original RPi that'd been collecting dust, installed the lite[1] non-X raspbian distro, and plan to see how long I can survive with it as my sole desktop at home, using my phone when I desperately need to check in with peoples cat and breakfast photos.

[1] I remember when 'lite' was 1.44mb, not 2.5gb

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#28

Post by nickpsecurity »

rwmj wrote: post #23
wlll wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built a robot with mine: https://blog.willj.net/category/robotics/

Mine sits there quietly, connected to a GPS receiver, providing a sub-millisecond accurate NTP source for my network.

Google Spanner uses GPS for database syncing. Maybe a cheap clone of it could use a Pi for that part. Indirectly, temporarily boost the RPi sales if it takes off.

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#29

Post by shoq »

creshal wrote: post #2

I wonder how many of them are just collecting dust in peoples' desk drawers. We ordered two of the original ones for our office to play around with them, but only now, after 4½ years, I finally managed to find use for one as music player, after I decided I was too lazy to plug/unplug the speakers from my laptop.

We use them for a customer facing display with a barcode scanner to register visits within our system and to give instructions based on capacity (wait for call or proceed). Not one of them failed us since the installation one year ago. And when it happens, we have a complete backup Pi ready to replace the broken one at every site because they are so damn cheap. Before the Pi ~$500 "mini" PCs where used.

Re: Ten million Raspberry Pis

#30

Post by nickpsecurity »

agumonkey wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is an unashamedly premium product", says the webpage. The Pi was originally designed with re-using existing peripherals, and will be used that way most of the time, but there's still demand for a premium starter kit.

That's still twisting words. There's nothing "premium" here, it's just a kit. People should spend 50 bucks on a 2nd hand Core2Duo ThinkPad and some mcu for GPIO, they'll learn as much for less.

I agree. The eBay hand-me-down market is strong for high-performance gear in this range. I've also seen FPGA kits and SGI Altix servers at similar price. Nothing wrong with new products at various price points but lets not kid ourselves on their relative value.
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