Live data from Hacker News

Best Raspberry Pi Projects

tomshardware.com

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first thought was, "Why would I need SDR to read temperature/humidity from sensors", then I realized these are more like wireless weather stations. Out of curiosity: why did you decide to purchase ready solutions instead of rolling your own using ESP32 for a fraction of the price?

Not the person you replied to, but someone who did the same thing: Most of the things inside my house are ESP32 or zigbee things I put together myself. Things that go outdoors, though, I'm much more likely to purchase an off-the-shelf solution for longevity's sake. Especially if the whole point of the item is to be rained/snowed on, be left in direct sunlight, and so forth.

You can always build a tiny little house for your outside ESP and leave it outside.

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#32

I wish I could find a project that would recognise a cat by its appearance and open / close a cat flap based on that. It could also make a noise or other distraction at cats that are recognised to deter them from tampering with the cat flap. The cat flaps available on the market use a chip to identify a cat, but this is a terrible method - it doesn't work more often than it does. Many times my cat was attacked by oth…

Also looking for something similar. Our cat never comes indoors and therefore has a food bowl on our porch. Several other cats eat her cat food every day and it feels like we are feeding half a dozen mouths, including birds.

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just need a tiny, fanless board that runs linux, like-new Wyse3040 can be had in any quantity you like for ~$30 - $40 (ethernet only, though). Wyse5010 is a bit bigger and more capable (and has built-in wifi) around the same price.

Where are you seeing these for those prices? ebay? It'd be interesting to see what could be done with boards like this

yes. I've picked up a few on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=wyse+3040

Many listings will not include the power supply, but if you have a drawer full of wall warts, you can probably find something that works.

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#34
post #9

I'll hijack this thread to ask: What are some good Pi alternatives that don't need blobs to boot and run, and that use mainline (or more-or-less mainline) kernels? I don't need any video output, and I'm happy to pay double. What are my options?

http://www.orangepi.org/ ? https://ameridroid.com/collections/single-board-computer ?

Those look like good sources for a variety of SBCs. Thanks! But how do I narrow the selection down to my criteria?

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#35
post #13
post #9

I'll hijack this thread to ask: What are some good Pi alternatives that don't need blobs to boot and run, and that use mainline (or more-or-less mainline) kernels? I don't need any video output, and I'm happy to pay double. What are my options?

Pine64 maybe? https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/PINE64_ROCKPro64

Thanks! That's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for!

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#36

If you want to monitor things around you, and you have an SDR dongle set up, rtl_433 is handy. I have a Pi 3 running it to graph temperature and humidity readings from a couple of remote-reading sensors, plus barometric pressure from a Sense Hat and voltage, load, and battery readings from my UPS. It will display selected readings on the LED display, but I mostly just let mrtg/rrdtool do its thing. https://github.com…

My first thought was, "Why would I need SDR to read temperature/humidity from sensors", then I realized these are more like wireless weather stations. Out of curiosity: why did you decide to purchase ready solutions instead of rolling your own using ESP32 for a fraction of the price?

> why did you decide to purchase ready solutions instead of rolling your own using ESP32 for a fraction of the price?

I already had the sensors long before I had the SDR; they're paired with display units as well.

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#37
What would make the best platform for building some kind of personal dashboard/radiator on an e-ink screen?

I guess ideally I'd spend as little time as possible on tinkering with low-level rendering code.

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#39
post #29
post #4

Where can I get a Pi these days. I have a work project (low volume need about 5 Pi) where I replaced a Matrix Orbital LED display and custom membrane keypad with a Pi and touchscreen. I used my own personal Pi model B but I need a few for the company and they are out of stock everywhere. (displays are not a problem, just the Pi itself)

Depends on where you live, but here in Canada, PiShop ( https://pishop.ca ) usually has 4B kits in stock. I haven't seen single boards being available for a long time though.

Any kits with the 7" touch screen? I need some of those anyway.

Re: Best Raspberry Pi Projects

#40
post #4

Where can I get a Pi these days. I have a work project (low volume need about 5 Pi) where I replaced a Matrix Orbital LED display and custom membrane keypad with a Pi and touchscreen. I used my own personal Pi model B but I need a few for the company and they are out of stock everywhere. (displays are not a problem, just the Pi itself)

I bought Pi Zero 2 on aliexpress few weeks ago. Can't say whether it's genuine as it's not arrived yet. But I did not find it anywhere else.
Post reply on HN