Hackers are buzzing with ideas from Pi-powered arcade machines and drones to the home automation and low-cost tablets. 10 coolest uses for the Raspberry Pi article tells that TechRepublic has delved into the Raspbery Pi’s developer forums, and here’s our round-up of the best ideas so far, ranging from the eminently achievable to the massively ambitious. You can use your Raspberry Pi for example as media streamer, arcade machine, tablet computer, robot controller and home automation controller. Rasberry Pi homepage offers also some more interesting projects like Retro games and a retro joystick.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/13841-fedora-tulee-raspberry-pi-korteille
Tomi Engdahl says:
M-BUS HAT for Raspberry Pi
M-BUS HAT to extend your Raspberry Pi with smartmetering functions
https://hackaday.io/project/185590-m-bus-hat-for-raspberry-pi
With this Raspberry Pi HAT you can extend your Raspberry Pi with functions for smart metering. The HAT provides an M-Bus master to which other M-Bus devices such as electricity, water or gas meters (with the appropriate interface) can be connected directly. The M-Bus interface is an European standard (EN 13757-2 and EN 13757-3) made for communication on two wires, making it very cost effective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi SDR Cyberdeck
A portable, rugged, self-contained system to suit all your RF SIGINT needs in every environment.
https://hackaday.io/project/174301-raspberry-pi-sdr-cyberdeck
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sequent Microsystems Unveils a 40A 240V High-Load Relay Board for the Raspberry Pi
https://www.hackster.io/news/sequent-microsystems-unveils-a-40a-240v-high-load-relay-board-for-the-raspberry-pi-ff0b21169be9
Hefty board can be daisy-chained over RS485 for up to 1MW of switching power — enough, its creators claim, for “1,000 homes.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Guitar Amplifier
https://hackaday.io/project/186218-raspberry-pi-guitar-amplifier
Guitar Amplifier and effects made with Raspberry Pi and reused Vox amplifier case
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Hack it Back
This project was created on 07/05/2022 and last updated 9 hours ago.
Description
I took a Vox VT20+ amp I had that had stopped working, took out everything but the speaker and wired in a Raspberry pi, power supplies, class D amplifier, potentiometers (to set the effect levels), leds, and even VU lights on the front. I used Python and the pyo audio library to do the effects and the GPIOzero module to read the pots.
I built this amp in partnership with my guitar teacher. I taught him Python and a little bit of the electronics and he picked out the effects and how we adjusted them. He is building his own also. Maybe I can get him to post!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steve Anderson’s Loki Is a “Super Spectrum” Combining Raspberry Pi 4 and FPGA Power in a Custom Case
Designed for modern and retro computing, Loki is the “Super Spectrum” Anderson could never have as a child.
https://www.hackster.io/news/steve-anderson-s-loki-is-a-super-spectrum-combining-raspberry-pi-4-and-fpga-power-in-a-custom-case-ed2d0be37340
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Unlocks Door Automatically with Facial Recognition
By Ash Hill published 4 days ago
Hands-free security with the power of Pi
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-facial-recognition-lock
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/model-railway-builds-featuring-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Are You Being Followed? Use a Raspberry Pi to Find Out
Using inexpensive components, a Black Hat presenter built a device that sniffs the airwaves to check for people on your tail.
https://uk.pcmag.com/security/142060/are-you-being-followed-use-a-raspberry-pi-to-find-out
Tomi Engdahl says:
Livestreaming Backpack Takes Streaming On-The-Go
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/19/livestreaming-backpack-takes-streaming-on-the-go/
Anyone who’s anyone on the internet these days occasionally streams content online. Whether that’s the occasional livestream on YouTube or an every day video game session on Twitch, it’s definitely a trend that’s here to stay. If you want to take your streaming session on the go, though, you’ll need some specialized hardware like [Melissa] built into this livestreaming backpack.
[Melissa] isn’t actually much of a streamer but built this project just to see if it could be done. The backpack hosts a GoPro camera with a USB interface, mounted on one of the straps of the pack with some 3D printed parts, allowing it to act as a webcam. It is plugged into a Raspberry Pi which is set up inside the backpack, and includes a large heat sink to prevent it from overheating in its low-ventilation environment. There’s also a 4G modem included along with a USB battery pack to keep everything powered up.
Building an open source IRL livestreaming backpack
https://codecat.nl/2022/08/irl-backpack/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multispectral Imaging System Built With Raspberry Pi
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/25/multispectral-imaging-system-built-with-raspberry-pi/
Multispectral imaging can be a useful tool, revealing all manner of secrets hidden to the human eye. [elad orbach] built a rig to perform such imaging using the humble Raspberry Pi.
The project is built inside a dark box which keeps outside light from polluting the results. A camera is mounted at the top to image specimens installed below, which the Pi uses to take photos under various lighting conditions. The build relies on a wide variety of colored LEDs for clean, accurate light output for accurate imaging purposes.
https://eladorbach.blogspot.com/2019/04/multi-spectral-imaging-system.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Off-Grid Garden Watering System
https://hackaday.io/project/187079-off-grid-garden-watering-system
Solar powered watering system controlled with a Raspberry Pi to deliver an exact metered water volume to your garden plot, on schedule
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2017/09/12/pedal-pi-simple-programmable-guitar-pedal/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.electrosmash.com/forum/pedal-pi/207-basics-of-audio-dsp-in-c-for-rapsberry-pi-zero?lang=en
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi-Based Thermal Camera Helps Hack Keypads
https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-based-thermal-camera-helps-hack-keypads-f69792e689d0
Redditor MrBlack-Magic used a Pi to build a thermal camera that can analyze a keypad to decipher a passcode after a user enters it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Find the right rack mount kit for your Raspberry Pis at racknex!
https://shop.racknex.com/single-board-computer-kits/raspberry-pi-rack-mount/?fbclid=IwAR3YO6APsYQpOEMx4J0SOKSMi_tb4JNlVBP12mkZdP6UisKnnQpEcgQ3cLU
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eavesdropping on the eavesdroppers:
Using a Raspberry Pi and a Software Defined Radio to determine if a laptop microphone is activated
Boffins build microphone safety kit to detect eavesdroppers
TickTock mic lock won’t work on Apple
https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/12/mic_monitoring_spying/
Scientists from the National University of Singapore and Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea have developed a device for verifying whether your laptop microphone is secretly recording your conversations.
The researchers – Soundarya Ramesh, Ghozali Suhariyanto Hadi, Sihun Yang, Mun Choon Chan, and Jun Han – call the device TickTock. That may suit a lab project but would obviously invite a trademark lawsuit from a similarly named social media company were commercialization ever considered.
The mic-monitoring gadget is described in an ArXiv paper titled, “TickTock: Detecting Microphone Status in Laptops Leveraging Electromagnetic Leakage of Clock Signals.”
TickTock as a prototype consists of a near-field probe, a radio-frequency amplifier, software defined radio (SDR) and a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The researchers envision the device’s final form will be similar to a USB drive, one that can be placed next to, or clipped to, a laptop to alert the user to any change in the device’s mic status.
TickTock, they explain, relies on the fact that digital MEMS microphones on commodity laptops emanate electromagnetic (EM) signals when active.
“The emanation stems from the cables and connectors that carry the clock signals to the mic hardware, ultimately to operate its analog-to-digital converter (ADC),” they explain. “TickTock captures this leakage to identify the on/off status of the laptop mic.”
Creating the mic status sensor required overcoming several challenges. One is that the frequency of the mic clock signal differs depending on the audio codec chip in a given laptop.
Another is that the area of the laptop that will leak the strongest EM signal differs based on how the device was wired. And finally, captured EM signals include noise from other circuits that needs to be filtered out to prevent false positives.
The end result was fairly successful, apart from on Apple’s hardware. “Although our approach works well on 90 percent of the tested laptops, including all tested models from popular vendors such as Lenovo, Dell, HP and Asus, TickTock fails to detect the mic clock signals in three laptops, all of which are Apple MacBooks,” the boffins state in their paper.
TickTock had less success against 40 other devices, meaning smartphones, tablets, smart speakers and USB web-cameras. There, it managed to detect a mic clock frequency in 21 out of 40 devices.
The researchers say this is likely due to the usage of analog rather than digital mics in some smartphone models, to the lack of power constraints in plugged in mic-equipped hardware like smart speakers, and to the way in which small form factor hardware relies on shorter wire lengths that reduce EM emissions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Can Still Use a Pager in 2022
How a Raspberry Pi will help you resurrect this classic communications device
Pagers were popular many years ago, and some people may still have one at home. Is it possible to test the pager now? Absolutely, and this will show you how to do it.
https://debugger.medium.com/howto-using-a-pager-in-the-21st-century-6a57454ecde8
#POCSAG #DAPNET
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pi-Tac: Raspberry Pi-Enabled Tic Tac Box
This portable project crams a Raspberry Pi Zero W and camera setup inside a Tic Tac container.
https://www.hackster.io/news/pi-tac-raspberry-pi-enabled-tic-tac-box-0f3c4a2dfb48
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/09/20/its-pi-all-the-way-down-with-this-pi-powered-pi-picking-robot/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Grants Remote Access Via PCIe (Sort Of)
https://hackaday.com/2022/09/20/raspberry-pi-grants-remote-access-via-pcie-sort-of/
Jeff] found a Raspberry Pi — well, the compute module version, anyway — in an odd place: on a PCI Express card. Why would you plug a Raspberry Pi into a PC? Well, you aren’t exactly. The card uses the PCI Express connector as a way to mount in the computer and connect to the PC’s ground. The Pi exposes its own network cable and is powered by PoE or a USB C cable. So what does it do? It offers remote keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) services. The trick is you can then get to the PC remotely even if you need to access, say, the BIOS setup screen or troubleshoot an OS that won’t boot.
This isn’t a new idea. In fact, we’ve seen the underlying Pi-KVM software before
BliKVM PCIe puts a computer in your computer
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/blikvm-pcie-puts-computer-your-computer
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/24/true-networked-kvm-without-breaking-the-bank/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi just turned 10. Celebrate by learning how it works.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Red Reactor Is a Smart, Feature-Packed Underslung Battery Board for Your Raspberry Pi Projects
Designed to provide power without taking up too much room, the Red Reactor sits underneath your Raspberry Pi with up to two 18650 cells.
https://www.hackster.io/news/the-red-reactor-is-a-smart-feature-packed-underslung-battery-board-for-your-raspberry-pi-projects-908e5de96c91
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Old Samsung TV/Radio Has a Second Life as a Portable Raspberry Pi-Powered Personal Computer
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-old-samsung-tv-radio-has-a-second-life-as-a-portable-raspberry-pi-powered-personal-computer-69e4e0152f81
Having received a 1980s analog TV/radio from a family member, Darkextratoasty put it to work as the basis for a portable PC mod.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Guitar Amplifier
Guitar Amplifier and effects made with Raspberry Pi and reused Vox amplifier case
https://hackaday.io/project/186218-raspberry-pi-guitar-amplifier
I took a Vox VT20+ amp I had that had stopped working, took out everything but the speaker and wired in a Raspberry pi, power supplies, class D amplifier, potentiometers (to set the effect levels), leds, and even VU lights on the front. I used Python and the pyo audio library to do the effects and the GPIOzero module to read the pots.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Raspberry Pi Phone For The Modern Era
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/10/a-raspberry-pi-phone-for-the-modern-era/
While it might seem like mobile phones are special devices, both in their ease of use and in their ubiquity in the modern culture, they are essentially nothing more than small form-factor computers with an extra radio and a few specific pieces of software to run. In theory, as long as you can find that software (and you pay for a service plan of some sort) you can get any computer to work as a phone. So naturally, the Raspberry Pi was turned into one.
[asherdundas], the phone’s creator, actually found a prior build based around the Raspberry Pi before starting this one. The problem was that it was built nearly a decade ago, and hadn’t been updated since. This build brings some modernization to the antiquated Pi phone, and starts with a 3D printed case. It also houses a touchscreen and a GSM antenna to connect to the cell network. With some other odds and ends, like a speaker and microphone, plus a battery and the software to tie it all together, a modern functional Raspberry Pi phone was created, with some extra details available on the project page.
Raspberry Pi Phone
Raspberry Pi Phone-Your Own Phone That Can Call and Text Under $70
https://hackaday.io/project/187640-raspberry-pi-phone
Build Your Own Smartphone
https://www.instructables.com/Build-Your-Own-Smartphone/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tottakai joku teki Raspberry Pistä älypuhelimen
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/14102-tottakai-joku-teki-raspberry-pistae-aelypuhelimen
Raspberry Pi on maailman suosituin sulautettu korttitietokone ja sillä on toteutettu oikeastaan kaikenlaisia laitteita valvontakameroista mediapalvelimiin. Nyt Hackaday esittelee yhden rakentelijan projektia, jossa kortista on tehty älypuhelin.
Asialla on asherdundes-niminen kehittäjä. Hän on liittänyt Raspberry Pi 3 B+ -kortille 3,5-tuumaisen kosketusnäytön, joka tukee myös kynän käyttöä. Ohjeissa projekti alkaa näytön liittämisellä Pin nastoihin. Mikrofoniksi käy USB-väylään sopiva mikki.
Raspberry Pi Phone
Raspberry Pi Phone-Your Own Phone That Can Call and Text Under $70
https://hackaday.io/project/187640-raspberry-pi-phone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can a Raspberry Pi, a tiny screen, and the bit off the end of the sticky out arm of a satellite dish pick up Starlink satellites zooming overhead?
Yes. Yes it can…
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/detect-starlink-satellites-with-a-pi-powered-tricorder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
37 Amazing Uses for the Raspberry Pi
https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/the-huge-list-of-raspberry-pi-uses/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/detect-starlink-satellites-with-a-pi-powered-tricorder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/homemade-anti-tracking-device/
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Best Self-Hosted Apps for Your Raspberry Pi
https://linuxiac.com/best-self-hosted-raspberry-pi-apps/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Powers DIY Headless M8 Synthesizer
By Ash Hill published 1 day ago
Build this groovy Pi project block by block, bit by bit.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-headless-m8-synthesizer
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/pi-based-spectrometer-gets-an-upgrade/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Easy-To-Make Pi-Powered Pocket Password Pal
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/an-easy-to-make-pi-powered-pocket-password-pal/
Sometimes, we see a project where it’s clear – its creator seriously wants to make a project idea accessible to newcomers; and today’s project is one of these cases. The BYOPM – Bring Your Own Password Manager, a project by [novamostra] – is a Pi Zero-powered device to carry your passwords around in. This project takes the now well-explored USB gadget feature of the Pi Zero, integrates it into a Bitwarden-backed password management toolkit to make a local-network-connected password storage, and makes a tutorial simple enough that anybody can follow it to build their own.
BYOPM – Bring Your Own Password Manager
https://novamostra.com/2022/10/23/byopm/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://peter.turczak.de/en/content/projects/pirack/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi logiikkaohjaimen moottoriksi
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/14196-raspberry-pi-logiikkaohjaimen-moottoriksi
Teollisuuden sulautettujen ratkaisujen kärkinimiin kuuluva Kontron on esitellyt Raspberry Pi 4 -korttitietokoneeseen perustuvan ohjelmoitavan PiXtend Pi 4 -logiikkaohjaimen. KOntron esittelee uutuutta SPS 2022 -messuilla.
PiXtend Pi 4 -logiikkaohjain todistaa ennen kaikkea Raspberry Pi -korttien monikäyttöisyydestä. 4 polven korttitietokone on myös suorituskykyinen, sillä prosessorina on neliytiminen Arm Cortex-A72 -pohjainen Broadcom BCM2711. Sen kellotaajuus yltää jo 1,5 gigahertsiin.
PiXtend-ohjain voidaan ohjelmoida yleisillä ohjelmointikielillä, kuten C tai Python, ja se sopii käytettäväksi CODESYS SoftPLC -ohjaimen kanssa. Moduulit ovat laajennettavissa PiXtend eIO:lla, I/O-järjestelmällä digitaalisille ja analogisille antureille ja toimilaitteille, jotka voidaan liittää Modbusin kautta.
Kaikki ohjaimet ja moduulit ovat saatavana Basic- tai Pro-versioina täydellisenä laitteena DIN-kiskokotelolla
Tomi Engdahl says:
Justin Grimes’ Robot Motion Turns a Raspberry Pi Into a Python-Powered MOSFET-Style ESC
If you need to control brushless DC motors but don’t have an ESC to hand, this handy Python application will work in its place.
https://www.hackster.io/news/justin-grimes-robot-motion-turns-a-raspberry-pi-into-a-python-powered-mosfet-style-esc-8e1fef65e923
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emulate Any ISA Card With A Raspberry Pi And An FPGA
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/13/emulate-any-isa-card-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-an-fpga/
One of the reasons the IBM PC platform became the dominant standard for desktop PCs back in the mid-1980s was its open hardware design, based around what would later be called the ISA bus. Any manufacturer could design plug-in cards or even entire computers that were hardware and software compatible with the IBM PC. Although ISA has been obsolete for most purposes since the late 1990s, some ISA cards such as high-quality sound cards have become so popular among retrocomputing enthusiasts that they now fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay.
So what can you do if your favorite ISA card is not easily available? One option is to head over to [eigenco]’s GitHub page and check out his FrankenPiFPGA project. It contains a design for a simple ISA plug-in card that hooks up to a Cyclone IV FPGA and a Raspberry Pi. The FPGA connects to the ISA bus and implements its bus architecture, while the Pi communicates with the FPGA through its GPIO ports and emulates any card you want in software. [eigenco]’s current repository contains code for several sound cards as well as a hard drive and a serial mouse. The Pi’s multi-core architecture allows it to run several of these tasks at once while still keeping up the reasonably high data rate required by the ISA bus.
https://github.com/eigenco/frankenpi
frankenpi
This is an experimental project to connect Raspberry Pi with the help of cheap Cyclone IV FPGA board to 8-bit ISA bus to act as multiple different devices.
What is currently implemented (to some degree), i.e. PC can access through ISA
Mass storage access from a file on the Raspberry Pi (written sectors are flushed every 2 seconds by default)
Adlib output to optical SPDIF
Sound Blaster 8-bit mono with DMA and IRQ (basic functions only), output to optical SPDIF
Gravis Ultrasound (basic wavetable only), output to optical SPDIF
Roland MT-32 (UART only), output to optical SPDIF
USB mouse plugged into the Raspberry Pi will appear as a kind of serial mouse in DOS, custom ctmouse driver is provided (start with /v)
Boot from custom TVGA9000i VGABIOS, i.e. no other devices are required to be present in the ISA bus besides FrakenPi and VGA-adapter
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/how-to-use-a-raspberry-pi-in-kiosk-mode/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/host-your-own-mastodon-instance-on-a-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Seasonal Raspberry Pi-Powered Diorama Is an Internet of Christmas Villages
Sick of the tangle of cables powering a model village collection, “omantn” has automated everything — including a working train.
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-seasonal-raspberry-pi-powered-diorama-is-an-internet-of-christmas-villages-25d0891859d7
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/simulate-a-cosy-plane-ride-with-raspberry-pi-zero/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-audio-boards-green
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/12/03/pitalk-4g-hat-for-raspberry-pi-4g-usb-dongle-m2m-iot-applications/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-audio-boards-for-your-hi-fi-projects/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronic music icon Korg makes music with Raspberry Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/electronic-music-icon-korg-makes-music-with-raspberry-pi/
Built on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3
Korg’s new line of more accessible digital synthesizers includes several that are built on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3. A lot of horsepower is required to deliver the kind of professional-quality audio we’ve come to expect, but Korg R&D didn’t want to exclude buyers with exorbitant price tags. 1988’s iconic M1 keyboard sold for $2,749, which would be about $6,800 in today’s money. The goal with these newer designs was to come in at a sub-$1000 price point.
Using Compute Module 3 meant that there was no need to lay out a board, build, and test it – Raspberry Pi had already done that for them. So they could focus on other design aspects like the physical keyboard and audio hardware, knowing that the CPU, RAM, and storage were already taken care of.
Korg’s history and their future with Raspberry Pi
We talked for ages with Korg R&D to learn more about where they came from, how they’ve changed, and why they turned to Raspberry Pi for their next phase.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pi Zero 2 Robot Navigation Head
https://hackaday.io/project/186622-pi-zero-2-robot-navigation-head
(it’s a gimbal) with OpenCV/range scanning and IMU for navigating a wireless robot platforms by API
Previous name: Floating Navigation Sensor Assembly (FNSA)
This is using a combination of Open CV and depth probing via short and long range ToF sensors/Lidar. The entire sensor assembly is designed to pan/tilt around an IMU and the IMU determines the sensor plane’s attitude in 3D space.
This navigation unit then wirelessly operates a robot via a websocket API (ESP8266 robot).
I abandoned the other one because the physical design was bad and it was using a Pi Zero W 1 where as this one is using a 2 which means quad core/faster Open CV processing. The IMU is also “better” for positioning (hopefully) vs. the servos only/fighting stiff wires.
I call it floating because it does not use slip rings/it’s all contained/separate from the robot motion system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Self-Contained System Gathers Outdoor Sounds for Ecological Research
Using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, speakers, a microphone, and a solar panel, this unit can record and play back detected noise.
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-self-contained-system-gathers-outdoor-sounds-for-ecological-research-7d8cc9fd1f98