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://pimylifeup.com/home-assistant-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-store-2023-pop-up-tour/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Best Raspberry Pi HATs 2023: Expansion Boards for Every Project
By Les Pounder published 4 days ago
Raspberry Pi HATs let you add lights, motors, sensors and more.
https://www.tomshardware.com/best-picks/best-raspberry-pi-hats
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mice explore virtual worlds with a Raspberry Pi-powered VR headset
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/mice-explore-virtual-worlds-with-a-raspberry-pi-powered-vr-headset/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/smart-office/these-are-my-3-must-have-raspberry-pi-accessories/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/sandwich-dot-io-all-in-one-raspberry-pi-gaming-system/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/build-your-own-raspberry-pi-flight-tracker-with-our-tutorial/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to kit out your Raspberry Pi with a cooling case
While small heatsinks are good for cooling, when things start to get hot, you need a cooling case.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-kit-out-your-raspberry-pi-with-a-cool-cooling-case/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/pi-powered-pollination-monitors-support-farming-in-australia/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/meet-kevin-mcaleer-teacher-maker-builder-programmer-3d-printer-and-all-round-renaissance-man/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/japanese-vineyard-makes-excellent-wine-with-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/odyssey-lights-at-blackpool-illuminations/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/12/this-crt-style-pi-portable-gets-all-the-details-right/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2023/02/11/raspberry-pi-weather-station-features-wireless-sensor-nodes/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mohamed Nehad Shalabi’s Scheduler Is an API and Web App Designed to Ease GPIO Automation
Designed for surprising flexibility in the creation and scheduling of GPIO sequences, Scheduler is now available on 64-bit OSes.
https://www.hackster.io/news/mohamed-nehad-shalabi-s-scheduler-is-an-api-and-web-app-designed-to-ease-gpio-automation-ebc1d2cedf33
Developer Mohamed Nehad Shalabi has built a handy tool designed to make it easier to work with the Raspberry Pi’s general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header, by providing a scheduler and web app.
“I created a GPIO Scheduler Web app for the Raspberry Pi that lets you define GPIO channels, create complex sequences with them, and link schedules to trigger those sequences,” Shalabi explains. “Both the frontend and the backend are containerized with Docker, and the frontend repo contains a Docker compose file to run both together.”
The scheduler portion of the system, which is simply called Scheduler, provides a handy application programming interface (API) for GPIO pin control. Based on the cron scheduling system, the Scheduler allows for any one of the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins to be toggled on a schedule — while providing a means to define sequences for more complex projects.
The frontend, meanwhile, is a NextJS-based web app that offers a simple network-accessible user interface. A password-protected dashboard provides confirmation of the host Raspberry Pi’s clock setting, allows for status checking of pins — accessible under aliases to make things easier — and shows which, if any, sequences are defined or running.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2023/03/02/raspberry-pi-pikkukortti-5g-tukiasemaan/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/reclaiming-a-pi-based-solar-datalogger/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-to-brain-interface/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Remotely controlled plant watering
https://hackaday.io/project/177954-remotely-controlled-plant-watering
Plant irrigation system w/ Raspberry Pi and Smartphone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mice Play In VR
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/mice-play-in-vr/
Virtual Reality always seemed like a technology just out of reach, much like nuclear fusion, the flying car, or Linux on the desktop. It seems to be gaining steam in the last five years or so, though, with successful video games from a number of companies as well as plenty of other virtual reality adjacent technology that seems to be picking up steam as well like augmented reality. Another sign that this technology might be here to stay is this virtual reality headset made for mice.
These aren’t any ordinary pets out to take a pleasant jaunt through VR, though. These are lab mice from Cornell University that are helping to study various various aspects of neuroscience and behavior. The tiny headset is based on a Raspberry Pi and uses two small SPI-based displays with special lenses chosen and mounted specifically for a mouse’s field-of-view. The mouse will run on a Styrofoam ball that is attached to a separate set of sensors that can measure aspects of its motion.
Mice explore virtual worlds with a Raspberry Pi-powered VR headset
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/mice-explore-virtual-worlds-with-a-raspberry-pi-powered-vr-headset/
A team from the Schaffer-Nishimura Lab at Cornell University has stepped up their neuroscience and behaviour research with mouseVRheadset — a teeny VR headset. For mice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Pi Calculating Pi For Pi Day
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/a-pi-calculating-pi-for-pi-day/
Pi-On-Pi: Happy Pi Day 2023! (or, 2nd Generation Pi Machine)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pi-on-pi-happy-pi-day-2023-2nd-generation-machine-cristiano-monteiro/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Adds Second Laptop Monitor
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/15/raspberry-pi-adds-second-laptop-monitor/
If you have a cheap laptop and you realize you can’t connect a second monitor to it, what do you do? Well, if you are [Pierre Couy], you grab a Raspberry Pi and put together a virtual screen solution.
Like all good projects, this one started with some goals and requirements:
Low latency
Redable text
At least 10 frames per second
Fast catch up if the remote screen falls behind
Low-bitrate encoding; no hardware acceleration
A DHCP server on the Pi to manage the network
Power control for the attached monitor
Since Linux has such flexibility, it was possible to stitch the system together using existing components. The versatile ffmpeg handled the streaming. There was, however, a fair amount of troubleshooting necessary to track down some issues using Wireshark.
https://github.com/pcouy/rpi-eth-display
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pierre-couy.dev/tinkering/2023/03/turning-rpi-into-external-monitor-driver.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
ChatGPT Smartwatch Is Powered by Raspberry Pi
By Andrew E. Freedman published 3 days ago
Smarter than Siri or Google Assistant, but with that DIY look.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chatgpt-smartwatch-powered-by-raspberry-pi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Adds Second HDMI Port to Laptop
Pierre Couy used a Raspberry Pi to give his laptop a second HDMI port
https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-adds-second-hdmi-port-to-laptop-a0453096c500
Tomi Engdahl says:
Control your Raspberry Pi with Lua
https://opensource.com/article/23/3/control-your-raspberry-pi-lua
Learn how to use the Lua programming language to program Internet of Things (IoT) devices and interact with General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins on a Raspberry Pi.
Lua is a sometimes misunderstood language. It’s different from other languages, like Python, but it’s a versatile extension language that’s widely used in game engines, frameworks, and more. Overall, I find Lua to be a valuable tool for developers, letting them enhance and expand their projects in some powerful ways.
Is Lua worth learning?
https://opensource.com/article/22/11/lua-worth-learning
Lua is a fun and robust language, with progressive improvements made with each release, and an ever-growing developer base. Discover all of its possibilities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You can now run a GPT-3-level AI model on your laptop, phone, and Raspberry Pi
Thanks to Meta LLaMA, AI text models may have their “Stable Diffusion moment.”
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/you-can-now-run-a-gpt-3-level-ai-model-on-your-laptop-phone-and-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://opensource.com/article/23/3/most-curious-uses-raspberry-pi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dead Raspberry Pi Boards, PMICs, And New Hope
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/24/dead-raspberry-pi-boards-pmics-and-new-hope/
Since the Raspberry Pi 3B+ release, the Pi boards we all know and love gained one more weakpoint – the PMIC chip, responsible for generating all the power rails a Pi needs. Specifically, the new PMIC was way more vulnerable to shorting 5V and 3.3V power rails together – something that’s trivial to do on a Raspberry Pi, and would leave you with a bricked board. Just replacing the PMIC chip, the MxL7704, wouldn’t help since the Raspberry Pi version of this chip is customized – but now, on Raspberry Pi forums, [Nefarious19] has reportedly managed to replace it and revive their Pi.
First off, you get a replacement PMIC and reflow it – and that’s where, to our knowledge, people have stopped so far. The next step proposed by [Nefarious19] is writing proper values into the I2C registers of the PMIC. For that, you’d want a currently-alive Pi – useful as both I2C controller for writing the values in, and as a source of known-good values. That said, if you go with the values that have been posted online, just having something like a Pi Pico for the I2C part ought to be enough.
[Nefarious19] reports a revived Pi, and this is way more hopeful than the “PMIC failures are unfixable” conclusion we’ve reached before. The instructions are not quite clear
RaspberryPi 4 MXL7704-R4 PMIC replacement and repair
Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:15 pm
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=314996&sid=c6714292843b5cd6af15695a51c92bed
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2019/06/12/shorting-pins-on-a-raspberry-pi-is-a-bad-idea-pmic-failures-under-investigation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas McDonald’s “Ohsillyscope” Provides Live Audio Visualization From a Raspberry Pi
Built atop a Raspberry Pi 4 and an Adafruit RGB Matrix HAT, the Ohsillyscope snags live audio via ALSA and turns it into a waveform
https://www.hackster.io/news/thomas-mcdonald-s-ohsillyscope-provides-live-audio-visualization-from-a-raspberry-pi-659d0f14d65f
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical equipment manufacturer Bio Business scaled up with Raspberry Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/medical-equipment-manufacturer-bio-business-scaled-up-with-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter “Bobricius” Misenko’s Cyberdetox Display Turns the Raspberry Pi 400 Into a True All-in-One
With a compact display, three-hour battery, and stereo speakers, this clever GPIO add-on makes the Pi 400 a portable powerhouse.
https://www.hackster.io/news/peter-bobricius-misenko-s-cyberdetox-display-turns-the-raspberry-pi-400-into-a-true-all-in-one-2eec3a42e95c
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2023/04/03/pieeg-offers-affordable-brain-computer-interface/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Raspberry Pi-Powered Kitchen-Based Light Tomography Puts Advanced Imaging in Everyone’s Reach
Designed to provide a low-cost way to introduce tomographic imaging, this low-cost kit is ideal for practice before breaking out the X-rays.
https://www.hackster.io/news/the-raspberry-pi-powered-kitchen-based-light-tomography-puts-advanced-imaging-in-everyone-s-reach-7b5a0c8051fe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matt Desmarais’ Raspberry Pi-Powered Logic Analyzer Looks for Flaws in Your Arguments, Not Circuits
Passing speech through OpenAI’s Whisper and then asking GPT 3.5 for an analysis, this tool looks to highlight flaws in your arguments.
https://www.hackster.io/news/matt-desmarais-raspberry-pi-powered-logic-analyzer-looks-for-flaws-in-your-arguments-not-circuits-8c998f1f44f4
Tomi Engdahl says:
50 Cool Raspberry Pi Projects for April 2023
https://all3dp.com/1/best-raspberry-pi-projects/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-gps-pothole-tracker-c6f09eccd89a
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux Cell Phone? Build OURPhone
https://hackaday.com/2023/05/05/linux-cell-phone-build-ourphone/
[Evan] couldn’t find a phone he liked, so he decided to build his own. There are advantages and disadvantages, as you might expect. On the plus side, you have the ultimate control. On the negative side, it doesn’t quite have the curb appeal — at least to the average user — of a sleek new cell phone from a major manufacturer.
The phone uses a Raspberry Pi, along with a 4G modem and a 480×800 touchscreen. There’s a laser cut box that measures 90x160x30 mm. For reference, a Google Pixel 7 is about 73x156x9 mm, so a little easier on the pocket.
But not one the pocketbook. The OURPhone only costs about $200 USD to build. There are trade-offs. For example, the touchscreen is resistive, so you’ll want a stylus (there’s a slot for it in the case). On the other hand, if you don’t like something, it is all there for you to change.
https://github.com/evanman83/OURS-project/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An RPi-Powered Multi-DX7/TX816 Style Synth
https://hackaday.com/2023/05/07/an-rpi-powered-multi-dx7-tx816-style-synth/
[Kevin] over at Simple DIY ElectroMusic Projects has released a complete DIY modular design for simulating the classic 80s Yamaha TX816 DX/FM modular digital synthesizer. This beast of a synth was used by the cool bands of the 80s as well as TV studios, and ownership of the original machine is an expensive investment. But with the power of modern hackable electronics, and the MiniDexed firmware running bare-metal on a Raspberry Pi getting access to a compatible synth doesn’t have to break the bank.
Bare Metal Gives This Pi Some Classic Synths
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/19/bare-metal-gives-this-pi-some-classic-synths/
Tomi Engdahl says:
PiemPi Machine
https://hackaday.io/project/191000-piempi-machine
Automatic poetry with Pi decimals, Chudnovsky algorithm and a Raspberry
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tristam R.’s Raspberry Pi-Powered Travel Router Includes Ad Blocking, an Always-On VPN, and More
With a custom 3D-printed case, physical power button, and a second Wi-Fi connection, this compact router is packed with potential.
https://www.hackster.io/news/tristam-r-s-raspberry-pi-powered-travel-router-includes-ad-blocking-an-always-on-vpn-and-more-0d63ba53bd79
Tomi Engdahl says:
I made a computer you plug into a graphics card #shorts
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YaqJginb4go
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2023/06/19/using-sonar-to-measure-traffic-speeds/
https://hackaday.io/project/190670-sound-of-speed
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home Automation Raspberry Pi Distribution Board DIY | IOT Project 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrG_InKQB6g
smart distribution panel diagram download:
https://www.kincony.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=2936
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Raspberry Pi-Powered Passive Sonar Turns Two Microphones Into a Speed Monitoring Station
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-raspberry-pi-powered-passive-sonar-turns-two-microphones-into-a-speed-monitoring-station-32e8c9de1d5b?fbclid=IwAR0Nsok6NimKf2zCWvQ6WVm-Zo5_D2u9qPDsjJnpSjUvRADTtJGKFD-pwH8
Using low-cost hardware and GNU Radio, this clever project listens to the sound of tires on the road to calculate the speed of a car.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Introduction to Hardware Prototyping With Raspberry Pi
https://withintent.com/blog/hardware-prototyping-with-raspberry-pi/
Raspberry Pi is a compact, affordable computer equipped with Linux OS, used for many different purposes by both hobbyists and tech companies alike. Initially created with the aim of making computing more affordable and available, it has since become the base of a variety of different projects.
One of its most important uses comes in building prototypes for hardware development. In this article, we’re going to explore the possibilities that Raspberry Pi brings to hardware, and when you should choose it as a solution for your project.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.pcworld.com/article/1965066/a-raspberry-pi-transformed-a-truck-into-a-huge-dot-matrix-printer.html?fbclid=IwAR0BMUgnZUo4EFdNCsqBiFL_NKDN2pzsAgPXUdP0RwrloSUY0IZnr_qgRsE
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/rocketry-with-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://withintent.com/blog/hardware-prototyping-with-raspberry-pi/