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:
Neural Networks Emulate Any Guitar Pedal For $120
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/30/neural-networks-emulate-any-guitar-pedal-for-120/
It’s a well-established fact that a guitarist’s acumen can be accurately gauged by the size of their pedal board- the more stompboxes, the better the player. Why have one box that can do everything when you can have many that do just a few things?
Jokes aside, the idea of replacing an entire pedal collection with a single box is nothing new. Your standard, old-school stompbox is an analog affair, using a combination of filters and amplifiers to achieve a certain sound. Some modern multi-effects processors use software models of older pedals to replicate their sound. These digital pedals have been around since the 90s, but none have been quite like the NeuralPi project. Just released by [GuitarML], the NeuralPi takes about $120 of hardware (including — you guessed it — a Raspberry Pi) and transforms it into the perfect pedal.
The key here, of course, is neural networks. The LSTM at the core of NeuralPi can be trained on any pedal you’ve got laying around to accurately reproduce its sound, and it can even do so with incredibly low latency thanks to Elk Audio OS (which even powers Matt Bellamy’s synth guitar, as used in Muse‘s Simulation Theory World Tour). The result of a trained model is a VST3 plugin, a popular format for describing audio effects.
https://elk.audio/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.io/project/179756-handheld-raspberry-pi-retro-game-console
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lightray22′s Mildly-Terrifying Raspberry Pi-Powered Smart Plug Costs as Little as $27 a Unit
https://www.hackster.io/news/lightray22-s-mildly-terrifying-raspberry-pi-powered-smart-plug-costs-as-little-as-27-a-unit-ae46985aa551
“I built this with a whole lot of hot glue and soldering. It’s still a little bit ridiculous but it almost crosses the line to practical.”
Pseudonymous maker “lightray22″ has put together a somewhat dangerous-looking but admittedly low-cost home-brew smart plug, designed to be controlled over a raw network socket and powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero W single-board computer (SBC).
“I wanted to see if I could make something functionally equivalent to a TP-Link HS100 smart plug, and I don’t think this is too far off,” lightray22 writes of their build. “The HS100s are nice, but while they can be controlled locally with OpenHAB they are a bit of a pain to set up for local use and they still try to call home randomly.”
“I wanted something fully local and open source, so I built this with a whole lot of hot glue and soldering. It’s still a little bit ridiculous but it almost crosses the line to practical.”
The heart of the system is a Raspberry Pi Zero W single-board computer, which costs just $10, mated to a cheap power cord, a 5V power supply, a mains-capable relay which triggers on 3.3V logic from the Raspberry Pi’s general-purpose input/output (GPIO) header, and some parts from a starter kit packed with buttons, LEDs, and resistors.
“”For software, I wrote a few Python scripts on Raspbian Lite using RPi.GPIO,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Use Raspberry Pi to Farm Chia Coin
By Les Pounder 26 days ago
Make your own low power Chia Coin farming system.
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-chia-coin
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-satellite-detecting-dashboard
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/21/raspberry-pi-floppy-driver-uncovers-fishy-secrets/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Hat Adds SDR With High Speed Memory Access
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/20/raspberry-pi-hat-adds-sdr-with-high-speed-memory-access/
An SDR add-on for the Raspberry Pi isn’t a new idea, but the open source cariboulite project looks like a great entry into the field. Even if you aren’t interested in radio, you might find the project’s use of a special high-bandwidth memory interface to the Pi interesting.
https://github.com/cariboulabs/cariboulite
CaribouLite is an affordable, educational, open-source SDR platform that is also a HAT for the Raspberry-Pi family of boards (40-pin versions only). It is built for makers, hackers, and researchers and was designed to complement the SDR current eco-systems offering with a scalable, standalone dual-channel software-defined radio.
Unlike many other HAT projects, CaribouLite utilizes the SMI (Secondary Memory Interface) present on all the 40-pin RPI versions. This interface is not thoroughly documented by both Raspberry-Pi documentation and Broadcomm’s reference manuals. An amazing work done by Lean2 (code in git repo) in hacking this interface contributes to CaribouLite’s technical feasibility. A deeper overview of the interface is provided by G.J. Van Loo, 2017 Secondary_Memory_Interface.pdf. The SMI interface allows exchanging up to ~500Mbit/s between the RPI and the HAT, and yet, the results vary between the different versions of RPI. The results further depend on the specific RPI version’s DMA speeds.
In our application, each ADC sample contains 13 bit (I) and 13 bit (Q), that are streamed with a maximal sample rate of 4 MSPS from the AT86RF215 IC.
RF Channels:
Sub-1GHz: 389.5-510 MHz / 779-1020 MHz
Wide tuning channel: 30 MHz – 6 GHz (excluding 2398.5-2400 MHz and 2483.5-2485 MHz)
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/pi-server-blade
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/20/raspberry-pi-hat-adds-sdr-with-high-speed-memory-access/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-samba/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dial-a-SID Is A Glorious Chiptune Jukebox
https://hackaday.com/2021/07/08/dial-a-sid-is-a-glorious-chiptune-jukebox/
Old-school rotary telephones aren’t particularly useful for their original intended purpose in this day and age, but they’re great fun to hack into new projects. [Linus Åkesson] has done just that, with his Dial-a-SID jukebox build.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5sFOk52hTI&t=328s
Tomi Engdahl says:
UltraChip’s Raspberry Pi-Powered Clock Doubles as a Stratum-1 NTP Server for the Local Network
Built from a Raspberry Pi with GPS receiver and 16×2 LCD display, this high-accuracy clock serves the current time to NTP-capable devices.
https://www.hackster.io/news/ultrachip-s-raspberry-pi-powered-clock-doubles-as-a-stratum-1-ntp-server-for-the-local-network-a6369ef8d3fd
Pseudonymous programmer “UltraChip” has built a stratum-1 timeserver out of a Raspberry Pi single-board computer and a GPS receiver — adding a two-line LCD display to turn it into a desk clock, too.
The Network Time Protocol (NTP) for clock synchronization centers around strata: Stratum 0 is made up of extremely high-precision clock sources, including GPS satellites and atomic clocks, and act as the core source of time data; stratum 1 systems pull time data from the first stratum and act as primary servers in the NTP network, accurate to a few microseconds; stratum 2 is made up of systems synchronized to stratum 1; and the system continues from there all the way down to stratum 15.
A system with a GPS receiver, then, can be a stratum 1 time server — and that’s what UltraChip has built, using a
http://www.gregledet.net/#/article/424
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Radar HAT Offers “Computer Vision Without a Camera — and Much More,” Says Creator
Built around a 7.9GHz radar module at -42dBm, the prototype add-on offers a 10m (around 33ft) range.
https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-radar-hat-offers-computer-vision-without-a-camera-and-much-more-says-creator-3199bf6ee74d
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/oigg74/look_ma_no_camera_radar_hat_for_raspberry_pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Raspberry Pi-Based Parking Lot Monitor Detects Unauthorized Vehicles
For a university project, Codrin used a Raspberry Pi to create a system that detects unauthorized vehicles
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-raspberry-pi-based-parking-lot-monitor-detects-unauthorized-vehicles-25352ce60f2b
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hannah Lee’s Secure, Wire-Free, Solar-Powered Security Camera Is Driven by a Raspberry Pi Zero
Designed as an alternative to insecure off-the-shelf security cameras, this clever build uses an adjustable 3D-printed housing.
https://www.hackster.io/news/hannah-lee-s-secure-wire-free-solar-powered-security-camera-is-driven-by-a-raspberry-pi-zero-98e978a15e18
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi-Powered Speed Trap Collects Your Lead-Footed Driving Data
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-mobile-speed-trap
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kyle Johnson’s Home Streaming System Gets Chunky Album Art Visualization on a 64×64 RGB LED Matrix
https://www.hackster.io/news/kyle-johnson-s-home-streaming-system-gets-chunky-album-art-visualization-on-a-64×64-rgb-led-matrix-71107071b8f2
Driven by PowerShell, Rainmeter, and Flaschen Taschen, this Raspberry Pi-powered visualizer brings some color to audio playback.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This mini Raspberry Pi server comes with built in UPS and OLED stats display
https://www.notebookcheck.net/This-mini-Raspberry-Pi-server-comes-with-built-in-UPS-and-OLED-stats-display.551035.0.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Build Your Own Raspberry Pi Cloud Server with Nextcloud
BY PHIL KING
PUBLISHED 5 DAYS AGO
https://www.makeuseof.com/raspberry-pi-nextcloud/
Stop wasting money on cloud storage – configure a Raspberry Pi with Nextcloud to build your own!
Tomi Engdahl says:
LED Spectrum Visualizer Driven By Raspberry Pi
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/22/led-spectrum-visualizer-driven-by-raspberry-pi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.io/project/177923-bitcoin-live-stats-using-raspberry-pi-3
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bokra’s IoThing Digital Is a “Professional Digital I/O” Module for the Raspberry Pi and More
https://www.hackster.io/news/bokra-s-iothing-digital-is-a-professional-digital-i-o-module-for-the-raspberry-pi-and-more-4123c5abdd0b
Board offers isolated AC/DC channels to 300V, two Omron relays, and both mikroBUS and Grove connectors for expansion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.crowd-render.com/single-post/pi-farm-on-arm
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oasis Gardens’ Raspberry Pi-Powered Smart Farming System Shows Its Worth for Mycologists
Project aims to bring smart farming to everyone, “from mushrooms to medicinals — and much much more.”
https://www.hackster.io/news/oasis-gardens-raspberry-pi-powered-smart-farming-system-shows-its-worth-for-mycologists-ebdc6a2bbf54
Tomi Engdahl says:
RASPBERRY PI SERVER CLUSTER IN 1U RACK-MOUNT CASE
https://hackaday.com/2021/07/21/raspberry-pi-server-cluster-in-1u-rack-mount-case/
[Paul Brown] wants to take advantage of off-site server colocation services. But the providers within [Paul]’s region typically place a limit of 1A @ 120V on each server. Rather than search out commercial low-power solutions, [Paul] embraced the hacker spirit and built his own server from five Raspberry Pi 4b single board computers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Programmer Turns Raspberry Pi CPU Into a Button
By Ash Hill 2 days ago
Stick your finger on the CPU and it records a press.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-cpu-button
Making cool projects on the Raspberry Pi is more often than not the whole point of having one. The single-board computer’s 40 GPIO pins make it possible to attach a seemingly endless selection of external sensors, buttons and more but maker Mcllrn decided this was no longer necessary. Using nothing more than the CPU by itself, Mcllrn has managed to turn the processor into a functioning button you can use for input in any Python program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Spectrometer
https://hackaday.io/project/181144-raspberry-pi-spectrometer
The PySpectrometer is a Python (OpenCV and Tkinter) implementation of an optical spectrometer for the Raspberry Pi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Blade crams 64 ARM cores and NVMe in 1U!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH9GwYZu_aE
Uptime.Lab’s 1U Blade is a rack-mountable Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4-based server.
Capable of cramming 64 ARM CPU cores in 1U of rack space, this blade could make a powerful Pi cluster. And built-in features like PoE+ support, an M.2 slot for NVMe SSDs, and a TPM 2.0 module make it the best performing Pi server, ever!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teemu Laurila’s Raspberry Pi Smart Glasses Include a Camera for Video Streaming, Gesture Control
A work-in-progress, these 3D-printed smart glasses can stream video to a more powerful host system for gesture recognition work.
https://www.hackster.io/news/teemu-laurila-s-raspberry-pi-smart-glasses-include-a-camera-for-video-streaming-gesture-control-2e7a247ec062
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/08/10/mincab-smallest-raspberry-pi-cm4-carrier-board/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Block EVERY Online Ad with THIS – Pi-Hole on Raspberry Pi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXTnrD_Zs4
We check out Pi-Hole, a software designed to block ads on your entire network, that can run on a $5 computer!
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Do You Make A Raspberry Pi On A Stick?
https://hackaday.com/2021/08/24/how-do-you-make-a-raspberry-pi-on-a-stick/
a hackable media player “stick” with the Raspberry Pi built-in. We love that this Raspberry Pi CM4 TV Stick eliminates all the adapters and cables usually required to connect a Pi’s fiddly micro HDMI ports to a display and has heat sinks and an IR receiver to boot. Like a consumer media player HDMI stick, all you need to add is power.
https://hackaday.io/project/180969-raspberry-pi-cm4-tv-stick
Tomi Engdahl says:
The PySpectrometer allows users to measure homemade dye lasers’ wavelength and perform spectroscopy on the cheap.
Les Wright’s DIY Raspberry Pi Spectrometer
https://www.hackster.io/news/les-wright-s-diy-raspberry-pi-spectrometer-064422bae529
The PySpectrometer allows users to measure homemade dye lasers’ wavelength and perform spectroscopy on the cheap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-long-log-pcb
Tomi Engdahl says:
Christian Hollinger’s Guinea Pigs Get a Telegram Bot for Secure, Simple Remote Monitoring
Designed to offer improved security over third-party IP cameras yet without the complexity of a VPN, this Raspberry Pi-powered rig is smart.
https://www.hackster.io/news/christian-hollinger-s-guinea-pigs-get-a-telegram-bot-for-secure-simple-remote-monitoring-33ed7773b78c
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dhiru Kholia’s Project Turns a Raspberry Pi Pico Into a Xilinx Virtual Cable (XVC) for FPGA Dev Work
Just flash the firmware onto your Raspberry Pi Pico and run the daemon, and you’ve got yourself an XVC for Vivado.
https://www.hackster.io/news/dhiru-kholia-s-project-turns-a-raspberry-pi-pico-into-a-xilinx-virtual-cable-xvc-for-fpga-dev-work-25a58d9a99a9
Tomi Engdahl says:
Run The Things Stack Network Server on a Raspberry Pi
Run your private LoRaWAN The Things Stack network server on a Raspberry Pi with balena
https://www.hackster.io/418437/run-the-things-stack-network-server-on-a-raspberry-pi-2dd613
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Build a Raspberry Pi-Powered Teleprompter
By Liz Clark 7 days ago
Create your own teleprompter to help with your videos.
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/build-raspberry-pi-teleprompter
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hundreds of Raspberry Pis Used in Marvel’s Black Widow
By Ash Hill 6 days ago
A ‘Marvel’ous use of Raspberry Pi
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-mobile-photogrammetry-scanner
Tomi Engdahl says:
White Rack, Pink WAP & Multiple Pi’s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IvP436hRJ0
In this video I move my home network into a 12U rack, rackmount some Raspberry Pi’s, and install a wireless access point in my garage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
mechArm Launches Compact and Versatile Robot Arm to Make Everyday Tasks Easier
This small but mighty six-axis robotic device is built around a Raspberry Pi.
https://www.hackster.io/news/mecharm-launches-compact-and-versatile-robot-arm-to-make-everyday-tasks-easier-90b1aad1a0f4
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Build a Person-Detecting Doorbell with Raspberry Pi
By Ryder Damen 6 days ago
Ring the bell any time a person is in front of your door.
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-person-detecting-doorbell
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Waltz’s “Quantum Random Number Generator” for Bitcoin Uses Radioactive Decay and a Raspberry Pi
Using an off-the-shelf radiation detector and some clever Python, Waltz has turned a broken smoke alarm into a bitcoin seed generator
https://www.hackster.io/news/alex-waltz-s-quantum-random-number-generator-for-bitcoin-uses-radioactive-decay-and-a-raspberry-pi-25a75316220f
Tomi Engdahl says:
Push Button, Receive Pizza — All Thanks to a Raspberry Pi and a Node.js API
Built atop the unofficial Domino’s Pizza Node.js API, this Raspberry Pi-powered button gets your pizza to you with a minimum of fuss.
https://www.hackster.io/news/push-button-receive-pizza-all-thanks-to-a-raspberry-pi-and-a-node-js-api-4c5da13a47bb
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/custom-raspberry-pi-splash-screen
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/03/bartop-arcade-machine-that-isnt-afraid-of-change/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Musical Cyberdeck Is Part Synth, Part MIDI Controller, And All Cool
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/09/musical-cyberdeck-is-part-synth-part-midi-controller-and-all-cool/
https://bcacciaaudio.com/2021/08/26/raspberry-pi-4-music-cyberdeck/
Tomi Engdahl says:
RPi Python Library Has Retro Chiptunes And Speech Covered
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/09/rpi-python-library-has-retro-chiptunes-and-speech-covered/
The classic SP0256-AL2 speech chip has featured a few times on these pages, and if you’ve not seen the actual part before, you almost certainly have heard the resulting audio output. The latest Python library from prolific retrocomputing enthusiast [Nick Bild] brings the joy of the old chip to the Raspberry Pi platform, with an added extra trick; support for the venerable AY-3-8910 sound generator as well.
https://github.com/nickbild/gi-pi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jan-Rainer Lahmann’s RasQberry Is a Raspberry Pi-Powered IBM Quantum System One for Your Desk
https://www.hackster.io/news/jan-rainer-lahmann-s-rasqberry-is-a-raspberry-pi-powered-ibm-quantum-system-one-for-your-desk-fe770e999116
Designed for demonstrating quantum computing concepts, this functional model is considerably cheaper than the real thing.
IBM’s Jan-Rainer Lahmann has found a neat way to showcase the company’s open source Qiskit quantum computing framework: a functional 3D-printed model of a real IBM Quantum System One, powered by a Raspberry Pi.
“‘RasQberry integrates Qiskit (an open source quantum computing software framework by IBM), a Raspberry Pi (the full range from Pi 4 down to a Pi Zero), and a 3D-printed model of a real quantum computer (IBM Quantum System One) to explore various state of the art technologies,” Lahmann explains of the project.
While the miniaturised quantum computer certainly serves as a talking point, its purpose is more than to brighten up a desk. “[It is designed to] create a tool that can be used in meetings, meetups, demo booths, etc,” Lahmann writes.
Lahmann has made the RasQberry project open source, publishing source code and 3D print files under the permissive Apache License 2.0 to the project’s GitHub repository. Anyone just wanting to play with the software, meanwhile, will also find full instructions for installation and setup on an otherwise-unmodified Raspberry Pi.
https://github.com/JanLahmann/RasQberry
Tomi Engdahl says:
GLaDOS Voice Assistant Passive-Aggressively Automates Home
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/13/glados-voice-assistant-passive-aggressively-automates-home/
With modern voice assistants we can tell a computer to play our favorite music, check the weather, or turn on a light. Like many of us, [nerdaxic] gave in to the convenience and perceived simplicity of various home automation products made by Google and Amazon. Also like many of us, he found it a bit difficult to accept the privacy implications that surround such cloud connected devices. But after selling his Home and Echo, [nerdaxic] missed the ability to control his smart home by voice command. Instead of giving in and buying back into the closed ecosystems he’d left behind, [nerdaxic] decided to open his home to a murderous, passive aggressive, sarcastic, slightly insane AI: GLaDOS, which you can see in action after the break.
Using open source designs from fellow YouTube creator [Mr. Volt], [nerdaxic] 3d printed as much of the GLaDOS animatronic model as he was able to, and implemented much of the same hardware to make it work. [nerdaxic] put more Open Source Software to use and has created a functional but somewhat limited home AI that can manage his home automation, give the weather, and tell jokes among other things. GLaDOS doesn’t fail to deliver some great one liners inspired by the original Portal games while heeding [nerdaxic]’s commands, either.
GLaDOS Voice Assistant with Raspberry Pi and Python
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3h5tKWqf-w