Cool uses for the Raspberry Pi

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.

1,700 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Using Homebrew Coils To Measure Mains Current, And Taking The Circuit Breaker Challenge
    https://hackaday.com/2021/09/12/using-homebrew-coils-measure-mains-current-and-taking-the-circuit-breaker-challenge/

    Like many hackers, [Matthias Wandel] has a penchant for measuring the world around him, and quantifying the goings-on in his home is a bit of a hobby. And so when it came time to sense the current flowing in the wires of his house, he did what any of us would do: he built his own current sensing system.

    Inductive current measuring using Raspberry Pi
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P47pjVyPP3w

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Irrigation system using Raspberry pi….. Full detail and code click the link
    https://techatronic.com/smart-irrigation-system-raspberry-pi/

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Jos se nyt on pakko olla rpi niin pythonilla.
    jotain tyyliin

    import os, sys
    import rpi.gpio as gpio

    rele = 31

    GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)
    GPIO.setup(rele, GPIO.OUT)

    while true:
    GPIO.output(rele, GPIO.HIGH)
    sleep(300)
    GPIO.output(rele, GPIO.LOW)
    sleep(1500)

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tutstuppa cron:iin. Se hoitaa ton homman iisisti RPillä…

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://hackaday.com/2021/09/22/ask-hackaday-what-can-only-a-computer-do/

    It is easy to apply computers to improve things we already understand. For example, instead of a piano today, you might buy a synthesizer. It looks and works — sometimes — as a piano. But it can also do lots of other things like play horns, or accompany you with a rhythm track or record and playback your music. There’s plenty of examples of this: word processors instead of typewriters, MP3 players instead of tape decks, and PDF files instead of printed material. But what about something totally new? I was thinking of this while looking at Sonic Pi, a musical instrument you play by coding.

    https://sonic-pi.net/

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Jan-Rainer Lahmann’s RasQberry Is a Raspberry Pi-Powered IBM Quantum System One for Your Desk
    Designed for demonstrating quantum computing concepts, this functional model is considerably cheaper than the real thing.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/jan-rainer-lahmann-s-rasqberry-is-a-raspberry-pi-powered-ibm-quantum-system-one-for-your-desk-fe770e999116

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Knowles’ AISonic Development Kit Turns a Raspberry Pi Into an Edge AI Voice Control IoT Powerhouse
    Powered by the company’s IA8201 processor, this kit comes complete with two- and three-microphone array boards and TensorFlow Lite support.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/knowles-aisonic-development-kit-turns-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-edge-ai-voice-control-iot-powerhouse-bebe9250f657

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi-Powered Blood Analyzer Could Bring Better, Faster Healthcare to Rural Areas
    Running on a sample in just 30 seconds, this low-cost lab equipment can be easily deployed in the field to bring care where it’s needed.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-powered-blood-analyzer-could-bring-better-faster-healthcare-to-rural-areas-4a22080ec92a

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    This Raspberry Pi-Powered GLaDOS Injects a Little Menace Into Henri Rantanen’s Home Automation
    Using a homebrew voice assistant system written in Python, this could be the closest thing to a a real-life GLaDOS yet — minus the deaths
    https://www.hackster.io/news/this-raspberry-pi-powered-glados-injects-a-little-menace-into-henri-rantanen-s-home-automation-743399d140b0

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Who can it be now? How to Build a Raspberry Pi Doorbell that Recognizes Friends
    By Ryder Damen 8 days ago
    Create a camera that identifies and announces your friends by name.
    https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/facial-recognition-doorbell-raspberry-pi

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Scan the Surroundings While Cycling with the Bike Embedded Landscape Scanner
    The scanner was designed using a Raspberry Pi and a Pi Camera, generating single vertical frames based on the bike speed.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/scan-the-surroundings-while-cycling-with-the-bike-embedded-landscape-scanner-4b67dd414d88

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi Gate Opener Offers a Simple Way to Connect a Motorized Gate to the IoT
    Designed to connect to a dismantled remote, this relay board needs only power, ground, and a single GPIO pin to operate.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-gate-opener-offers-a-simple-way-to-connect-a-motorized-gate-to-the-iot-32126fc5c2ac

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    .Operating System development tutorials in Rust on the Raspberry Pi. You need Linux but macOS will work too. https://github.com/rust-embedded/rust-raspberrypi-OS-tutorials

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    COVID Green Pass Validator With Raspberry Pi
    https://hackaday.com/2021/09/25/covid-green-pass-validator-with-raspberry-pi/

    It seems like every nation is dealing with the plague a little differently. In June, the EU instated a COVID Green Pass which comes in the form of a paper or digital QR code. It was designed to grease the wheels of travel throughout Europe and allow access to nursing homes. As of early August, the Green Pass is now required of those 12 and older in Italy to gain access to bars and restaurants, museums, theaters, etc. — anywhere people gather in sizeable groups. The Green Pass shows that you’ve either been vaccinated, have had COVID and recovered, or you have tested negative, and there are different half-lives for each condition: nine months for vaccinated, six for recovered, and just forty-eight hours for a negative test.

    [Luca Dentella] has built a Green Pass validator using a Raspberry Pi and a Raspi camera. Actual validation must be done through the official app, so this project is merely for educational purposes. Here’s how it works: the user data including their status and the date/time of pass issuance are encoded into a JSON file, then into CBOR, then it is digitally signed for authenticity. After that, the information is zipped up into a base-45 string, which gets represented as a QR code on your phone. Fortunately, [Luca] found the Minister of Health’s GitHub, which does the hard work of re-inflating the JSON object.

    Let’s learn together: Raspberry Pi and Green Pass
    http://www.lucadentella.it/en/2021/09/20/impariamo-insieme-raspberry-pi-e-green-pass/

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Control ANY COMPUTER with these Pi KVMs!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIrkEr2AeDY

    I’ve been testing two Raspberry Pi KVM over IP devices: The TinyPilot Voyager and the PiKVM v3. What do they do? How well do they do it? Find out how you can get complete control over any PC or Mac over a network, and which of these devices you should pick to do it.

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi vs ASUSTOR NAS Head-to-Head Part 1 – Hardware
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBccak8f-VY

    ASUSTOR and Seagate sent me a brand new NAS and hard drives. They wanted me to see if my little Raspberry Pi NAS could keep up.

    Raspberry Pi vs ASUSTOR NAS Head-to-Head Part 2 – the VERDICT!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhHAf7mTxkk

    How does my 2.5 Gbps Raspberry Pi NAS compare to a dual 2.5 Gbps ASUSTOR Lockerstor 4? Find out in this video, the second part of a two-part series.

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    I built the fastest Raspberry Pi SATA RAID NAS!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWev1THtA04

    I built the fastest (to my knowledge) native SATA RAID array on a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, and set it up as a NAS server, testing out hard drives and SSDs, and different RAID setups like RAID 0, 1, and 10.

    I discuss the advantages of different RAID levels, how to install and configure Samba and NFS, and benchmark everything, from drive to RAID performance, energy efficiency, temperatures, and more!

    Check out this blog post for all the detailed instructions:
    https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/building-fastest-raspberry-pi-nas-sata-raid

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi Plots World Wide Earthquakes
    https://hackaday.com/2021/10/05/raspberry-pi-plots-world-wide-earthquakes/

    What do you do when you stumble across a website posting real-time earthquake data? Well, if you’re [Craig Lindley] you write some code to format it nicely onto a display, put it in a box, and watch it whilst making dinner.

    [Craig] started off with coding in Forth on the ESP32, using ESP32Forth, but admits it didn’t go so well, ditching the ESP32 for a Raspberry Pi 3 he had lying around, and after a brief detour via C++, he settled on a Python implementation using Pygame.

    http://craigandheather.net/celeearthquakemap.html

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Chris Griffith Puts the Raspberry Pi’s Hardware H.264 Encoder Through Its Paces
    https://www.hackster.io/news/chris-griffith-puts-the-raspberry-pi-s-hardware-h-264-encoder-through-its-paces-1d804e538d9e

    Is a Raspberry Pi an easy way to get an old MJPEG camera streaming H.264 on your network? Benchmarks say yes — if you pick the right one.

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Gorgeous Controller Contains Raspberry Pi Arcade
    JamHamster’s custom Raspberry Pi arcade/controller is as beautiful as they come.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/gorgeous-controller-contains-raspberry-pi-arcade-bd8e05575252

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    SparkFun Offers 60GHz Pulsed Coherent Radar with Latest Raspberry Pi Add-on Board
    https://www.hackster.io/news/sparkfun-offers-60ghz-pulsed-coherent-radar-with-latest-raspberry-pi-add-on-board-9b6c78314a22

    Communicating over SPI at up to 50MHz, this board makes it easy to get highly-accurate positioning data — on ARMv7 or Cortex-M4, at least.
    SparkFun has launched a new revision of its break-out board for the Acconeer A111 60GHz pulsed coherent radar (PCR) chip — and it’s designed for easy mounting on the top of a Raspberry Pi or compatible single-board computer.

    “Does your project require high-precision, cutting-edge distance measurement? Or maybe speed, motion, or gesture-sensing,” SparkFun writes of its latest launch. “We’re not talking about simple ultrasonic or even infrared here, but 60GHz radar! Well say hello to the SparkFun A111 Pulsed Radar Breakout.”

    Reply
  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    This TV Follows Your Phone to Rotate Between Portrait and Landscape Modes — Using a Sim Wheel Motor
    https://www.hackster.io/news/this-tv-follows-your-phone-to-rotate-between-portrait-and-landscape-modes-using-a-sim-wheel-motor-be69e2b9b8c3

    Now your big-screen TV can rotate as easily as your smartphone — if you’re willing to strap it to a racing wheel and a Raspberry Pi, anyway.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/q6xd7p/i_made_samsungs_rotating_tv_at_my_own/

    Reply
  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Befinitiv’s Latest Raspberry Pi Build Brings a Classic Super 8 Cine Camera Into the 21st Century
    This clever — and non-destructive — upgrade adds digital capabilities, including streaming, to a classic of home cinema.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/befinitiv-s-latest-raspberry-pi-build-brings-a-classic-super-8-cine-camera-into-the-21st-century-49dc7e2186c9

    Reply
  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Designed in partnership with LEGO Education, Raspberry Pi’s new RP2040-powered Build HAT makes it easy to control LEGO Technic motors and sensors from your Raspberry Pi.

    Raspberry Pi’s New Build HAT Adds LEGO Technic, SPIKE Compatibility via an RP2040 Microcontroller
    https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-s-new-build-hat-adds-lego-technic-spike-compatibility-via-an-rp2040-microcontroller-95516afc6101

    Driving up to four motors and/or sensors, this partnership between Raspberry Pi and LEGO Education is a smart move.

    Raspberry Pi has announced the launch of its second RP2040-powered microcontroller board, and this one aims to bridge the worlds of Raspberry Pi and LEGO Technic: the Raspberry Pi Build HAT.

    Designed in partnership with LEGO Education, the Raspberry Pi Build HAT is a Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) add-on for any Raspberry Pi single-board computer. Connecting via the 40-pin general-purpose input/output (GPIO) socket, it offers four connectors designed for use with LEGO Technic motors and LEGO SPIKE sensors — as well as optional pass-through access to unused GPIO pins.

    “We are excited to work with Raspberry Pi,” claims LEGO Education’s head of product experience Andrew Sliwinski of the partnership, “to provide tools for students, teachers and makers all over the world to expand their creative digital skills and discover hands-on learning experiences.”

    https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-build-hat-lego-education/

    Reply
  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Upgrading a Car to Android Auto for Cheap Using Just a Screen and Raspberry Pi 4
    https://www.hackster.io/news/upgrading-a-car-to-android-auto-for-cheap-using-just-a-screen-and-raspberry-pi-4-5e5608801161

    Integrate Android Auto functionality into your old vehicle by simply attaching a Raspberry Pi 4 and accompanying touchscreen.

    Reply
  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    New Part Day: Raspberry Pi LEGO HAT
    https://hackaday.com/2021/10/21/new-part-day-raspberry-pi-lego-hat/

    The Raspberry Pi Foundation have been busy little bees for the last couple of years producing their own silicon, new boards and now in collaboration with the LEGO Education team a new HAT to connect to the LEGO SPIKE education platform. This new HAT board will work with every Raspberry Pi board with a 40-pin GPIO header.

    Based on the RPI2040 microcontroller, it makes an interesting detour away from dumb slave boards, although it looks like the firmware is closed (for now) so you’ll have to make do with the pre-baked capabilities and talk to it with the supplied python library.

    According to the documentation, the communication between the Pi and the RPI2040 nestled beneath the HAT PCB is plaintext-over-serial, freeing up the majority of the GPIO pins for other uses.

    Meet the Raspberry Pi Build HAT: create with Raspberry Pi and LEGO® Education
    https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-build-hat-lego-education/

    Reply
  27. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The most accurate Raspberry Pi atomic clock IN THE WORLD!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU0xC1ynaT8

    Will the fabric of space-time be split if I plug this highly-accurate Rubidium-oscillator-backed Time card into the Raspberry Pi?

    Reply
  28. Tomi Engdahl says:

    rpitx is a general radio frequency transmitter for Raspberry Pi which doesn’t require any other hardware unless filter to avoid intererence. It can handle frequencies from 5 KHz up to 1500 MHz. https://groups.io/g/rpitx

    Reply
  29. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Run Self-Hosted Apps at Your Home Office with PiBox
    https://www.hackster.io/news/run-self-hosted-apps-at-your-home-office-with-pibox-623e58ec2645

    The PiBox is a modular storage server powered by the Raspberry Pi and allows users to add up to two SSDs for storage.

    Reply
  30. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi-Powered VirtuScope Cyberdeck Looks Plucked From the Pages of Neuromancer
    Built in a 3D-printed chassis, this deck includes long-range Wi-Fi and a software-defined radio for extra flexibility.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/raspberry-pi-powered-virtuscope-cyberdeck-looks-plucked-from-the-pages-of-neuromancer-398a28c2c887

    Reply
  31. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi Trains Drivers to Use Their Turn Signal
    By Ash Hill 2 days ago
    This Raspberry Pi keeps drivers in their lane.
    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/raspberry-pi-turn-signal-education-system

    Reply
  32. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Learn Docker and Kubernetes With the Turing Pi A home cluster is a great way to grapple with containerized software
    https://spectrum.ieee.org/raspberry-pi-cluster-computer

    Reply
  33. Tomi Engdahl says:

    How to Use Raspberry Pi to Practice and Prevent SQL Injection Attacks
    By Ellora James 28 days ago
    Create a purposefully vulnerable server and hack it to learn.
    https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/use-raspberry-pi-sql-injection-penetration-testing

    Reply
  34. Tomi Engdahl says:

    This Endearingly Janky Raspberry Pi-Powered Coffee Maker Automates Your Morning Routine
    https://www.hackster.io/news/this-endearingly-janky-raspberry-pi-powered-coffee-maker-automates-your-morning-routine-29b4a3cea14a

    It won’t win any awards for presentation, but this Python-driven automation solution gets you your cup of joe in the morning regardless.

    Reply
  35. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Karmmah’s 3D-Printed Pocket Camera Project Gets a Speed Boost From a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
    Originally built around a Raspberry Pi Zero W, this upgraded Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W camera enjoys a noticeable speed boost.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/karmmah-s-3d-printed-pocket-camera-project-gets-a-speed-boost-from-a-raspberry-pi-zero-2-w-7033f9e2e37a

    Reply
  36. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Scott Shawcroft Works On Bare-Metal Raspberry Pi CircuitPython as Adafruit Plans an E Ink Computer
    The ability to run CircuitPython on a Raspberry Pi without an operating system will soon be here — along with an E Ink microcomputer.
    https://www.hackster.io/news/scott-shawcroft-works-on-bare-metal-raspberry-pi-circuitpython-as-adafruit-plans-an-e-ink-computer-a6a037558ba5

    Reply
  37. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Low Orbit Flux Builds a Raspberry Pi Router with a Compute Module 4 and DFRobot’s IoT Carrier Board
    https://www.hackster.io/news/low-orbit-flux-builds-a-raspberry-pi-router-with-a-compute-module-4-and-dfrobot-s-iot-carrier-board-ce52f690928b

    Using the Compute Module’s PCI Express lane, it’s possible to pack two full-speed gigabit Ethernet ports into a very compact IoT router.

    Pseudonymous maker “Low Orbit Flux” has posted a guide to turning a Raspberry Pi into a firewall and router — getting around the device’s usual lack of a second Ethernet port by adding a DFRobot dual-Ethernet carrier board to a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.

    “The first [router] that I built was using the original Raspberry Pi with a USB NIC [Network Interface Card], so I had the onboard NIC and a USB NIC,” Flux explains. “That was kind of suboptimal because it was limited by the speed of the USB controller, and that was kind of a bottleneck. So, my new Raspberry Pi firewall router is going to use the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 together with this dual gigabit NIC expansion board here.”

    Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 IoT Router Carrier Board Mini
    https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2242.html

    Reply
  38. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Raspberry Pi TOSLINK transceiver hat
    Optical digital audio I/O for Raspberry Pi
    https://hackaday.io/project/182641-raspberry-pi-toslink-transceiver-hat

    The Raspberry Pi has support for i2s audio I/O. It’s fairly simple to add a S/PDIF transceiver chip and optical audio I/O ports on a hat to allow it to be conveniently used.

    Reply
  39. Tomi Engdahl says:

    PuppyPi Quadruped Robot
    A quadrupted robot with first person vision powered by RasperryPi 4B
    https://hackaday.io/project/181861-puppypi-quadruped-robot

    Reply

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