17 ms·

My RPi's are like lottery tickets. I buy them with the thought of all they could be used for...then collect duct in the junk drawer. I also tell myself I'm sup

My RPi's are like lottery tickets. I buy them with the thought of all they could be used for...then collect duct in the junk drawer. I also tell myself I'm supporting the manufacturer, though it would appear they don't need my help.

rootusrootus 5y ago
Same here. I buy them, set them up for some interesting thing, and then I decided to just convert the fleet into a single NUC with ESX. Faster, easier to manage.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
andrewzah 5y ago
Indeed. One actually useful case I found was using an rpi with shairport-sync + owntone to allow airplay streaming. I got a quality DAC from hifiberry [0]. Another use was running HomeAssistant, but I migrated that to my real server. Another use is having an external InfluxDB + Grafana monitoring setup so I can view stats even if the server goes down. Lastly, you can take X amount of raspberry pis and run a kubernetes cluster with k3s. [1] Since I don't play with my cluster much, most of my pis just sit around gathering dust... 0: https://www.hifiberry.com/ https://www.hifiberry.com/ 1: https://k3s.io/ https://k3s.io/
- bombcar 5y ago
  That's a big one, unless you're doing actual IO on the Pi itself, if you have a server you can likely virtualize or docker whatever you were going to do with the Pi.
- mbreese 5y ago
  I have a few Pis around the house, but likewise, the primary use-case that has stuck has been as an Airplay target (using shairport-sync). I'm not using a RPi specific DAC, but rather a cheap USB DAC. I have two of these around the house and haven't had to touch them for years. The second use-case I have is as an Octopi server to run my 3D printer. I have found this interface to be significantly more user friendly than uploading new designs to an SD card.
kd913 5y ago
Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS. Kind of useful because frankly ISPs are sniffing DNS traffic. Also useful for bypassing DNS based ISP filters. The above basically enabled me to create a 5 country wide private VPN by giving VPNs to family members. It enables me to print/scan things from abroad, access CPU resources/servers/GPUs/Webcams/automation and obviously browse as if I am in another place. My family when they are abroad, can now work as if they aren't. It also saves power (reducing analytics traffic), improves privacy and takes about a weekend to setup. They also make great personal gifts too.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- aweiland 5y ago
  Any good tutorials on setting up Wireguard? This (and Pihole) have been on my todo list for a while.
  - kd913 5y ago
    I should probably write a blog on how to do this. I have a setup guide for myself, but unfortunately it contains a lot of obviously private details that I can't post (ie access to my cloudflare/VPN stuff). A lot of my stuff is ad-hoc from my personal exploration and experience on Linux. In regards to the wireguard specific stuff, this isn't a bad guide. https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2019/11/01/home-vpn-server-wireguard/ https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2019/11/01/home-vpn-server-wireguar... The harder part with the VPN stuff is the following. 1) Setting up a clear route of forwarding traffic to the pihole. To do so, you would need to setup netplan/systemd-networkd so your pi gets a static private IP. (Not that easy if you are doing a full ipv6 route too.) 2) Setup a DDNS mechanism (as you most likely are getting a dynamic IP). My suggestion for this was to get a domain name (8 quid a year) and use cloudflare as a DDNS host. You also need to punch a UDP port through your router to forward to your pi. 3) Then setup the rest of the wireguard stuff. 4) Setup the pihole and ensure all interfaces are covered so your VPN has a DNS server. Part 2 is the hardest bit as I kind of needed some custom scripting to ensure cloudflare had working routes to my networks. e.g. https://gist.github.com/Kedstar99/2d8ab0e9bec3a5629562b4ab010a1847 https://gist.github.com/Kedstar99/2d8ab0e9bec3a5629562b4ab01... The above script obviously running as a systemd service that restarts automatically. Obviously you can use something else like noip or some other DDNS solution.
hateful 5y ago
I use one for the clock in my bedroom. I use FullPageOS to load a web page that contains the time, date and weather (Open Weather gives you 60 checks per minute for free - way more than I need). The clock is on a full size monitor so the wife and I can see it without our glasses on. I basically deployed a nodejs app and configured FullPageOS to load that local page. The clock itself is just HTML and JavaScript (jQuery, bootstrap, moment.js) - there is no servers side code beyond basically the "connect+serve-static to server the index.html file. Oh, and it plays the comet from Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Title Credits on the hour in the background.
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  what do you use for the display?
  - hateful 5y ago
    Just an old monitor (2 actually, I mirror it on the other side of the wall) - 17in - I don't think it's even 1080.
open-source-ux 5y ago
If you are looking for project ideas or inspiratation, take a look at the official Raspberry Pi magazine: MagPi. Each issue is full of projects with step-by-step instructions on creating the project. Each issue of the magazine can be downloaded for free as a PDF (or alternatively purchased as a print magazine): The MagPi Magazine: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues
peckrob 5y ago
I use mine all the time for experiments. They're super useful for doing quick one-off experiments to see if something will work. Sometimes I'll keep using them, other times I'll switch to a different platform. Friday I was trying to figure out if I could remotely read realtime usage off my power meter. I've tried using a SDR for it but it uses some proprietary frequency hopping system that is difficult to understand and I don't have enough domain knowledge to reliably implement. But it had a debug port on it with what looked like an IR transmitter in it, and some reading online indicated that it might be flashing at a rate that indicates usage. It was too weak (and it was too bright outside) to see it with my phone, so I decided ot just try it out. 30 minutes later I had a Raspi with a IR receiver and lirc and I could confirm that it was pulsing at a rate of 1 pulse per watt-hour (1000 pulses per kWh). The actual reader implementation I will probably do on esp32 because Raspi is overkill for this, it just needs to read the pulses and broadcast messages to MQTT, and I'll 3D print an enclosure so it's not just taped to the side of the meter. But the Raspi made it really easy to just try this idea out without making any commitments to it. That alone is worth keeping a few around.
- irq-1 5y ago
  There is also the $4 Raspberry Pico: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
  - mypastself 5y ago
    Unless you have embarrassingly poor soldering skills like I do, in which case you have to pay a little extra for pre-soldered pins. But it’s a great little device, and with Thonny and MicroPython, you can get small projects up and running with a really quick turnaround.
    - peckrob 5y ago
      Yeah, this is me too. I have essential tremor, so soldering anything takes a great amount of effort. I'll always pay extra for the ease of using the pins.
throw10920 5y ago
If you still haven't found a use for them: they make for good low-power, always-on, headless networked servers for processing-light tasks. Other commentators mentioned pihole/DNS, WireGuard, and music streaming, but you can also use them for a (slow) NFS server, persistent Syncthing node, Maestral host[1] (third-party Dropbox client written in Python (that can actually run on the Raspberry Pi, unlike the official Dropbox client)), or device that maintains a connection to a distributed network (e.g. Hyporborea/cjdns). [1] https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral
- II2II 5y ago
  I do the same thing, with a different mix of services: - The obligatory PiHole. - An ssh server, which I use to access my internal network. - A script that scrapes a website daily. - A database to support a web development project. - A web server to support a web development project. - An NFS server, for data backups. While it is probably underpowered to serve the needs of some people, it serves my needs. Since I don't fiddle around with it very much, it has proven to be very reliable.
  - MonaroVXR 5y ago
    >- A database to support a web development project. What language, frameworks, modules and how do you store and present it?
    - II2II 5y ago
      It's a basic Apache/PHP/PostgreSQL setup. This is a private project that I am working on to collect information on and plan recreation programs. The scope is sufficiently narrow that I don't see much of a need to expand beyond that setup.
bmurphy1976 5y ago
All the stuff I used to do on a large and clunky hot power hungry noisy Intel box is now comfortably running on a cluster of Raspberry Pi's tucked away in the basement ceiling where nobody can see them. I wish they were a little faster in some cases (particularly serving the Nextcloud UI) but overall I much prefer this setup, especially since I can add Raspberry Pi's to facilitate specific roles like I would in a production data center deployment. I've got a web server, a SAN, a couple pi-holes, and a home automation controller. I plan to spin out my databases and Prometheus onto their own Raspberry Pi's. All of them are configured using Ansible. I can recreate one in a hurry if it dies and data backed up to a ZFS partition on the SAN pi. I have a couple additional Raspberry Pi's that I temporarily hook up to the network and run a script to sync the latest ZFS snapshots over for backup purposes. I'm sure you could find SOME use for them :)
- mattkevan 5y ago
  They’re just plain handy to have around. I use mine as an Airplay receiver with shairport-sync, an ebook opds server with Calibre Web and as a development machine so I can continue working on websites when I only have access to iOS. It’s great!
- 542458 5y ago
  > particularly serving the Nextcloud UI Nextcloud is an absolute dog. Even on a server with loads of power and an SSD-based database over a local connection with all the caching options turned on… it’s still not snappy. I wish we had better FOSS options in this space.
  - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
    Agree totally. It's not FOSS but I've had good experience with FileRun. I loved Pydio but it was simply too slow.
- blackandsqueaky 5y ago
  Beware of proper insulation, even low energy devices can start a fire
sigg3 5y ago
Use one for an offline emulator (using e.g. RetroPie). Kids love it and they don't have to be so careful with it. We mostly play SNES games but I sometimes play stuff from my childhood when they're not awake.
jandrese 5y ago
I just pulled out one this weekend after my ISP decided to refresh my IP and gave me on that was apparently used by Satan himself. All google services were just blackholing my traffic, it was breaking everything. I have never seen it that bad before, I've gotten CAPCHAs before, but never have I seen it just plain never respond to SYNs. I tried to force it to refresh but their router was insistent on me keeping that cursed IP address. For a temporary workaround I set up a VPN endpoint on a VPS and configured a disused Pi3 to route through to the VPN endpoint, then turned it into an AP and had everybody connect through the Pi instead. It bypassed the breakage for the day so I could leave the connection off overnight to force my ISP to reallocate that IP. It is this kind of Swiss Army Knife type job where the Pi is a perfect solution.
- rytis 5y ago
  If you have control over the router that's connecting to your ISP, and assuming it allows such a thing, try changing its MAC address. EdgeRouterX for example allows this. Chances are, you get different IP.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    Years ago when I first had the service installed I tried this once, and discovered a $20 "additional device" surcharge on the next bill.
barkingcat 5y ago
to be honest they don't need your help by buying them, but they do need help with advocacy if you are in the uk and are part of nonprofit fund and foundations looking to give money to organizations https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/21/raspberry-pi-gets-45m-to-meet-demand-for-low-cost-pcs-and-iot/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/21/raspberry-pi-gets-45m-to-m... they are primarily funded by government, ngo's, and other foundations.
knodi123 5y ago
I have three. One was going to be a home security and automation server, but in the end, every feature it had was either something my family wound up hating, or something that worked 9 out of 10 times and was therefore useless, or something that proved slightly harder than I expected and was therefore too much trouble. So now, all it does is loudly announce the time of various things, like "Time to pick the kids up from school". The other two pis are sitting in a project crate, ready to use if I ever find myself with extra free time again.
- spikej 5y ago
  Try installing DietPi with Pihole
firecall 5y ago
I've thought about getting one or two... I can see the appeal. But I have come to the sensible conclusion that an Intel NUC is far more useful, to me, as a general purpose computing device, media server, file server, linux dev box and occasional casual Minecraft gaming device for the kids! Seemingly once I've specced up a RPI, they are not exactly super cheap at that point!

rootusrootus 5y ago

Same here. I buy them, set them up for some interesting thing, and then I decided to just convert the fleet into a single NUC with ESX. Faster, easier to manage.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

andrewzah 5y ago

Indeed. One actually useful case I found was using an rpi with shairport-sync + owntone to allow airplay streaming. I got a quality DAC from hifiberry [0]. Another use was running HomeAssistant, but I migrated that to my real server. Another use is having an external InfluxDB + Grafana monitoring setup so I can view stats even if the server goes down. Lastly, you can take X amount of raspberry pis and run a kubernetes cluster with k3s. [1] Since I don't play with my cluster much, most of my pis just sit around gathering dust... 0: https://www.hifiberry.com/ https://www.hifiberry.com/ 1: https://k3s.io/ https://k3s.io/

bombcar 5y ago
That's a big one, unless you're doing actual IO on the Pi itself, if you have a server you can likely virtualize or docker whatever you were going to do with the Pi.
mbreese 5y ago
I have a few Pis around the house, but likewise, the primary use-case that has stuck has been as an Airplay target (using shairport-sync). I'm not using a RPi specific DAC, but rather a cheap USB DAC. I have two of these around the house and haven't had to touch them for years. The second use-case I have is as an Octopi server to run my 3D printer. I have found this interface to be significantly more user friendly than uploading new designs to an SD card.

kd913 5y ago

Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS. Kind of useful because frankly ISPs are sniffing DNS traffic. Also useful for bypassing DNS based ISP filters. The above basically enabled me to create a 5 country wide private VPN by giving VPNs to family members. It enables me to print/scan things from abroad, access CPU resources/servers/GPUs/Webcams/automation and obviously browse as if I am in another place. My family when they are abroad, can now work as if they aren't. It also saves power (reducing analytics traffic), improves privacy and takes about a weekend to setup. They also make great personal gifts too.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
aweiland 5y ago
Any good tutorials on setting up Wireguard? This (and Pihole) have been on my todo list for a while.
- kd913 5y ago
  I should probably write a blog on how to do this. I have a setup guide for myself, but unfortunately it contains a lot of obviously private details that I can't post (ie access to my cloudflare/VPN stuff). A lot of my stuff is ad-hoc from my personal exploration and experience on Linux. In regards to the wireguard specific stuff, this isn't a bad guide. https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2019/11/01/home-vpn-server-wireguard/ https://mikkel.hoegh.org/2019/11/01/home-vpn-server-wireguar... The harder part with the VPN stuff is the following. 1) Setting up a clear route of forwarding traffic to the pihole. To do so, you would need to setup netplan/systemd-networkd so your pi gets a static private IP. (Not that easy if you are doing a full ipv6 route too.) 2) Setup a DDNS mechanism (as you most likely are getting a dynamic IP). My suggestion for this was to get a domain name (8 quid a year) and use cloudflare as a DDNS host. You also need to punch a UDP port through your router to forward to your pi. 3) Then setup the rest of the wireguard stuff. 4) Setup the pihole and ensure all interfaces are covered so your VPN has a DNS server. Part 2 is the hardest bit as I kind of needed some custom scripting to ensure cloudflare had working routes to my networks. e.g. https://gist.github.com/Kedstar99/2d8ab0e9bec3a5629562b4ab010a1847 https://gist.github.com/Kedstar99/2d8ab0e9bec3a5629562b4ab01... The above script obviously running as a systemd service that restarts automatically. Obviously you can use something else like noip or some other DDNS solution.

hateful 5y ago

I use one for the clock in my bedroom. I use FullPageOS to load a web page that contains the time, date and weather (Open Weather gives you 60 checks per minute for free - way more than I need). The clock is on a full size monitor so the wife and I can see it without our glasses on. I basically deployed a nodejs app and configured FullPageOS to load that local page. The clock itself is just HTML and JavaScript (jQuery, bootstrap, moment.js) - there is no servers side code beyond basically the "connect+serve-static to server the index.html file. Oh, and it plays the comet from Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Title Credits on the hour in the background.

2Gkashmiri 5y ago
what do you use for the display?
- hateful 5y ago
  Just an old monitor (2 actually, I mirror it on the other side of the wall) - 17in - I don't think it's even 1080.

open-source-ux 5y ago

If you are looking for project ideas or inspiratation, take a look at the official Raspberry Pi magazine: MagPi. Each issue is full of projects with step-by-step instructions on creating the project. Each issue of the magazine can be downloaded for free as a PDF (or alternatively purchased as a print magazine): The MagPi Magazine: https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/issues

peckrob 5y ago

I use mine all the time for experiments. They're super useful for doing quick one-off experiments to see if something will work. Sometimes I'll keep using them, other times I'll switch to a different platform. Friday I was trying to figure out if I could remotely read realtime usage off my power meter. I've tried using a SDR for it but it uses some proprietary frequency hopping system that is difficult to understand and I don't have enough domain knowledge to reliably implement. But it had a debug port on it with what looked like an IR transmitter in it, and some reading online indicated that it might be flashing at a rate that indicates usage. It was too weak (and it was too bright outside) to see it with my phone, so I decided ot just try it out. 30 minutes later I had a Raspi with a IR receiver and lirc and I could confirm that it was pulsing at a rate of 1 pulse per watt-hour (1000 pulses per kWh). The actual reader implementation I will probably do on esp32 because Raspi is overkill for this, it just needs to read the pulses and broadcast messages to MQTT, and I'll 3D print an enclosure so it's not just taped to the side of the meter. But the Raspi made it really easy to just try this idea out without making any commitments to it. That alone is worth keeping a few around.

irq-1 5y ago
There is also the $4 Raspberry Pico: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
- mypastself 5y ago
  Unless you have embarrassingly poor soldering skills like I do, in which case you have to pay a little extra for pre-soldered pins. But it’s a great little device, and with Thonny and MicroPython, you can get small projects up and running with a really quick turnaround.
  - peckrob 5y ago
    Yeah, this is me too. I have essential tremor, so soldering anything takes a great amount of effort. I'll always pay extra for the ease of using the pins.

throw10920 5y ago

If you still haven't found a use for them: they make for good low-power, always-on, headless networked servers for processing-light tasks. Other commentators mentioned pihole/DNS, WireGuard, and music streaming, but you can also use them for a (slow) NFS server, persistent Syncthing node, Maestral host[1] (third-party Dropbox client written in Python (that can actually run on the Raspberry Pi, unlike the official Dropbox client)), or device that maintains a connection to a distributed network (e.g. Hyporborea/cjdns). [1] https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral

II2II 5y ago
I do the same thing, with a different mix of services: - The obligatory PiHole. - An ssh server, which I use to access my internal network. - A script that scrapes a website daily. - A database to support a web development project. - A web server to support a web development project. - An NFS server, for data backups. While it is probably underpowered to serve the needs of some people, it serves my needs. Since I don't fiddle around with it very much, it has proven to be very reliable.
- MonaroVXR 5y ago
  >- A database to support a web development project. What language, frameworks, modules and how do you store and present it?
  - II2II 5y ago
    It's a basic Apache/PHP/PostgreSQL setup. This is a private project that I am working on to collect information on and plan recreation programs. The scope is sufficiently narrow that I don't see much of a need to expand beyond that setup.

bmurphy1976 5y ago

All the stuff I used to do on a large and clunky hot power hungry noisy Intel box is now comfortably running on a cluster of Raspberry Pi's tucked away in the basement ceiling where nobody can see them. I wish they were a little faster in some cases (particularly serving the Nextcloud UI) but overall I much prefer this setup, especially since I can add Raspberry Pi's to facilitate specific roles like I would in a production data center deployment. I've got a web server, a SAN, a couple pi-holes, and a home automation controller. I plan to spin out my databases and Prometheus onto their own Raspberry Pi's. All of them are configured using Ansible. I can recreate one in a hurry if it dies and data backed up to a ZFS partition on the SAN pi. I have a couple additional Raspberry Pi's that I temporarily hook up to the network and run a script to sync the latest ZFS snapshots over for backup purposes. I'm sure you could find SOME use for them :)

mattkevan 5y ago
They’re just plain handy to have around. I use mine as an Airplay receiver with shairport-sync, an ebook opds server with Calibre Web and as a development machine so I can continue working on websites when I only have access to iOS. It’s great!
542458 5y ago
> particularly serving the Nextcloud UI Nextcloud is an absolute dog. Even on a server with loads of power and an SSD-based database over a local connection with all the caching options turned on… it’s still not snappy. I wish we had better FOSS options in this space.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  Agree totally. It's not FOSS but I've had good experience with FileRun. I loved Pydio but it was simply too slow.
blackandsqueaky 5y ago
Beware of proper insulation, even low energy devices can start a fire

sigg3 5y ago

Use one for an offline emulator (using e.g. RetroPie). Kids love it and they don't have to be so careful with it. We mostly play SNES games but I sometimes play stuff from my childhood when they're not awake.

jandrese 5y ago

I just pulled out one this weekend after my ISP decided to refresh my IP and gave me on that was apparently used by Satan himself. All google services were just blackholing my traffic, it was breaking everything. I have never seen it that bad before, I've gotten CAPCHAs before, but never have I seen it just plain never respond to SYNs. I tried to force it to refresh but their router was insistent on me keeping that cursed IP address. For a temporary workaround I set up a VPN endpoint on a VPS and configured a disused Pi3 to route through to the VPN endpoint, then turned it into an AP and had everybody connect through the Pi instead. It bypassed the breakage for the day so I could leave the connection off overnight to force my ISP to reallocate that IP. It is this kind of Swiss Army Knife type job where the Pi is a perfect solution.

rytis 5y ago
If you have control over the router that's connecting to your ISP, and assuming it allows such a thing, try changing its MAC address. EdgeRouterX for example allows this. Chances are, you get different IP.
- jandrese 5y ago
  Years ago when I first had the service installed I tried this once, and discovered a $20 "additional device" surcharge on the next bill.

barkingcat 5y ago

to be honest they don't need your help by buying them, but they do need help with advocacy if you are in the uk and are part of nonprofit fund and foundations looking to give money to organizations https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/21/raspberry-pi-gets-45m-to-meet-demand-for-low-cost-pcs-and-iot/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/21/raspberry-pi-gets-45m-to-m... they are primarily funded by government, ngo's, and other foundations.

knodi123 5y ago

I have three. One was going to be a home security and automation server, but in the end, every feature it had was either something my family wound up hating, or something that worked 9 out of 10 times and was therefore useless, or something that proved slightly harder than I expected and was therefore too much trouble. So now, all it does is loudly announce the time of various things, like "Time to pick the kids up from school". The other two pis are sitting in a project crate, ready to use if I ever find myself with extra free time again.

spikej 5y ago
Try installing DietPi with Pihole

firecall 5y ago

I've thought about getting one or two... I can see the appeal. But I have come to the sensible conclusion that an Intel NUC is far more useful, to me, as a general purpose computing device, media server, file server, linux dev box and occasional casual Minecraft gaming device for the kids! Seemingly once I've specced up a RPI, they are not exactly super cheap at that point!