Many of those options are cheap to buy but expensive to ship. One pi clone was $30 on Amazon but shipping was also $30. Desktop thin clients/mini PCs and a 3rd

Many of those options are cheap to buy but expensive to ship. One pi clone was $30 on Amazon but shipping was also $30. Desktop thin clients/mini PCs and a 3rd party Arduino clone connected over USB for the GPIO are cheaper than most of these options and give you more performance. I’ve used a ASUS Chromebox CN60 and an Inland clone from a micro center for a project. The CN60 cost me $28 a unit on eBay. Picked up a few of those for various projects. Skilled engineers might be able to tap into the gpio on the motherboard. HP EliteDesk 800 G1 Desktop Mini PC was going for about $50 on eBay. Also have a few of those and support dual monitor. I would go this route over RPi. I’ve sold all my RPI’s on eBay and will never go back. Don’t be fooled by the marketing Pi Foundation does. You don’t need their products.