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Those are very cool, but they are "development platforms". I don't want/can't design and produce my own hardware. I want to buy a little box (around 50-100 USD
by swah 15y ago
Those are very cool, but they are "development platforms".
I don't want/can't design and produce my own hardware.
I want to buy a little box (around 50-100 USD would be still good), attach an USB camera, and with software make an interesting project.
In other words: Wifi and Linux (and its drivers) would make a great automation platform (having to connect to AC being the only problem left).
For example, I could put one of those in front of my water meter (http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01373/water-meter_1373724c.jpg http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01373/water-mete...), with a little bit of OpenCV software to parse the numbers I could have real-time water usage monitoring.
(This just reminded me of Bunnie's Chumby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby). If Chumby has died because cellphones haven't left any market to it, it could easily be repurposed to compete with Raspberry PI, it seems.
- joshu 15y agoThey may be called development platforms but they are really pretty similar to raspberrypi, actually. Maybe some more I/O pins. They are probably as suitable for your project as a raspberrypi, anyway. Btw check out the Pcengine's alix, which is x86 and runs on 5 watts or so. Or the Genesi Efika, which is arm based
- joshu 15y agoI actually DO use an alix for home automation, btw. It runs plain unmolested ubuntu.
- swah 15y agoNice! I'll just leave some links in case anyone wants to see what its like: http://www.wifiproducts.com.au/wifi-mikrotik-webstore/ALIX_Cases-list.aspx http://www.wifiproducts.com.au/wifi-mikrotik-webstore/ALIX_C... http://www.wifiproducts.com.au/wifi-mikrotik-webstore/ALIX_2D3_system_board__3_LAN___1_miniPCI___LX800___256_MB___USB-details.aspx http://www.wifiproducts.com.au/wifi-mikrotik-webstore/ALIX_2...
- joshu 15y agothese folks sell them for a fair bit less: http://myworld.ebay.com/pandorashope/?_trksid=p4340.l2559 http://myworld.ebay.com/pandorashope/?_trksid=p4340.l2559 this is where i got mine, anwyay
- joshu 15y agoalso check out the beagleboard-xM: http://beagleboard.org/ http://beagleboard.org/