[HN Gopher] Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)
___________________________________________________________________
Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)
Author : heywire
Score : 245 points
Date : 2021-10-25 12:00 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.monterail.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.monterail.com)
| byteface wrote:
| nice. i've done simliar projects with unipis in hotels as its
| cheaper than crestron. Seeing that din rail brought back some
| memories. you can attach an infrared reciever to the pins and use
| lirc to then basically do whatever from a universal remote aswell
| which is a cool upgrade. put infra on a pizero on the network so
| it can go in ceiling or discretely somewhere. you might also find
| the AC has an http interface . they often modbus but samsung have
| http ones too. so u may be able to control that. one thing you
| can do is read the serial signals coming out of an AC controller
| and record the bytes. then just store them as instrucitons and
| send the same bytes over the same wire to hack it. takes a lot of
| fiddling.
| albertzeyer wrote:
| We use a small drink kiosk touch pad powered by Rasperry Pi,
| using this simple software project:
| https://github.com/rwth-i6/drink-kiosk
|
| Works great. Except the SD card seems to be dying now after 3
| years of constant usage (well, less usage during the enforced
| home-office times).
| forinti wrote:
| Try disabling syslog and swap.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Check out the high endurance SD cards they typically support 10
| to 100 times the writes other SD cards do and aren't that much
| more expensive. They are most often used in dashcams and the
| like.
| gambiting wrote:
| Or for a kiosk you could probably run exclusively from RAM
| and never touch the SD card after the initial boot.
| sgt wrote:
| We found that booting from USB and using a 2.5" SSD drive
| is durable.
| foxfluff wrote:
| Fwiw Alpine Linux is very easy to set up in diskless mode.
| That's what I used for my first Pi 4 install. It does boot up
| and load packages from the sd card, but after that everything
| runs from RAM.
| ValentineC wrote:
| If this works for you: I've found that it's good practice to
| mount root as read-only once your software configuration is
| stable, and try to use tmpfs for everything.
| benttoothpaste wrote:
| 3 years for SD card is very long. Mine requires SD card
| replacement after 3-4 months. I hate that storage medium.
| moonbug wrote:
| A manager needs firing.
| theHIDninja wrote:
| That is surprising. I guess it's still economical for them to use
| these horrible computers despite the fact the mean time between
| failures is at best three weeks.
| heywire wrote:
| Last year I decommissioned a Pi 2 that had been running nonstop
| pretty much since it came out, with the same SD card. I used it
| as a camera/motion detector for my garage, so it isn't like it
| had the perfect environment. I also have a pi 3 that runs
| nonstop collecting data from a couple usb peripherals. I have a
| pi zero W running as a print server for the last 2-3 years, and
| a pi 4 with multiple services and docker containers for the
| last 1.5-2 years. I have never experienced an SD or pi failure.
| I only buy the power supplies recommended by the pi foundation.
| I also gracefully shut down vs. yanking power (but I do not
| have these on UPS, so they do occasionally experience power
| outages)
| theHIDninja wrote:
| That is all anecdotal evidence. All four that I have tried
| using have failed catastrophically for different reasons. See
| my reply to a different comment on the same thread.
| heywire wrote:
| As is yours. I was only sharing my own anecdotes to show
| that both extremes exist.
| ajford wrote:
| I've got multiple RasPis from 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gen that all
| have lasted years. I know of a Rpi 2b still running in a shed
| in the New Mexico desert that holds at about 90*F that's still
| going after 5 years.
|
| I had a 3B running as a car infotainment system with hard
| shutdowns at least daily for three years. Sold that car and
| it's now in a drawer, but slated for use in an arcade perhaps.
|
| I've got another 3b running as a Unifi controller that's been
| running for 2+ years.
|
| I've got two 3b and one 4 running OctoPi (3d printer server)
| without issues for 3+ years.
|
| Given the mass adoption and heavy usage of RPis, I would
| venture to day most people don't find them to be "horrible
| computers". I think in 5+ years the only time I've had an RPi
| fail at the hardware level and die was due to powering it via
| the 5V headers and accidentally reversing polarity. Might have
| also shorted one out when an enclosure was flooded due to bad
| weather seals.
|
| All anecdotal, but I find most of the time when Pi's fail it's
| often either voltage sag, poor quality sd cards, or excessive
| writes to the SD. The SD cards are definitely a weak link in
| the RPi ecosystem.
|
| Whenever possible, ensure your Pi isn't reporting undervoltage
| and look for ways to minimize writing to disk (or attach a USB
| drive for any heavy writing necessary).
| squarefoot wrote:
| There are better solutions other than the Raspberries, often
| even cheaper, less power hungry and more open, but they
| struggle to gain visibility because they don't spend in
| advertising as much as the Raspberry Pi Foundation (Broadcom?)
| does.
|
| Here's a list of over 400 boards. There's also a .csv file to
| downlaod for offline quick comparison.
| https://hackerboards.com/
| kingosticks wrote:
| Out of interest, where do you see their adverts?
| foxfluff wrote:
| Do you have any references for MTBF or the Pi's failure modes
| in general? SD cards going out are pretty much the only thing
| people talk about, and that problem is easy to solve. Another
| thing is bad power supplies, again easily solved (and not the
| Pi's fault).
| theHIDninja wrote:
| My experiences with raspberry pis has been exclusively and
| extremely negative.
|
| The first one I owned had some kind of electrical fault that
| bricked and destroyed my TV.
|
| The second one I owned had a fault where a few of the
| capacitors on the back fell off upon me plugging it in for
| the first time.
|
| The third one I tried had a fault where it would
| spontaneously shut down if I had any USB devices plugged into
| it for any reason at all (in this case it was a mouse and a
| flash drive).
|
| The fourth one I owned had the same problem, and the way I
| fixed it was desoldering its onboard wifi receiver running it
| at an absurd underclock and overvolting the USB2 input with
| my bench power supply.
|
| With that said, let me talk about their hardware.
|
| The USB-C implementation on the raspberry pi 4 violates the
| USB spec. When this was brought up to the engineers over
| there, they completely memory holed the problem, saying it
| works on USB2 chargers through an adapter. I call bullshit
| because during normal use it will draw more than 12.5 watts
| (which exceeds power limits on USB2 cables).
|
| I have never seen the micro HDMI port on anything made before
| 2013 so the adapters required to make it work with modern TVs
| may as well be proprietary ones sold by RPi.
|
| The camera input connector is encrypted for some reason, so
| if you wanted to use a camera through there it has to be one
| of raspberry pi's.
|
| Despite them claiming it's opensource, it really isn't. The
| only thing that they have made opensource is the schematics
| which are largely useless for integrating into your own
| designs. The main processor onboard (and a handful of other
| ICs) isn't even commercially available. They claim it is, but
| that's only if you order it in minimum quantities of a few
| hundred thousand or something.
|
| So in order to use the RPi4's most basic features, you need a
| proprietary charger, a proprietary camera, and a proprietary
| video output dongle. These things are more locked down than
| most laptops.
|
| And that's just the problems with the RPi4. That has
| absolutely nothing to do with the litany of problems the past
| versions have had, which I don't feel like listing here. One
| of the issues that comes to mind is that the RPi 3 had a
| problem where it would spontaneously shut down if the lights
| in the room flickered wrong.
|
| Worst of all, because these clowns have mindshare it means
| that other more well-behaved SBCs will never get any form of
| community tech support or large enough marketshare to make
| any notable change.
| smarx007 wrote:
| > The third one I tried had a fault where it would
| spontaneously shut down if I had any USB devices plugged
| into it for any reason at all (in this case it was a mouse
| and a flash drive).
|
| I have a power supply that is so weak that Pi would reboot
| when I plug a USB keyboard in it. Solution: never use weak
| power supplies on Pi's.
|
| > I have never seen the micro HDMI port on anything made
| before 2013 so the adapters required to make it work with
| modern TVs may as well be proprietary ones sold by RPi.
|
| Pi Zero uses mini HDMI due to size constraints. Pi 4 has 2
| HDMI outputs! Instead of adapters, I always prefer "right"
| cables. More expensive but convenient. E.g.
| https://www.amazon.de/Snowkids-zukunftssicheres-TV-Kabel-
| unt.... Also, ironically, my 2012/2013 ASUS Zenbook has a
| microHDMI port.
|
| > The fourth one I owned had the same problem, and the way
| I fixed it was desoldering its onboard wifi receiver
| running it at an absurd underclock and overvolting the USB2
| input with my bench power supply.
|
| Have you tried 2-3A power supplies? E.g.
| https://www.amazon.de/Anker-PowerPort-
| Wandladeger%C3%A4t-kom.... Though I found the "official"
| supply cheaper and went with it.
|
| > One of the issues that comes to mind is that the RPi 3
| had a problem where it would spontaneously shut down if the
| lights in the room flickered wrong.
|
| Most likely your power adaptor would not be able to
| maintain stable voltage when your lights flickered.
|
| Anyway, have been running 3B+, a few Pi0s for a few years
| and this is the first time I read about so many problems
| with Pi's falling on one head. To keep my SD cards alive
| longer, I use DietPi and had only one SD card die on me
| over ca. 10 pi-years of uptime.
|
| > more well-behaved SBCs
|
| I am all ears!
| theHIDninja wrote:
| I tried multiple power supplies. I even tried bench power
| supplies and overvolting them. Nothing worked. It fails
| for the same reason power strips fail if you plug too
| much into them. The Pi needs ~110% of what the input can
| even supply (that's ignoring the spec that says it should
| be 2.5 amps) and anything plugged in down-stream will
| need to take pieces out of that.
|
| >Pi 4 has 2 HDMI outputs!
|
| Two full-sized HDMI ports could fit on the board. At
| least, I could fit them. I question the competency of all
| the engineers working there.
|
| >Most likely your power adaptor would not be able to
| maintain stable voltage when your lights flickered.
|
| No. It was due to the wifi/bluetooth tranceiver not being
| potted and it would hard-reset if disturbed too much by
| the photoelectric effect.
|
| >Anyway, have been running ...
|
| Anecdotal evidence. They are built like absolute trash
| and it's a miracle anybody says they work for any reason.
|
| > more well-behaved SBCs
|
| Wake me up when someone makes one with ECC ram. I will
| not entertain using one unless it does.
| MatthiasWandel wrote:
| Possibly the engineers working there took account not
| only the size of the HDMI connector, but also the plugs
| that go into them. if you put two connectors next to each
| other, you would only be able to use one at a time.
| mattmoose21 wrote:
| >Anecdotal evidence. They are built like absolute trash
| and it's a miracle anybody says they work for any reason.
| As is your experience. I have had about 8 pi's
| (zero,2,3,4) without any issue and I have never heard
| anybody else with the amount of issues you've had. I
| think they are ubiquitous because they are inexpensive,
| well documented, and fairly well made. They would clearly
| not be as popular if everyone had your experience.
| theHIDninja wrote:
| >well made
|
| They are made from the floor sweepings in Sony's factory.
|
| You don't hear about the failures because most people
| just buy them and throw them away. I would venture to
| guess that about 60% of their customers are one-time
| buyers that try to power it on once and throw it away
| because it doesn't work. The other 40% either won the
| lottery or put up with its constant stream of shit
| because they have a near monopoly. The same is true for
| 3d printers.
| kingosticks wrote:
| I wish I could transfer my incredible raspberry pi luck
| to the actual lottery. I'd have won so many times.
|
| In reality, fully working raspberry pi boards are normal.
| I must have at least 10. I admit I no longer use the
| original model (so slow) but last time I tried it worked
| just fine. I think that's pretty great for the money,
| especially considering the state of the market before
| they came along which I think you might be forgetting.
| ajford wrote:
| I'd argue that you don't hear about failures as most
| people aren't experiencing them.
|
| Out of at least a dozen people I know using them, every
| single person has multiple RPis that has been in pretty
| regular use. On top of that you have a plethora of
| documented uses and projects across the internet, ranging
| from home automation to arcade machines.
|
| You seem to be painting an entire community with the same
| brush, but most of the people in this community would
| gladly help you solve the issues you seem to be facing.
| Perhaps the issue lies not with the RPis but with how
| you're using them....
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I have always used a few since the days of the original
| version. On my experience they last until I drop them, crush
| them with some tool, or step over them.
|
| The power supply tends to be much shorter lived. I severely
| oversize those and even then they like to stop working after
| just a few years. The SD card is the shortest lived component
| by far, but it lasts longer and has a better failure mode if
| you disable swap. (Why do pi distros enable swap at all?)
|
| Oh, and of course, since version 3 the power cable is the
| hardest component to get right. You need a very good cable,
| and you probably don't even know the specs on most of the
| ones you have...
| ajford wrote:
| I've had a lot of luck using the Samsung Evo Select micro
| sd cards, and use them almost exclusively with my RPis.
| I've recently been trying PNY Elite-X as well with good
| results, though I think I've only got one Pi running those
| (and two Wyze cams).
| yardie wrote:
| This is a really cool project and as a hacker of the Raspberry Pi
| since v1b I love to see it.
|
| Clicking on the Monterail about page I really do appreciate when
| companies list their teams. It's that small bit of credit that I
| feel goes a long way. It appears more common in European
| companies. American companies will typically list the board and
| executives; ICs are treated as interchangeable cogs with no
| credit given except internally.
| ahyattdev wrote:
| I believe part of the reason for American companies to not list
| teams publicly is to guard against easily poaching talent using
| that data.
| yardie wrote:
| LOL. Like that information isn't readily available on
| LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, Github, etc. There are ways ($$$) to
| retain talent.
| zwieback wrote:
| That's a nice looking panel, would like to hear a little more
| detail on the wiring and switching of AC loads. At work we're
| only allowed to go up to 50V, for everything else we have to call
| in an electrician and that costs $$$.
|
| edit: found some more detail in the direct link - very
| interesting. I wonder if you have to get something like that
| inspected wherever it was installed.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Could someone explain it to me what burger memes are about? I'm
| not sure if displaying meat on screen is a good idea unless you
| run a fast food shop.
| amelius wrote:
| Is showing anything on a billboard screen a good idea, given
| the power consumption when nobody is looking?
| agumonkey wrote:
| What about powering the information system ?
| amelius wrote:
| Indeed, before I clicked the link I thought this was about
| replacing the entire IT infrastructure (servers, laptops and
| PCs) by RPis.
|
| Disappointed to see that this was about controlling some LEDs
| and billboard screens instead.
| 404mm wrote:
| I mean, let's be real, what could it actually power? I can
| think of a few applications but it certainly won't be much.
|
| - dhcp / dns / radius for the office - maybe internet router,
| if they don't have a too fast connection (>500 mbps) - egress
| MTA - intranet wiki or ticketing - resource monitoring
|
| But yah, I agree with others, the title is a bit click-bait.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Yeah but that said my question is serious, I've seen offices
| relying on servers and desktops .. when in fact their entire
| operations could fit on an iphone (circa iphone 10).
|
| I have the feeling that a lot of information systems are not
| exchanging much but require huge payloads to coat things
| enough to keep cute in the html5/es6 era
|
| Quite often what would have been done with a bunch of bytes
| on a dumb terminal now requires full blown windows + browser,
| network shares of useless files, mail servers holding
| massively redundant content
| treesknees wrote:
| The technical detail blog post has a bit more information. At
| first I was wondering why they decided to go with an RPi instead
| of a few enterprise servers, and it looks like they're utilizing
| the GPIO interfaces to interact with relays to power some of it.
|
| https://www.monterail.com/blog/2016/smart-office-raspberry-p...
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed to that from
| https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/nine-raspberry-pis-power-th...
| above. Thanks!
| louwrentius wrote:
| I've been using the Raspberry Pi3/4 for:
|
| 1. Pihole + p1 power meter 2. Internet quality monitoring 3.
| Grafana + Graphite for my home computers 4. Always on Ubuntu
| Repository Mirror with external 8TB drive 5. A 3b hosting my
| website powered by solar
|
| I should add 'router' but my internet is faster than my Pi4 can
| handle. Maybe the compute module or pi400 can handle gigabit
| internet.
|
| However, almost everything I listed here could be hosted on a
| single low-power x86 box and that would even be more power-
| efficient too.
| _joel wrote:
| That's pretty cool. I mean I've worked in offices with tons on
| Pi's but they've been mainly just driving monitoring and
| visualisation displays. Seeing some other automation and
| streaming stuff in neat.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Pretty cool!
|
| I wonder if there is a rpi alternative with more gpu power and
| multiple hdmi outputs just for this use case. You could probably
| run all the logic on a single rpi.
|
| The rpis driving the screens are probably under-utilised and
| complicates the setup.
|
| On the other hand, by having multiple rpis, you reduce the risk
| of everything going down and ethernet cables (or wifi) could be
| simpler to setup than having super long cables from a central
| board up to every screen.
| bush-bby wrote:
| I don't know why, but there are few things I enjoy more than
| living vicariously through people who document raspberry pi
| projects and use cases.
| moduspol wrote:
| I think it scratches the same itch for me as it does for my
| wife looking at Instagram recipes.
|
| The end result clearly looks amazing. I'd really like to get
| into doing that, but every time I try, it ends up being way
| tougher than it looks and the net result is nowhere near as
| clean as it is in the pictures.
| jgust wrote:
| This comment isn't aimed at you specifically, but I hope it
| helps:
|
| You're looking at the 10th, 20th, 30th+ attempt being
| documented/curated on the internet. You've gotta break a few
| eggs to make an omelet, so don't let that not-so-perfect
| first try slow you down if you derive value from tinkering.
| ur-whale wrote:
| I have RPi's with wireguard all over my house hooked to various
| devices (cameras, boiler, lawn watering system, pool filtration,
| temp/hygro sensors, centralized home automation hub, home
| assistant, etc...).
|
| Can connect to them from anywhere in the world to check what's
| going on with my house and in some cases act on it.
|
| They also gather every possible piece of data they can get their
| hands on and log that to a centralized, off-site InfluxDB
| instance so I can ramp up a grafana instance and check what's
| been happening in the last <time period>.
|
| Convergence of a few things that happened relatively recently to
| make this possible / easy: 1. Wireguard: all my
| computers and it thins are on the same virtual LAN 2.
| Pi 4 has a *way* better Wifi antenna and can sit quite far from
| the Wifi router and still be very useful. 3. Grafana
| 4. InfluxDB
| beezischillin wrote:
| The Pi4 is an amazing piece of hardware. While relying on sd
| cards is a sure way to get a disappointing surprise, they now
| support booting off a USB drive, which is amazing. Couple it with
| even a sata ssd and a USB adapter and you'll be amazed how fired
| up it becomes. A Linux without a GUI boots in mere seconds. My
| biggest complaint really is the availability, especially now. I
| had to buy one of those mini Intel Atom PCs because I just
| couldn't find a Pi4 anymore at a reasonable price.
|
| I run an invoicing tool off mine, PiHole, NextCloud, UPS
| monitoring and HomeAssistant to control lights and heating in my
| home.
|
| I have one serving as a controller and monitoring server for my
| 3D printer that I turned into a chunky little tablet with a 7"
| touchscreen and OctoPrint.
|
| And another one for backups at the office.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| What's the invoicing tool you are using?
| beezischillin wrote:
| It's a small Laravel app my friend wrote for himself and
| shared with me.
|
| Tom Lawrence (YouTuber who makes networking related videos)
| uses the open source one called InvoiceNinja. Apparently it's
| pretty good!
| handrous wrote:
| > A Linux without a GUI boots in mere seconds.
|
| IIRC Lakka (a Linux that boots straight into Retroarch, based
| on the same micro-distro Kodi uses, I think) is booted and
| interactive, with a GUI, in like 2-3 seconds. I think it's
| using direct rendering to achieve that, though, not X or
| Wayland.
|
| [EDIT] And that's off an SDCard.
| beezischillin wrote:
| I should've been more specific! I meant Raspbian Lite :) That
| one certainly doesn't boot in seconds off an SD card.
| handrous wrote:
| Right, I wasn't trying to one-up you, and a "full" Linux
| distro of any kind will take longer than that, just
| pointing out that the bottleneck _is not_ the hardware. The
| thing can boot _really_ fast.
| beezischillin wrote:
| Oh, don't worry, I assumed that you weren't, I just
| realised that I wasn't too specific so I just specified
| it. Sorry if I accidentally implied that you were, I
| wasn't trying to.
|
| Still, I learned about micro-distros which was quite an
| interesting thing to discover :) I might try and mess
| around with some on the Pi Zero I have to see if I can
| figure out a cool use for something like that.
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| I only count 7 Pis where are the missing 2?
| newshorts wrote:
| When I see companies build bespoke solutions like this I can't
| help but wonder which client paid for that.
|
| Don't get me wrong I would love to spend the time to build a
| system like that, as an engineer it sound fun!
|
| No doubt this project came at the cost of someone paying the
| company for value that was not transferred
|
| Sorry for being Daniel Downer here...
| eli wrote:
| Engineers who get dedicated time to work on fun projects are
| better, happier engineers. Everyone wins.
|
| We implement "15% time" for this and other reasons (and we
| certainly didn't invent the idea). Some great ideas came out of
| it that grew into products and features. But mostly it's stuff
| that was fun or interesting but didn't directly lead to any
| revenue. That's not just ok- it's an important part of getting
| better as an engineer.
| yardie wrote:
| All their clients paid for it, does it really matter? Clients
| aren't concerned with what the consultants does with the money
| once the invoice is paid. Could you imagine your
| employer/client involved with your own life like that? "I don't
| think spending our money on a trip to Maldives is an effective
| use of our money. Maybe we are paying you too much." Like that
| would fly, literally, anywhere?
| [deleted]
| pjc50 wrote:
| > The team had a long list of tasks they wanted to transfer
| over to the control of Raspberry Pi:
|
| All those tasks are "home automation" for the office. You can
| buy solutions for this, e.g. meeting room free/busy, but
| inherently there's a large amount of customisation and the COTS
| ones tend to be surprisingly expensive.
| detaro wrote:
| Curious, if you visit a company you contract with do you apply
| this to everything? "So, did we pay for this coffee machine?
| How about this TV?"
| Arrath wrote:
| I sure do this, if they stock the bathrooms with single ply.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Or.... it just comes out of overhead?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yes, it's called "profit". You can distribute it to
| shareholders, and you can also use some of it to improve the
| live of employees.
|
| As a rule, every client contributes with something. Probably
| not at the same rate.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| 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.
| knodi123 wrote:
| 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.
| andrewzah wrote:
| 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/
|
| 1: https://k3s.io/
| bombcar wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| sigg3 wrote:
| 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.
| hateful wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| what do you use for the display?
| hateful wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| peckrob wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| There is also the $4 Raspberry Pico:
| https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/
| mypastself wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| markoman wrote:
| This project will make a great blogpost once you complete it.
| I for one would be interested to hear more. My power meter
| was replaced a couple of years ago (to a more modern remote-
| read version) and I would definitely like to directly access
| usage information in real time.
| yissp wrote:
| Do you worry you might get in trouble if a technician sees
| some strange device attached to your meter? I know you're not
| actually doing anything wrong, but I feel like it could be
| awkward trying to explain that to some angry representative
| of the utility company.
| peckrob wrote:
| I do. That's why I was trying every possible way to do this
| using SDR or some other non-noticeable way. FWIW it's not
| even really attached to the port, because the port itself
| is behind the glass, it's just that the IR LED inside the
| port is visible. So really it's kind of sitting on top of
| the glass bubble.
|
| I also checked the local municipal code (my utility is
| city-owned) and there doesn't seem to be anything in the
| code that says I _can 't_ do it.
|
| That said, I intend to put a notice next to it that says
| something along the lines of "This is a non-contact
| measuring device that counts IR pulses. Please call XXX
| with any questions."
| barkingcat wrote:
| 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-m...
|
| they are primarily funded by government, ngo's, and other
| foundations.
| jandrese wrote:
| 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.
| throw10920 wrote:
| 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
| II2II wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >- A database to support a web development project.
|
| What language, frameworks, modules and how do you store and
| present it?
| [deleted]
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| blackandsqueaky wrote:
| Beware of proper insulation, even low energy devices can
| start a fire
| 542458 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Agree totally. It's not FOSS but I've had good experience
| with FileRun.
|
| I loved Pydio but it was simply too slow.
| firecall wrote:
| 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!
| kd913 wrote:
| 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]
| aweiland wrote:
| Any good tutorials on setting up Wireguard? This (and Pihole)
| have been on my todo list for a while.
| andylynch wrote:
| I use pivpn - it's a pretty straightforward helper for both
| openvpn and wireguard
| petre wrote:
| The easiest way on the Pi is to install the HomeAssistant
| plugin, but it's quite easy to set up on a Linux too.
| Generate two keys, copy paste them in a five line config,
| same thing on the client. On a phone install the app and
| scan a QR code that you rsync over to your PC. There's a
| tutorial on the Wg website.
| kd913 wrote:
| 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-
| 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/Kedstar99/2d8ab0e9be
| c3a5629562b4ab01...
|
| 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.
| gen220 wrote:
| I did this a few months ago. I'd previously tried a few
| years ago, and found no good online resources. Now they're
| a dime a dozen.
|
| The community around WG has gotten much easier for noobs to
| get into, and the porcelain around the tool itself has made
| it quite easy to use, IMO.
| josteink wrote:
| > Any good tutorials on setting up Wireguard? This (and
| Pihole) have been on my todo list for a while.
|
| Pihole pretty much installs itself (it even has a pre-made
| image). WireGuard will take reading, testing and failing.
|
| I recommend doing these things one thing at a time, and
| doing the Pihole first.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| You can set up a Pi-Hole (DNS sinkhole) and Pi-VPN
| (Wireguard installer and CLI-frontend for small
| deployments) very quickly. And you can do it on any debian
| VM or computer, not just Pi.
|
| Once you have the base OS ready to go, it will take you
| less than 30 minutes if you know how to muck with your
| DHCP/firewall settings in your router.
|
| https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#one-step-automated-
| insta...
|
| Install Pi-Hole, then edit your DHCP server to hand out the
| Pi-Hole as the DNS server.
|
| https://pivpn.io/
|
| After installing Pi-hole, install this. Choose Wireguard,
| not OpenVPN. port-forward the Wireguard UDP port to your
| VPN server. use the "pivpn" command to create client
| configs and the "qr" subcommand to scan the config into
| your phone.
| awoimbee wrote:
| The easiest way is to use some kind of manager on top of
| wireguard. Tailscale is very good and free for a single
| user (or with headscale) Otherwise there is innernet,
| wiretrustee, ...
| thedougd wrote:
| If you're a Linux person, just skip all the other non-sense
| and create a systemd-networkd file. It's by far the
| simplest solution I've used, and doesn't require goofy unit
| files to start/stop/restart via wg tool.
|
| https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.ne
| t...
|
| Then choose your firewall of choice to setup NAT and
| forwarding. I used firewalld, but not sure I'd recommend
| it. It's just the first solution I got working.
| phamilton wrote:
| I'd recommend just using Tailscale. It's wonderful.
| mongol wrote:
| I like wg-netns. It allows setup of a wireguard tunnel,
| similar to wg-quick does, in a Linux network namespace. So
| I can run some processes using the VPN, and others without.
|
| By specifying the namespace in a systemd service file, I
| can let a service use a specific VPN.
|
| https://github.com/dadevel/wg-netns
| newman314 wrote:
| I used trailofbits/algo a long time ago for initial setup.
| Worked well at the time.
| beezischillin wrote:
| I ended up Tailscale for Wireguard myself. I was really
| worried about letting all these server software out on the
| wide open internet because I can't guarantee I'll be around
| 24/7 to monitor in case of a security problem and this way I
| can be lazier. :)
|
| The added benefit is that I can force all devices to use
| PiHole while connected to Tailscale and have DNS-adblocking
| on the go!
| firecall wrote:
| Upvote for Tailscale.
|
| I find it super useful!
|
| Even if just for remoting into various boxes; the kids for
| instance often tether their PCs off their phones or I'm
| tethered and want to remote to my LAN.
|
| (I have terrible internet)
| yumraj wrote:
| > 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.
|
| If you're using PiHole, you can just use cloudflared to do
| DoH. https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns/cloudflared/
|
| On a different note, biggest reason I've never installed a
| VPN at home is because I just prefer a deny-everything home
| network and worry I'll misconfigure something and cause a
| security issue.
| newman314 wrote:
| YMMV but I've noticed that cloudflared has stability issues
| over time whereas dnscrypt has been rock solid for me (I
| run both on different systems). Probably going switch
| everything to dnscrypt esp since it supports odoh now.
| yumraj wrote:
| cloudflared service itself has been running fine. If
| there were other issues, such as connectivity, then I
| don't know. Didn't experience any.
|
| OTOH, I'm beginning to migrate to pfsense and pfblockerng
| at home. So, it is possible that I may retire my pi-hole
| at some point. Currently I'm running both as I transition
| and test.
| beezischillin wrote:
| I migrated away from cloudflared to dnscrypt-proxy
| because cloudflared didn't start up properly for me. On
| each reboot I had to manually stop and start it otherwise
| it was flooding the logs with failures. It was a bit
| weird and frustrating to diagnose.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I tried using a Pi4 for a pihole and it kept crashing.
| Overheating I think. But, if I solve that, the SD card would
| kill it eventually.
| bityard wrote:
| Not if you get a good SD card, or a USB SSD.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| When I was trying, boot from USB wasn't available.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| If it was one of the original Pi4s you would need to get
| the FW update that fixed the USB chip power that was the
| source of many overheating issues -- though that came out
| relatively soon after release.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| you can disable all logging in pihole - which i do and my
| sd card from 2016 is still going strong.
| somehnguy wrote:
| What power supply were you using?
|
| My Pi 4 running 2 instances of Octoprint kept crashing
| until I switched to their official power supply. On
| previous models I always got away with whatever power
| supply I had around but the 4 doesn't play around when it
| comes to power consumption.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| The one it came with!
| knodi123 wrote:
| I had to replace the one mine came with. It was new-ish,
| so I was able to get it for free under warranty, but be
| aware- quality control for their power supplies is not
| great (at least as of ~2017)
| beezischillin wrote:
| As long as you use something like the official PSU and
| don't connect particularly power-hungry USB devices to it
| you should be fine.
|
| As far as the SD card goes you can boot off an external
| hard drive or SSD via USB and that should guarantee
| longevity.
|
| My biggest problem with headless Pis was that they would
| randomly disconnect from the wifi network and disappear,
| turning off power saving on wifi didn't solve it. In the
| end the real solution ended up being to just create a
| 2.4ghz-only network and connect them to that. Somehow they
| just don't play well with networks that have the same SSID
| for 2.4 and 5ghz on my Ubiquiti gear.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I hate to beat the drum but, as I've said in some other
| replies, I used the official PSU.
| pridkett wrote:
| Be careful with the gear you use on your Pis, just like any
| system. If you're using a no-name USB-C power supply and
| dirt cheap generic SDHC cards, you will likely have
| problems. By default, the Pi4 doesn't come with a power
| supply and while you might be tempted to power it from your
| PC, spend the money for the official power brick, or, even
| better, get the official Pi Power over Ethernet hats. For
| SD, buy from a reputable source and get a brand name
| (Samsung or Sandisk).
|
| This is anecdata from my part, but I've got eight or 10 Pis
| running (Flightaware/ADSBexchange,
| PiHole/Influx/Grafana/Wireguard, a couple of Octoprint,
| Home Assistant - with a relay HAT for triggering dampers,
| Showmewebcam, and a handful of other things). Once I
| switched to good power supplies and good SDHC cards, my
| problems went away. My most heavily loaded machine is the
| PiHole machine which also has influx running and writing to
| the SDHC card - it's probably a ticking time bomb, but
| it'll celebrate it's fourth birthday on the same card in
| two months.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I walked into the Cambridge Raspberry Pi shop on launch
| day and bought a Pi 4, a power supply, and an SD card
| with NOOBS. It isn't my hardware that's at fault and,
| even if it was, it doesn't excuse developing hardware
| that doesn't work with in-spec USB-C power supplies and
| depends on inherently fragile storage media.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| I missed this -- but my comment elsewhere about the FW
| update for overheating definitely applies for a launch
| day Pi4!
| pengaru wrote:
| I've had a bunch of Pi Zero W cameras in 24x7 use for years
| in a very harsh desert environment where ambient air temps
| regularly exceed 120F, and have never had a single crash of
| any of them, not even a failed SD card despite being
| written to daily for storing motion-activated images (the
| sunrise/sunset is always captured). I don't even have fans
| on these, and they're in the compact pi foundation red and
| white case for camera use. It's really been quite
| impressive.
|
| What I've heard is a crashing Pi is usually due to sagging
| voltage on an inadequate power supply, and that's probably
| even more an issue on the more demanding/powerful Pi4. On
| my cameras I just use the wall warts adafruit sells for the
| Pi, and haven't had any power problems.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| Again, I'm using the supply it shipped with. Not that
| having to use their supply because they screwed up the
| spec is an acceptable situation, mind you.
| johnklos wrote:
| I had an office with close to a thousand ports spread over a
| dozen VLANs waiting on a Juniper "expert" to configure routing /
| NAT / firewalling. Between hardware that was delivered non-
| functional, other hardware which wasn't properly licensed, and
| the lack of experience of this "expert", nothing was working for
| the first several days.
|
| In a fit of frustration, I asked for all VLANs to be sent to one
| port, then I set up a Raspberry Pi to do DNS and DHCP using a
| NetBSD host-based router to actually forward and do NAT. I told
| them it would stay that way until the Juniper gear was set up
| 100% and tested.
|
| They're excellent little machines, inexpensive, and wonderful to
| keep around "in case of emergency". Learn how to root off of a
| USB drive or to limit writes to the SD card, and they're
| wonderfully reliable, too.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Nine raspi's... and the mother of all gpio expansion boards. Holy
| shit that control board is glorious. I want this for my living
| room :)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-10-25 23:01 UTC)