Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 40 total)
  • Raspberry Pi People
  • scholarsgate
    Free Member

    I got one for christmas. Not really sure what to do with it.

    What have you done with yours?

    Inspire me?

    samuri
    Free Member

    Pretty boring for me. I just use mine as a media server. I’ve installed RaspBMC on it and control it with me iPhone.

    shaley
    Free Member

    I am turning mine into an internet radio alarm clock

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    mintimperial
    Full Member

    What have you done with yours?

    Mine’s sat on the shelf in a box. I might put it in a drawer after a few more weeks so I can forget about it completely.

    I used to be quite into faffing about with computers a few years ago, but then we had a kid and now the last thing I want to do with my limited spare time is spend ages arsing about with Linux on cheap hardware trying to make it do something useful. If I want my simple, logical commands to be completely ignored for random unfathomable reasons I can just ask my four year old to eat his dinner or something.

    (Having said that, samuri’s RaspBMC idea looks like it might be vaguely useful and not horribly time consuming to do. Hmmm…)

    scholarsgate
    Free Member

    Media server seems to be the standard option.

    I’ve not seen any internet radio alarm clock RPis though.

    I’ve thought about installing owncloud on it for a dropbox alike solution.

    gavtheoldskater
    Free Member

    good thread. i quite fancy one for the challenge of making the thing do something, but i have no idea what to do with it. media server sounds interesing.

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    Connected to telly/AV receiver for Airplay duties (youtube & spotify). Cheaper than ATV!

    Forge_Master
    Free Member

    ATM it’s media sever running xbmc.

    When i get time it’ll be a media server running squeeze center for my squeeze box.

    robbo
    Free Member

    Is anyone actually programming it rather than just installing stuff? If its just to run existing apps then why not just get a cheap PC?

    _tom_
    Free Member

    RaspBMC plugged into my telly so I can watch stuff I’ve downloaded. I wouldn’t have bothered but my laptop doesn’t have HDMI output an this was only £25 🙂

    scaled
    Free Member

    Is anyone actually programming it rather than just installing stuff? If its just to run existing apps then why not just get a cheap PC?

    Link to the best £25 PC you can find please? 😀

    EDIT: one that’s silent and can be powered off the USB port at the back of my Tivo box with HDMI output

    chvck
    Free Member

    Alter your fridge and build a rover with enough AI to get from where you are to the fridge to hit the beer collection unit and then back to you. Just need some simple mapping and collision detection!

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    Is anyone actually programming it rather than just installing stuff? If its just to run existing apps then why not just get a cheap PC?

    Because cheap PCs are shit, would be more expensive, consume more power and (if you have to install Windows to run it) would actually be less suited to the job.

    I know they were developed with the idea of introducing kids to programming, but that is purely because they are so cheap. Anyone who’s already got a pc/mac/etc would be better off using that to learn programming. As far as hardware projects go it is a decent device, but then again an Arduino is probably better suited.

    Basically because of the cheap cost, hardware 1080p decoding and very low power usage they are absolutely perfect for a “always on” media device.

    crazant
    Free Member

    I’ve got 2 Airport express’s and an Apple Tv to run sounds in every room, can you use the Raspberry just like an Airport i.e. will it show as an airplay in Itunes.
    Also all this talk about media server can it hold Itunes and let you send to multirooms at the same time…

    Please Please Apple let us stream to multi airplays from our Iphones….all this need to have itunes running is crazy…

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    I’ve got 2 Airport express’s and an Apple Tv to run sounds in every room, can you use the Raspberry just like an Airport i.e. will it show as an airplay in Itunes.

    Yes

    Also all this talk about media server can it hold Itunes and let you send to multirooms at the same time…

    Not as far as I know. You might be able to do something like this with Plex/XBMC but it would be using their media server rather than iTunes (although it is possible for Plex to see an iTunes library)

    puppypower
    Free Member

    I’ve got 2 Airport express’s and an Apple Tv to run sounds in every room, can you use the Raspberry just like an Airport i.e. will it show as an airplay in Itunes.

    This is what we use ours for as our airport express packed up. Works really well

    Milkie
    Free Member

    Like everyone here I’ve done the RaspBMC, Airplay, etc..

    I’ve also created a script to record the temperature from a sensor and turn LED’s on/off from a switch connected to it. I have an LCD display that I want to output to, but haven’t had the time to look at it yet.

    I have a BigTrak that I want to automate with ultrasonics and things, but that will probably mean using an Audrino for movement and the Pi for higher level functions.

    You want inspiration!???
    Check out the Pi Magazine AKA Magpi, loadsa info/how to’s and inspiring projects!

    Cougar
    Full Member

    MagPi. Genius.

    Just had a skim through that. Looked randomly at issue 6; the Pi embedded in the dSLR is just brilliant.

    robbo
    Free Member

    That’s more like it Milkie!

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Spent the afternoon at a Colloquium with the founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation at Broadcom’s offices (they designed the main chip in it). Very interesting talks, they will have shipped over a million by the end of year 1 (next month)!

    Also, they announced that they’d just had a PR event at my old Secondary School where Eben Upton (chip’s designer) and Eric Schmidt (Google Chairman) announced that Google are funding 15,000 of the units to give to schools for free to encourage take up! Bit of a major coup for the Rasperry Pi Foundation.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21243825

    theflatboy
    Free Member

    I use mine, radically, as a media player to play tv shows and movies off my NAS. Raspbmc, love it. 🙂

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    I’ve been signed off sick (cancer) for the next 3 months (at least), this could just be the sort of project to keep me from going bonkers can anyone recommend any good deals or do I just go straight to Farnell?

    Edit: They’re showing a 3 week wait now 🙁

    samuri
    Free Member

    That’s such an awesome, off the cuff statement. Sadly the underlying reason is probably far more serious. Is it a really bad cancer (and I’m struggling to think of one that isn’t)?

    samuri
    Free Member

    Write a book though. That’s my advice.

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    They found cancer in my right Tonsil at christmas, they sound pretty hopeful (talking 85% success rate, which sounds good to me) and when I asked if I needed to start selling my bikes the consultant was pretty confident I could be back riding in 6 months (fingers crossed). Just the 6 weeks of radiotherapy to get through. 😕

    aracer
    Free Member

    Sorry to hear about the cancer. The best way to get a RPi is direct from Farnell (I’m sure you can probably get one quicker somewhere like ebay, but you’ll pay for the privilege – unless of course those who don’t know what to do with one are now selling them on).

    scholarsgate
    Free Member

    this could just be the sort of project to keep me from going bonkers can anyone recommend any good deals or do I just go straight to Farnell?

    Edit: They’re showing a 3 week wait now

    I’ve got one with a case I was selling in the classified. Drop me a mail if you want it.

    Theres plenty of info here and a few projects to have a go at too.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    why not just get a cheap PC?

    Like the Raspberry Pi?

    External sensors is what I’d be most interested in.

    Forge_Master
    Free Member

    The only problem with using the pi to stream movies is it doesn’t like DTS. Films with a DTS sound track will just stutter.

    Anyone know if there are codex for DTS?

    footflaps
    Full Member

    I’ve been signed off sick (cancer) for the next 3 months (at least), this could just be the sort of project to keep me from going bonkers can anyone recommend any good deals or do I just go straight to Farnell?

    They’re all the same price – Farnell and RS both jointly distribute it for the Foundation.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Anyone know if there are codex for DTS?

    Tried the Raspberry Pi forums?

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    Planning to install Asterisk on mine to run it as a VoIP exchange. Will interface with a video door station thing, Grandstream phones running Android and the BT line using a £15 Cisco box. .

    BlobOnAStick
    Full Member

    Mine has been used in two ways:
    1) programming experience for the kids (I know they can programme Python on a PC, but the fact that it’s all on a ‘special computer’ seems to have fired them up
    2) with a swap of sd cards and installation of wifi dongle it becomes a media server. Well, nearly. How I haven’t launched it out of the window in frustration with it not working is beyond me. I have done everything I possibly could (I think) and taken hours and hours and hours of fiddling with various ‘out of the box’ systems that are supposed to work like a dream but haven’t. I came to the conclusion that I’d actually spent longer trying to make it stream music from our server than I would ever actually sit and listen to it. I did get it to play music, but it wouldn’t connect via airport, so tried using my andriod tablet to control it, but all I ever managed to do was pause the music I’d queued up via a keyboard. My dream of a cheap headless music player is dead and frankly if I continue to try getting it to work then so will the Pi.

    gavtheoldskater
    Free Member

    when i was briefly having a look on google what you could do with one i saw some interesting comments about carputers, that seemed interesting especially if you could rig something up to use in a camper that would do movies, music etc

    footflaps
    Full Member

    have a look on Youtube, there are loads of videos on there of things people have created eg Dog treat machine driven by email:

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAHrBA0jYAo&feature=player_embedded[/video]

    chvck
    Free Member

    Has anyone done any stuff driving motors, using sonar and the like with a Pi? I’d like to build a little robot to chase my cat around but I’m not sure that a Pi is the tool for the job, have read that it isn’t great for that sort of thing.

    nickjb
    Free Member

    I’m under the impression that the arduino is better for interfacing with sensors and other hardware. I’ve used it for a couple of projects and it’s been pretty straight forward. For my current project I’m using a Pi as a media server and interfacing to motors and position sensors via an arduino and hopefully getting them to talk to each other. Haven’t got very far yet!

    aracer
    Free Member

    I’m doing robotic type stuff with mine. An Arduino might be better for some of that sort of stuff, but it’s certainly possible to do with a Pi, and part of the fun is the challenge. In any case, my current project is a talking skull, and with a Pi you can do the audio without any add-on stuff which would be a lot harder with anything lower level. Have interfaced the Pi to servos – that you can do directly – and also a PIR sensor. Currently have an accelerometer/gyro board sitting here which I want to hook up (and thanks for the reminder about an ultrasonic sensor) – thinking about trying to make a self-balancing robot.

    chvck
    Free Member

    Currently have an accelerometer/gyro board sitting here which I want to hook up (and thanks for the reminder about an ultrasonic sensor) – thinking about trying to make a self-balancing robot.

    That’s cool! I want to build an autonomous rover that will map rooms and eventually I’ll add a camera or something and try follow my cat around. I’d really like a quadrocopter as I could access the entire house then but they ain’t cheap!

    footflaps
    Full Member

    There are more and more I/O adaptor boards becoming available for the Pi, so it’s getting easier and easier to interface.

    It’s worth noting what the Broadcom chip actually is: a huge state of the art graphics processor, aimed at mobile device, with a tiny ARM core stuck on the edge. So graphics wise it’s very powerful, but processor wise it’s pretty slow. However, using an ARM gives you access to the huge number of open source apps, tools, code base etc, which is what it’s all about.

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