How many Raspberry Pis do you have and what are they used for?

Bluecube · 7 Feb 2024 at 11:14

Pi Zero is WiFi only. Wouldn’t recommend setting up PiHole on such a device as you’ll introduce latency and reliability issues to your network.

Guardsmon · 8 Feb 2024 at 10:20

Pi 1 model B. Sat on a shelf for atleast 6 years. Anyone got a use for it?

Cyber-Mav · 17 Feb 2024 at 11:11

Guardsmon said:
Pi 1 model B. Sat on a shelf for atleast 6 years. Anyone got a use for it?

Retro games seem to be most use of these devices. Although look around the house to see what you can computerise.

niggyg · 17 Feb 2024 at 11:50

The majority of my Pis are currently unused aside from an older Pi2 driving Pi Hole.

I used Kodi on one for years till I switched to Plex via a TV native app. I return to retropie every once in a while and keep meaning to build a more permanent arcade cabinet.

The current Pi5 is the first one I've not bothered picking up.

Mr Evil · 17 Feb 2024 at 19:40

There have been quite a few people saying they have unused Pis. Given that there have been shortages of them several times over the years, perhaps consider selling them on, so other people get a chance to put them to use.

ade64 · 25 Mar 2024 at 11:20

ive 3, a 3b in my arcade cabinet, a 4b in my octoprint setup and a pi 5 im not using yet.

VeNT · 25 Mar 2024 at 16:32

Bluecube said:
Pi Zero is WiFi only. Wouldn’t recommend setting up PiHole on such a device as you’ll introduce latency and reliability issues to your network.

pretty sure that it'll make very little difference in the real world.

Bluecube · 25 Mar 2024 at 18:48

VeNT said:
pretty sure that it'll make very little difference in the real world.

Pretty sure it would. WiFi will introduce a noticeable degree of latency

VeNT · 25 Mar 2024 at 21:38

Bluecube said:
Pretty sure it would. WiFi will introduce a noticeable degree of latency

ok I've smokeping running on my network.
While I agree that my wired connected Pi have very low pings, the pi zero 1 is 7.2ms average response over the last week. the pi zero 2 is almost exactly the same.

I doubt anyone will notice the difference.

[EDIT]
thinking about it for a few seconds, the difference between a pi on your local wifi or the remote server are going to be night and day.

Redek · 30 Mar 2024 at 10:12

I have one, as Raspberry Pi 3 I bought in 2018. Currently it lives at the back of a cupboard. But I used it as a barebones, offline work station back in the day.

the-evaluator · 10 Apr 2024 at 14:42

Updated after a couple of changes.

Pi 4, 4Gb. Pi-Hole.
Pi 4, 2Gb. 2nd Pi-Hole. Kept in sync with primary Pi-Hole using gravity sync.
Pi 4, 4Gb. Flight tracker reporting to Flight Aware & Flight Radar 24. Also running a RIPE Atlas Probe.
Pi 4, 4Gb. PiVPN (WireGuard & OpenVPN) & Cloudflare Tunnels endpoint.
Pi 4, 2Gb. Home Bridge.
Pi Zero 2 W. Running Mosquitto, an MQTT broker that feeds into Home Assistant.
Pi CM4, 4Gb/16Gb eMMC. Home Assistant, installed in a Home Assistant Yellow.

Armageus · 10 Apr 2024 at 14:47

the-evaluator said:
Updated after a couple of changes.

Pi 4, 4Gb. Pi-Hole.
Pi 4, 2Gb. 2nd Pi-Hole. Kept in sync with primary Pi-Hole using gravity sync.
Pi 4, 4Gb. Flight tracker reporting to Flight Aware & Flight Radar 24. Also running a RIPE Atlas Probe.
Pi 4, 4Gb. PiVPN (WireGuard & OpenVPN) & Cloudflare Tunnels endpoint.
Pi 4, 2Gb. Home Bridge.
Pi Zero 2 W. Running Mosquitto, an MQTT broker that feeds into Home Assistant.
Pi CM4, 4Gb/16Gb eMMC. Home Assistant, installed in a Home Assistant Yellow.

Any reason why these all couldn't just be consolidated onto a single mini PC as docker images (or at worst VMs)?

the-evaluator · 10 Apr 2024 at 16:09

Armageus said:
Any reason why these all couldn't just be consolidated onto a single mini PC as docker images (or at worst VMs)?

Some could be, but with some challenges:

- Passing hardware into Docker (in the case of Flight Tracker) is a pig to get working properly and isn't overly reliable. Mini PC not an option as the software runs on Linux.
- Putting 2 x Pi-Hole instances into Docker on a Mini PC doesn't make sense as there's no hardware redundancy.
- Home Assistant needs a Zigbee radio so that largely rules out Docker.
- Home Bridge could probably into Docker, I haven't actually looked but I'd have to buy a Mini PC to run in whilst I had a Pi 4 sitting spare.
- Mosquitto could run within Home Assistant but I had a Zero W 2 spare from a car USB media project that didn't work overly well.

As for VM's, in most cases it's doable but to run VM's I'd need a Hypervisor. I've just decom'd an HP MicroServer & Synology NAS because they're noisy, take up more space than I'd like and aren't overly power efficient. The Pi's are completely silent, power efficient and don't kick out any appreciable heat.

Armageus · 10 Apr 2024 at 16:29

the-evaluator said:
- Passing hardware into Docker (in the case of Flight Tracker) is a pig to get working properly and isn't overly reliable. Mini PC not an option as the software runs on Linux.

Mini PCs can run Linux though?

the-evaluator said:
- Putting 2 x Pi-Hole instances into Docker on a Mini PC doesn't make sense as there's no hardware redundancy.

Fair point

the-evaluator said:
- Home Assistant needs a Zigbee radio so that largely rules out Docker.

Take it that needs GPIO?

the-evaluator said:
but I'd have to buy a Mini PC to run in when I had a Pi 4 sitting spare.

Absolutely better to use what you have, just always intrigued especially when people are running the amount of Pi's (guessing £300+) that could easily have paid for a Mini PC.

the-evaluator said:
As for VM's, in most cases it's doable but to run VM's I'd need a Hypervisor.

You can run KVM on most Linux distros, or go for a specific Linux based Hypervisor such as Proxmox

the-evaluator said:
The Pi's are completely silent, power efficient and don't kick out any appreciable heat.

Lots of Pi's soon add up though in terms of power draw (~5w load each), a typical Mini PC could be around the 30w mark

the-evaluator · 10 Apr 2024 at 17:36

Armageus said:
Mini PCs can run Linux though?

They can, but I refer you to the point on not waiting to run both my DNS servers on a single bit of hardware.

Armageus said:
Take it that needs GPIO?

No, just USB but I haven't found that overly reliable with Docker. Considering I'm using automations in Home Assistant to control Zigbee devices I don't want them to fail because Docker has decided that the USB Zigbee stick isn't working.

Armageus said:
Absolutely better to use what you have, just always intrigued especially when people are running the amount of Pi's (guessing £300+) that could easily have paid for a Mini PC.

Yeah, cost of the Pi's plus PoE HAT's will be higher than a Mini PC but I've been obtaining Pi's since the Pi4 was released in 2019 so according to my man maths, they're cheaper. Especially as I'd need at least 2 Mini PC's to not have all my eggs in 1 basket.

Armageus said:
You can run KVM on most Linux distros, or go for a specific Linux based Hypervisor such as Proxmox

I've never actually experimented with Proxmox, I'm an ESX/Hyper-V guy. The HP Microserver I've retired was running ESXi.

Armageus said:
Lots of Pi's soon add up though in terms of power draw (~5w load each), a typical Mini PC could be around the 30w mark

Total PoE draw is around 30w at present so significantly less than my old Microserver + NAS setup with a total of 10 HD's. Whilst a Mini PC would be about the same as the Pi's that'd be for a single Mini PC and I'd need 2.

ScoobyDoo · 12 Apr 2024 at 14:17

Running one Pi3 as octopi for my my 3d Printer
and a Pi4 running my home nas using openmediavault
I have an older pi2 which is setup as pihole

Zom · 14 Apr 2024 at 18:37

For the first time in a long time I have a new use for my Pi4 - acting as a web server generating a custom dashboard for a 10" wireless e-Ink display.
Prior to that it was basically just a Tailscale exit node.

VeNT · 19 Apr 2024 at 23:41

ScoobyDoo said:
Running one Pi3 as octopi for my my 3d Printer
and a Pi4 running my home nas using openmediavault
I have an older pi2 which is setup as pihole

not tempted to move to mainsail/klipper/moonraker?

ScoobyDoo · 20 Apr 2024 at 13:40

VeNT said:
not tempted to move to mainsail/klipper/moonraker?

Not really, my ender 3 is totally dialled in and running great with octopi so don't want to upset it really for just a speed increase

bigmike20vt · Monday at 11:47

I have 1 pi, a 3B+ it has a retro emulation build on it as well as kodi, handy for when we go away on mini weekend breaks and what not. a bit of gaming with the lad on anything up to and inc PS1 era and telly watching too.

I am hoping the 3B+ has enough poke to control my home solar / battery inverter along with my car charging with intelligent octopus. IF it can (and i pull my finger out and sort it) it will be the excuse i need to buy a pi 5 and get a better emulation / media travel box.