Hey all, I’m looking to build a couple dashboards out around my house. I’ve done this before with rokchip boards and they are… fine, but not great. Is rpi the best option right now? Are there alternatives you really like? I’d like to keep it a single board to easily mount behind things where it doesn’t take up a lot of space, and I won’t lie I like the DIY feeling of it over something like a thin client.
Short answer: no
Many have said this. If you don’t need the GPIO, get a small PC.
The n100 and n200 have quite low TDP values for much better performance than a Pi.
If you search ebay for Intel based thin clients, many are more powerful than RPi while being passively cooled and having very similar power consumption.
Never have seen a thin client that goes below 7ish Watt on idle. Basically every RPi does. https://www.pidramble.com/wiki/benchmarks/power-consumption
as long as it is something simple they work fine.
But compare their price to some 1L mini PCs on the second hand market. you will get a lot more guts at around the same price.
Second that.
RPis are still unbeaten in terms of power usage, but the difference to a low end thin client is small.
Cost isn’t really an argument either, you can get thin clients with case, psu and SSD for something like 40€.
RPis are still unbeaten in terms of power usage, but the difference to a low end thin client is small.
Not even close when it comes to tuned idle power usage.
My pi 3 idles at 3-4W, my Futro at around 5-6W. I’d say that’s pretty close.
I prefer Orange Pi over Raspberry Pi
If you’re looking for a quick way to see its potential try using one of these images.
https://github.com/Joshua-Riek/ubuntu-rockchip
I use this to run 4k video, you would be surprised with how many things just work on here.
Also I slapped a 1tb M.2 SSD on there and flashed the OS there so it is very fast and has the potential to be used as a full desktop
Slightly less good (software wise) but so much worth the money IMO. I’d avoid like the i96(IIRC. If no video output well I couldn’t setup ssh etc. That was some time ago so take the information with a grain of salt).
It’s a little more difficult space to navigate but worth it if you know why you want one for sure.
OPi definetly worth the money, and you can always use Armbian and software problem solved.
Do you know if it works well with GPIO from python? IIRC I had to use a OPi image and then fix and compile some low level lib.
For an SBC, yes. I don’t think anyone’s come close to its software support. I’m using quite a few in different applications, some 24/7. I’ve yet to experience hardware or software failure. I’m using official/quality PSUs and SanDisk Extreme Pro/ Samsung Evo Plus SD cards.