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.
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Many have said this. If you don’t need the GPIO, get a small PC.
Or if you do not care about power consumption.
The n100 and n200 have quite low TDP values for much better performance than a Pi.
They still consume way more power than the pi. My pi fully loaded uses less power than my N100 router idle.
What if I want a computer I can power via PoE?
I have never thought about this. Thanks for pointing it out.
For projects, yes… most of the things I want to build don’t need to go fast, so the pi zero is amazing and so so small. If you are just talking little cheap computer to stash somewhere, then no. I do think it would be neat if someone made a SBC N100 in the “credit card” size.
IMO there is something magical about having it all running under such a small footprint device, where a simple aluminum case brings it enough cooling.
Obviously if you want to go for huge media consumption or local AI, then it won’t be enough, but for running Home Assistant, qBitTorrent, syncthing… You’ll be fine and supergreen.
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.
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.
I think you need to provide the criteria you’re using to define “best”.
I can compare specs on my own, I’m looking for opinions here. I heard rpi wasn’t completely on the up and up recently, shipping problems, overserving corporate clients, etc. If people have had bad boards, bad customer service, things are overpriced for what you get, etc.
Right now it looks like the rpi5 is the best option, but $80 is a lot, and if I can get a couple of lower end boards for half the price with a better company rep, then I’d probably seriously consider those.
Those issues were related to Covid. It made perfect sense for them to focus on their corporate clients, who are their largest revenue source. I’ve also never heard anything bad about their customer service, nor the quality of the products or pricing.
Now that those supply issues have been solved, there’s no real reason to be wary of them. They make an incredible product at a fantastic price.
I got a NUC on ebay for about the same price, maybe a little less. Has more I/O and an SSD.
I have two rpi4 running 0/24 for more than 4 years. Get quality SD card and you are golden. I would avoid it if you need to connect multiple USB drives, but seems like you are fine with SD only. I have no experience with pi 5 or any alternative brand
I’ve had an RPI3 running for 7+ years (currently running Home Assistant on it). Still uses the original SD card that shipped with it, too. These things are durable and reliable as hell, as far as I’m concerned.
Short answer: no
