• HumanPenguin
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    1 month ago

    Same reason as any other mini PC.

    GPIO.

    Honestly there is no other reason to use pi. Just the simple ability ti connect and build your own connection stuff.

    Pi is by far the easiest system with a well suppirted os and api for learning\experimentation.

    When to comes to using as a desktop etc. There are loads of better options if gpio is not wanted.

    • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      But even with GPIO, there’s other cheaper boards out there with better specs to boot

      • HumanPenguin
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        1 month ago

        Yeah but non with better support. They all tend to have OSes with limited updates and/or community support.

        That is a huge plus for pi. And likely the only reason they survive.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I tried the orange pi, and that was a hassle, I had to fix and compile some obscure library in C to make python control I/O work.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Fair.

      I always thought about the raspberries strength as small mobile devices. If I want IO on my PC I could buy an adapter/card. Or use my raspberry because I have one or two ofc. It sure is easy with them.

      • HumanPenguin
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        1 month ago

        Best adaptor out there, atm. Is a pi zero with gpiozero on it. There really is not much in the way of adaptors with the support and flexibility for beginners that pi provides.

          • HumanPenguin
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            1 month ago

            So did I. Pi zero can boot via USB otg and act as a USB gpio port.

            Have to tried it yet bout planning to.

            Gpiozero is the library used.

            • Valmond@lemmy.world
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              30 days ago

              Ha yes of course, using a raspberry so you don’t need to use a raspberry (small pi vs big pi)!

              Now I want to do just that but over wifi…

              • HumanPenguin
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                29 days ago

                More small pie and full power PC already in place.

                The issue with other options is lack of community support. So less usable for beginners and experimentation.

                But def agree with the WiFi thing.