Small-board computers (SBCs) are getting more and more powerful. The Raspberry Pi 3 (RPi3), which just came out in February of this year, is a case in point. This latest in the Rasp Pi line now has four cores running at 1200MHz with 1GB of RAM and on-board WiFi and Bluetooth. If you need even more power in a small computer, however, you are not left wanting. In this issue, we look at three SBCs with more cores, more memory, more ports, and more possibilities. Check out our articles on the CubieTruck and on the HiKey and Banana Pi M3 boards to see how they perform and whether they could be suitable for any of your projects.
To help you use the new built-in WiFi and Bluetooth on the RPi3, we show you how to set up Bluetooth quickly through a GUI and make several modifications to the Raspbian system to get it running smoothly. We also look at how Bluetooth works, how to control it, and how to initiate pairing. If you still have boards without WiFi, you don't have to do without. Although you can use a dongle to implement WiFi, you can also incorporate an appropriate microprocessor into your project. Here, we look at two projects that use the ESP8266 to bring WiFi capability to a Steampunk-inspired presentation clicker and a Rasp Pi with an air quality sensor.
The popular Arduino SBCs are useful alone or as a part of a larger project. One author in this issue uses the Arduino with an LCD shield to provide feedback from a Rasp Pi running headless – that is, without an attached monitor. We also take a look at Scratch-like graphical languages that run on Arduinos.
Home automation continues to progress with the use of SBCs and microprocessors. We show you how to set up the FHEM home automation software on a Rasp Pi so you can monitor the interfaces to your devices. Meanwhile, Cayenne on a Rasp Pi provides a friendly gateway to the Internet of Things (IoT) and lets you get started without writing a line of code. It also has Android and iOS apps that let you set up, monitor, and manage your IoT components. On the hardware side, the PiXtend extension board adds analog I/O and pulse-width modulation (PWM) capabilities to Rasp Pis that, with the included software, allow you to implement home automation projects, as well. This platform also lets you experiment with industrial control design with the help of Codesys, a development system for controller applications.
Four entertaining and interesting projects let you build devices for fun and functionality. Learn how to build a Rasp Pi-controlled coffee roaster, built with an air popcorn popper and controlled by a web app. For the approaching Halloween season, you can build a frightening ghoul to greet your trick-or-treaters. If you're a gamer, you can add a leaderboard to any of your Scratch games to show high scores. Finally, build your own wireless remote to control your littleBits boats, rovers, and MP3 players.
Whether you're having fun, experimenting, learning, or creating useful commercial devices, you'll find that the increasing power of SBCs, microprocessors, and other electronics systems can expand your horizons.
Rita L. Sooby Managing Editor
edit@raspberry-pi-geek.com