6 Raspberry Pi tasks that transcend the fundamentals

The Raspberry Pi is a spread of small single-board computer systems, and regardless of their small dimension, there’s quite a bit you are able to do with them. Frequent Raspberry Pi projects for beginners embody turning a Raspberry Pi right into a retro gaming console, making a low-cost residence community storage resolution, or constructing a server to stream your assortment of films, TV reveals, or music.

There’s much more that you are able to do with a Raspberry Pi, nevertheless, with every successive mannequin getting increasingly more highly effective. Listed below are six methods to make use of your Raspberry Pi that you simply won’t have thought of.

1 Make all of your good residence units suitable with HomeKit

No HomeKit assist, no drawback

The difficulty with good residence know-how is that it’s presently nonetheless a little bit of a wild west. There are not any world requirements for the way good units ought to talk, that means that not each good residence machine with work with each good residence ecosystem.

Take Apple’s HomeKit, for instance. There are plenty of smart home devices that you may add to the Dwelling app in your iPhone because of the corporate’s assist for HomeKit. There are many others, nevertheless, that received’t play properly with HomeKit in any respect.

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A Raspberry Pi can repair that. You should utilize one to run free open-source software program referred to as Homebridge. Because the title suggests, it acts as a bridge between your good residence units and HomeKit, permitting you to attach units reminiscent of Ring cameras and doorbells that may in any other case be incompatible.

2 Run your individual Minecraft server

A whole world residing your in Raspberry Pi

Microsoft

There are many the explanation why you would possibly wish to run your individual Minecraft server. It means that you can have full management of the sport settings, the principles, participant permissions, and who can play. As a mum or dad, it additionally ensures that your children are enjoying in protected setting that you may management and monitor.

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It’s attainable to run a Minecraft server on Raspberry Pi, which you’ll be able to go away operating indefinitely, with out worrying about having to maintain different units powered on. You should utilize an older Pi, however you’ll get higher efficiency from a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, and extra RAM will at all times assist.

3 Block advertisements out of your total residence community

Cease advertisements on each machine in your house

firmbee-com / Unsplash/ Pocket-lint

Adverts are sadly a truth of life. For a lot of companies (this one included) advertisements are what pay the payments and preserve the lights on. With out advert income, I’d be out of a job.

Adverts can typically get out of hand, nevertheless. Some web sites are so stuffed with advertisements that they change into nearly inconceivable to make use of, and the identical applies to many apps.

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Utilizing a Raspberry Pi, you possibly can run software program reminiscent of Pi-hole to behave as your DNS server. It can enable by means of the content material from the websites you go to, however will block DNS requests for identified promoting domains, in order that advertisements by no means get by means of. The perfect half is that it really works for any units on your private home community.

4 Make a Magic Mirror

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s probably the most informative of all of them?

Do you ever look within the mirror and want that you possibly can see extra than simply your reflection? Wouldn’t or not it’s nice when you may see info reminiscent of the present climate, your schedule for the day, or the most recent information headlines?

A DIY good mirror can do precisely that. It’s a mirror with a show behind it that you should use to indicate no matter you need. You want one thing to manage the show, nevertheless, and a Raspberry Pi is an ideal choice. There’s even devoted software program you should use that will help you construct the proper magic mirror to your wants.

5 Create your individual VPN server

Defend your privateness and not using a subscription

Amazon, Stefan Coders – pexels

There are numerous causes you would possibly wish to use a VPN, from defending your privateness on-line to accessing geo-restricted content material. There are many VPNs to select from, however lots of them require a subscription.

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An alternate is to construct your individual utilizing a Raspberry Pi. Utilizing free open-source VPN protocols reminiscent of Wireguard and OpenVPN, you possibly can flip your Pi into your individual VPN server. You possibly can then get all the advantages of a VPN with out having to pay anybody else for the privilege.

6 Construct a strong good residence hub

Run your total good residence out of your Raspberry Pi

Sensible residence ecosystems reminiscent of Alexa and Apple Dwelling make it easy management your good residence units and likewise permit you to create primary automations. Nevertheless, if you wish to make an automation that’s extra advanced than “if this, then that,” you’re out of luck.

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If you wish to take your good residence to the subsequent stage, you should use your Raspberry Pi to run free residence automation software program reminiscent of Dwelling Assistant. Not solely does Dwelling Assistant permit you to join nearly any good residence machine you possibly can consider, but it surely additionally permits you to construct advanced automations that may do nearly something you possibly can consider.

Ultimately you would possibly resolve you wish to improve your {hardware}, however whenever you’re beginning out, a Raspberry Pi is greater than ok to your wants.

Raspberry Pi 5

The Raspberry Pi 5 is a strong single-board pc (SBC) that launched in the direction of the tip of 2023. It is nice for DIY tech tasks and even as a low-power desktop PC.