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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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
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.
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.
What if I want a computer I can power via PoE?
I have never thought about this. Thanks for pointing it out.
I think you need to provide the criteria you’re using to define “best”.
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 got a NUC on ebay for about the same price, maybe a little less. Has more I/O and an SSD.
