Raspberry Pi's Model B

Raspberry Pi (RPi) is an inexpensive yet capable credit card-sized computer that enables people of all ages to explore computing and to learn how to program. It has been utilized by children all over the world to learn programming and electronics skills, and some amazing projects have been built, like Parent Detectors to Infrared bird box. Hobbyists have even built supercomputers with the help of 64 RPi box. Bitcoin miner is another exciting projects people have done with the help of RPi.

RPi has been widely used for automation projects. Numerous projects have been engineered, from functions that turn lights on/off when the sun rises or sets, to automatically opening a home’s garage door, to controlling their air conditioning devices from the Internet. Many home automation technologies can be used with RPi, but the most popular is Z-Wave. Z-Wave is a wireless communication protocol that utilizes low power wireless technology that offers reliable, low-latency communication of data packets. There are numerous open source projects like openremote and openhab that supports zwave out of the box and can be used with RPi if you want to do home automation.

One of the features that RPi offers is its ability to attach physical hardware to its General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) connector to extend the functionality to bigger automation projects like driving motors, making lights flash, creating a moving robot, or anything you can imagine inventing. PiFace is the popular one that has been used in sensors and control automation. Recently, the introduction of Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) for B+ and future models, a rectangular board that can be mounted on B+ models and has special auto-configuration system that allows GPiO and driver setup. This specification of HAT was introduced to ensure consistency and allow much better user experience for less technically aware users, helping to make the life of the end user has been much simpler.

The RPi community has grown exponentially over the years and has become one of the most popular hardwares, rising to top-level educational institutions for research and educational purposes. Although with the limited hardware capabilities, it seems that there is no limit to what anyone can do with their Raspberry Pi!