Submitted 1 day ago by Grumpy404@piefed.zip to [deleted]
So i have a pi5 8gb sorta collecting dust, ive mess with it a little but i have a laptop and im not sure what use to give the pi 5? i wanted to explore ai stuff but ai requires a powerhouse of a device? Im also thought about nas but i feel i dont need nas right now?
What would you advise i do with my pi?
The wife and I made a retro game console. But we mostly use it for kodi
I literally had the the same pi collecting dust. I put it in an aluminum enclosure with an M2 bus, added a spare drive, and put home assistant os on it. SUPER FUN. now all those sensors and ESP32s I have can provide meaningful use to my life.
Home Assistant? Replace google / nest / alexa.
I have a better assistant for my home. It’s called me.
When I get home from work, I don’t rely on some app to open my door. I use my hands, and unlock the door with my keys.
When I want to know how much juice is left in the fridge, I walk my ass to the fridge and check myself.
When I want to set the house on fire to committ insurance fraud, I walk down to the gas station, fill my cannister myself, and come back home and pour it everywhere myself. No app needed!
People are SO dependant on technology these days! Jeez!
The typical advice (from anyone who hasn’t outright drank the kool-aid) is to avoid automating things like locks or doors. If your shit gets hacked, you don’t want it to allow physical access. And automating door unlocks is an easy way to accidentally allow people into your house.
Instead, most try to focus on automation for things like lights turning off when you leave home, automatically dimming the lights when you start a movie, automatically stealing from billionaires when a new movie hits streaming services, blocking ads, self-hosting your own smart speakers to divest from Google/Amazon/etc, meal planning, etc…
Leave the locks dumb, because you can’t hack a pin and tumbler system. Leave building molotov cocktails dumb, because it can be a fun family activity.
Well I don’t know if dependent is the right word. I’m fully aware that Home Assistant is something I play with for fun.
I can check the app and see how much power my solar has generated today, how hot my water heater is, or see what temperature it is inside or outside. None of that is helpful for anything other than for fun.
Though I can do thinks like bump up the target temperature of my hot water when the solar is making too much power in order to store that energy as heat, which is pretty cool.
What can I say, this is some people’s idea of fun. I got security cameras (that I can view through home assistant) and put them not pointed at entryways or windows because I don’t care about security, I pointed them at areas where the dog is and the kids play so I can play with object and facial recognition, all locally processed.
It’s ok to not think it’s your idea of fun, but if anyone uses home assistant in a way that they rely on rather than just for the fun of playing with the technology then I’d love to hear what that use is!
I’m with you my man. Don’t let the haters get to you.
Me, disabled and using smart tech to improve a shitty situation, while reading your total lack of understanding or imagination of anyone’s situation but themselves: 🙄
But… Fraudzoid’s app looks so nice… and my Fraudzoid Blaze subscription practically pays for itself!
I have a little person I feed drugs to do all this stuff for me.
Sell it for double your money back.
Mail it to me
Pi hole if you don’t have one, others have mentioned home assist, you could also look at ubo pod, although that isn’t out yet. Really just use it to host whatever you want
CasaOS seems like an easy alternative for a multi purpose server
Look up Pi-Hole, it’s an adblocker for your whole home network. It blocks ads at the DNS level
RetroPie? A Pi can handle most of the older, amazing games.
Leave it running an i2p node
Setup a Tor Relay. Help the Tor network.
Check out /c/selfhosted
!selfhosted@lemmy.world
seti@home:
You basically donate computing power to a project looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
seti.org/…/seti-at-home-going-into-hibernation/
UC Berkeley has announced that the volunteer computing part of SETI@home will stop distributing work and go into hibernation on March 31.
Then jump to Einstein@Home. They optimize their workloads for ARM64 architecture. Stop looking for aliens and start looking for pulsars.
PiHole and Plex? Plex will help generate need for a NAS. It worked for me.
Can confirm. Didn’t need a NAS before I started hosting my own Plex/Jellyfin server. Then suddenly I was considering 40TB and going “hmm this is probably way too small for actual daily use, but it’ll be a good start and I can expand on it later.”
Useful? I think you’re doing this hobby wrong.
/s.
Desktop PC
I have a Pi 4 running as a PiHole and Pi 5 running as an SDR server with 2 radios attached to it. Both are connected via Tailscale as well so I can access both from anywhere I want, especially useful for the PiHole so I have adblocking anywhere on any device.
The Pi 4 is massively overpowered for a PiHole, but if you got one laying around doing nothing, go for it.
I have my PiHole running on a Pi Zero with a USB Ethernet adapter. The WebUi is a bit slow, but the actual DNS with unbound as a backend isn’t any slower than on a Pi 4.
Indeed. I ended up with the 4 because a local electronics shop had it for a good price back in the day.
Do you have a 3D printer?
Yes i do, its not the greatest but it gets the job done.
Check out docs-os.mainsail.xyz
If you have a 3D printer where you just take an SD card out, put it in the computer, put your STLs on, put it back in the machine, then print… You’ll like this. I have my Pi set up with MainsailOS and what it does is basically control your printer. It even integrates into my slicer so I just slice my file then hit print and it starts immediately over WiFi.
If your printer is WiFi connected already this may be less useful but Klipper is pretty powerful for tuning and stuff so it’s still a benefit.
Octoprint for your 3d printer.
If you have access to someone with a 3d or can find the parts online; you could build a gameboy with it.
Mine runs Orb and Tailscale as an exit node.
What do these things mean?
orb.net monitors your internet performance.
tailscale.com access your home internet or devices when you’re away from home. Usually only helpful if you have a NAS, but I’ve used it to stream tv shows without having to get bothered or blocked because the service can only be used in the US. I watched some NFL over youtubetv while in Germany for example.
Folding@Home
Distributed computing project that allows you to contribute CPU cycles to scientists searching for cures for things like Alzheimer’s and cancer.
I have one pulling double duty as a Pi hole and emulation console.
Step one, put it in my hand.
Step two, take this $3.50 in all pennies. Those are valuable. They fon’t even make those pennies anymore, and thats 350 of them! All for you! Honestly, you’re making out on this deal.
Step three, …
as heard in the distance
…sucker!!!
Do you play guitar?
Yes.
Check my other comment then :P
Turn it into a music visualizer. This is a fantasy project I’ve had
You could host your own federated instances.
Pipboy
Look at selfhosting apps. Pihole is popular since it has some immediate benefits for other devices in your network. HomeAssistsnt is amazing if you’re into automation. But there’s hundreds of cool selfhosted apps that can improve your life depending on your interests. Getting familia with Docker will open up a lot of doors for easily launching servers hosted on the pi.
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Set it up as a PiHole.
Which reminds me: I need to finish getting mine hooked up to my LAN properly.
Zagam@piefed.social 1 day ago
Same. I got mine a static IP, but everything I try to make it work, I get no network at all.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 22 hours ago
Any chance your pihole and router are both trying to be the DHCP server for the network?