r/raspberry_pi

I am working out a way to re-use the hardware for my Pwnagotchi for a similar virtual pet concept that "eats" Bluetooth devices and wireless AP (supports wardriving) and who lives on a separate microSD card from my Pwnagotchi image.

This is my buddy Harald (named for Harald Bluetooth, the Viking whose surname became the name of the Bluetooth technology), a Viking dragon who eats Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals (FOOD) and who enjoys novel discoveries and going out on adventures (JOY). He's also a protective sort and keeps an eye out for anything stalking me.

Privacy fences: Phones and watches that change their address are counted by kind, never listed or followed. The signal meter only works on devices I've marked as mine. The unknown-tracker warning only fires for a tracker that's away from its owner and has stayed with me for 30 minutes (and, when GPS is on, has moved more than 250m with me). Wi-Fi is passive scanning only - no deauthing or handshake collecting (staying out of Pwnagotchi's lane).

Extremely early days on this guy and surely a lot to tweak, but I'm pretty chuffed so far. He can certainly function without being connected to my Android phone (just feeding on BT and Wi-Fi signals, with extra happiness for novelty), but he does depend on an external GPS (in this case, the SensorServer phone app) for Wigle uploads and "walks". Harald's "Den" is a browser page that can be accessed when Harald is connected to my phone's hotspot (or whatever I have set as his home network), and shows his current e-ink screen along with extra information and certain controls (like shutting him down so he can be safely unplugged from his power supply). He can still appreciate my physical activity even if he doesn't come with me, because connecting him to my phone shares whatever distance I've covered that day and he interprets distance covered without him along for the ride as an "adventure" I have "told him about", which gives him some happiness.

There's a lot of other minutiae, but I'm just excited to share the images of the working prototype. I also verified the WIGLE uploads online and they are appearing on my account! :-D

Edit: Forgot to mention that the "unknown tracker warning" screenshot is from an earlier build where I was still adding things, so the e-ink display has an older layout on it.

Edit2: The hardware is Raspberry Pi Zero W 2 with Waveshare V4 e-ink hat, plus an external battery.

https://github.com/jiu-0317/e_ink_display

Darwin on Pi3 is ready for people to play around with. I have made the repos public. Its important to understand with this is and what it isnt. This isnt macOS. This is something very very similar and shares a lot of the components. Everything here is open source. It is a Darwin with a pure Cocoa UI on X11. I have optimized everything for arm64/ 1GB RAM and totally disregarded other architectures. I have modified anything and everything to make the UI for this hardware. You will need Xcode 12 to build this. This is the version of Xcode closest to the version of the kernel we use. All the pi3B hardware works. This may boot on on other pi3s but there arent kexts for other hardware so everything may not work. I will add support for the other pi3 boards in the future. I do not own one so will need community testing to verify it works.

If you want to try to build it, start with this repo:

https://github.com/anurodhp/xnu-iokit-pi3/

setup third party should clone all of the many other repos. Build everything should build everything. tools/build real hw image will make 3GB image you can flash on to an SD card. The full build is huge and will take several hours.

SSH is on. Serial out works. HDMI out works. The root password is darwin. Since this is a bsd system you use pw to add/remove users and set passwords. When you boot it boots directly to X and the GSDM login screen. Logging in will take you to the new desktop with a dock. Sound works with a core audio daemon but there is nothing that uses it yet

If you use this image if you just want to flash to SD and try it out. File bugs in the iokit repo. if they are related to one of the apps Rome, Milan, Naples for Florence file them in their repo.

The ghostty terminal and the Webkit based browser are the most useful things right now. I will be publishing more user land apps and utilities to add more functionality. Things like wifi tools, setting screen, activity monitor, console viewer etc.

https://github.com/anurodhp/xnu-iokit-pi3/releases/tag/10_11_26

I bought this Fisher Price toy for my niece because of viral videos, but it turns out it was no where close to as annoying as they made it seem. Just a general kids toy with the usual cutesy ABC songs.

So I used a raspberry pi w2 for the brains, MAX98357A for the speaker, AS5600 for the spinning platter (it was just a platter that spun to push a button before), and a INMP441 for a microphone. Then printed a PCB board the same size as the original to mount it all inside. You can now upload your own song clips via a webpage, create a layered music track or use it as a bluetooth speaker.
There are a few 3D printed parts to help mount the platter and upgrade the speaker. All of the code, STL files, non-copyright music and tones (I'm sure you can find better real ones) are on the github here:
https://github.com/LifeOnAFarm/RaveRepeatDJTable

Also a guide of sorts with better photos here: https://nastypieceof.work/raveandrepeat

Anyway, I'm sure my sister will be extremely to have this in her house

On and off I've been trying to build a Spotify Connect display on a RPI - for years. The screen was too small, the case didn't fit, the driver problematic, the program was never satisfying.

Enter 2026, saw the Spotify Car Thing craze and my interest returned. This time I went for a MPI5001 5" Display that I could buy at a nice price, and particularly the vendor also sold a fitting case. With RPI mounting holes! Almost by chance I took a RPI3B (the 4 was in use) that had a HiFiBerry DAC+ on it. Bought me a nice 2.5a power supply and nylon standoffs for the mounting.

I stopped fighting with Python and vibed it using the Car Thing as base. Having such nice DAC in there I got carried away and I revived my LMS server for digital files and I added an option for that too. And built some options for random music etc.

I'm quite satisifed now! I'd eventually try to improve the cabling, angle connectors and such.

Any idea why these points are bridged?

Hi all,
I have some raspberry pi’s (about 10) I pulled from some old Covid temperature sensing check in kiosks. They’re 4B 8gb units. Each of them has these 2 wires bridging what seems to be the USBC port and the middle USBA stack. Is this accurate? If so, why? Just to run power to the USB ports?

Thanks!

I'm using it to watch YouTube (FreeTube) and other internet media on my dumb TV, and VLC for DVD movies. Surprisingly it performs way better than Raspberry Pi OS and the UI feels much more natural than the clunky RPi desktop. It also has better support for hardware, such as external DVD player, which I couldn't get to work on Raspberry Pi OS.

My AcuRite Atlas and Access hub only show their data through AcuRite's cloud. I wanted my own copy of every reading, my own dashboard, and no dependence on their servers, without breaking the AcuRite app or my Weather Underground uploads. So I built this. It's MIT-licensed, a single Python file with no packages to install, and it runs on a Raspberry Pi.

How it works: the hub sends each reading over HTTPS to a server name it's configured with. This program sits in that path. It records the reading, then passes it to AcuRite unchanged, so the app keeps working, and the hub keeps uploading to Weather Underground itself. There are two ways to set it up:

• Change the hub's server name to point at your machine. No extra hardware is needed.
• Plug the hub into a Pi's Ethernet port. The Pi gives it an address and answers AcuRite's server name itself, and the hub's settings stay untouched.

What you get:

• Dashboard: every sensor, plus feels-like, wind, the 3-hour pressure trend, UV and light.
• Sun and moon: worked out in the page, with no outside service.
• US forecast: the hourly and 7-day forecast and alerts from the National Weather Service (free, no key).
• Charts: any period from today to all time, or a date range. Rain totals for the day, week, month and year.
• Every reading kept in a local SQLite database.
• Easy to customize: one file for the colors, a folder for your own pages, and a documented JSON feed for anything you want to build.
• Buttons that open your Weather Underground or AcuRite pages, in a pane or in their own tab.
• Optional radio capture with an RTL-SDR dongle if you have no hub.

Tested on an Access hub (firmware 051) with an Atlas and six indoor tower sensors. If you have other AcuRite sensors, I'd like to hear whether they show up properly.

I built this with Claude Code (AI-assisted). The design, testing and hardware work were mine.

https://github.com/akienm/CC0AC-Weather

Not affiliated with AcuRite.

Update to my post from 10 days ago: the simulated fruit-fly brain playing Pokémon FireRed on my Pi 5 is still running 24/7, and it has grown into an ongoing experiment.

Quick recap: it's 139,255 neurons wired from the FlyWire connectome (the full reconstructed brain of an adult fruit fly), simulated on the Pi alongside the emulator. The game screen feeds its eyes, people and doors reach it as smells, and its motor neurons press the buttons. Nothing is scripted. Chat can steer it, or train it with !pain / !pleasure, which releases dopamine in the fly's learning centre.

What's new: it now runs in 30-day runs. Each one starts from a brand-new game and an untrained brain, and the settings only change between runs, so every run is a comparable dataset. Every run collects:

- every step, battle and milestone, tagged "fly alone" or "chat helped" (80% of its steps this run are its own)

- every viewer input, and whether they steered with the fly or against it

- every lesson it learns, who caused it, and how fast it fades

- brain activity per region (vision, navigation, memory, reward, punishment, motor) and everything it senses

- which way it turns and what made it turn

- its "thoughts" (the captions on stream) and how often they were right

At the end of each run everything goes into a published PDF report, including a "what held it back" page with fixes to try in the next run. We also run preregistered experiments, announced on stream before they happen. The first one, a "mirror world" test, found the fly has a built-in right-turn bias that doesn't come from the map. Tonight it plays with and without everything it has learned, to see whether training actually changes its behaviour.

Watch live: twitch.tv/leetzerzz (chat can steer and train it) and youtube.com/@leetzerzz

Run reports and experiment results: in the Discord linked on both channels

Two days ago, I properly learned what a Raspberry Pi even was.
I’ve never coded, never used Linux and never set up a server. I’m just really into radio and SDR stuff, and I thought a Pi would be a neat way to access my SDR receiver remotely.
So I ordered a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB RAM.
It arrived today.
10 PM: Finally got around to setting it up. Put everything together, prepared the SD card and opened ChatGPT because I had absolutely no clue what I was doing.
The plan was to get my SDR working remotely and go to bed.
Yeah, about that.
11 PM: Somehow I’m already sitting in PowerShell, connecting to my Pi over SSH, setting up keys, messing with Linux commands and figuring out what permissions and services even are.
Every time something worked, I got another idea.
Around midnight: We got Cockpit running so I could manage the Pi through a browser. At this point I was already pretty damn impressed with this little thing.
Then I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have my own dashboard showing temperatures and system stats?
I really should’ve gone to bed.
2 AM: We’re now writing actual code. Well, ChatGPT is writing it and I’m running it, breaking things, sending back error messages and trying to understand what’s happening.
Suddenly we’re dealing with Python scripts, system services, ports, authentication, Wi-Fi monitoring and temperature history.
All this for a computer I only discovered two days ago.
Around 4 AM: We finally get the custom dashboard running over HTTPS, with its own certificate.
I grab my iPhone, open Safari, type in the address…
And there it is.
My own little dashboard, showing live CPU temperatures, system information, Wi-Fi stats and graphs.
I know this probably sounds like nothing special to people who’ve been doing this for years, but I genuinely couldn’t believe it.
I was sitting there looking at something that had only existed as a random idea in my head a few hours earlier.
6 AM: Instead of sleeping, I’m running stress-ng and watching the CPU temperature climb from around 47°C to 56°C under load.
And I’m actually enjoying this. At six in the morning. After being awake all night.
What the hell.
The funniest part is that the original SDR project was supposed to be the whole point of buying this thing. Somehow that turned into SSH keys, a headless Linux server, Cockpit, HTTPS, a custom dashboard and CPU stress tests.
I’m not going to pretend I suddenly know how to code. AI did the heavy lifting there. But I was involved in every step, trying things, fixing errors and slowly understanding more of what was going on.
There was this one moment when I looked at the dashboard on my phone and just thought, holy shit, we actually made this work.
That feeling was honestly incredible.
Anyway, I bought a Raspberry Pi for one small project, spent the entire night messing with it and now I’m already looking at NVMe storage and thinking about a second Pi for a proper homelab.
I think you guys know exactly where this is going. 😂

Happy to say that today I was able to play my first matches on a self-moving wooden chess board I have been working on for the last 2 months :)). This is my first Pi project and it took my a while to familiarize myself with it but I'm really happy with it.

The Pi is connected with a Pico SKR V1.0 controlling a CoreXY System with an electromagnet. Additionally to 64 omnidirectional hall sensors on 8 custom PCBs via pin header and IO-Expander. Some momentary push buttons, a 5" LCD-Display and Status-LEDs on the side-walls as well.

Currently Stockfish, Maia3, Rodent IV and Patricia run it.

Matches are being recorded and saved as PGNs. With that, it saves the position, I can turn off the board and play on later.

I'm now working on connecting it to Lichess's and Chess.com's APIs, so I can play actual online matches on the physical board, where the PIs WIFI capabilities will come in handy. Additionally voice command so the board can execute a players move, if enabled.

After that a menu with an UI for the LCD screen which is embedded in the wall on the side, connecting everything cleanly.

Still a long road ahead, but truly happy that today, for the first time, I could sit down and play a full match with it :D!

I built a time-lapse camera around a Raspberry Pi 4 with a Camera Module 3 Wide, powered over a single PoE cable, and I've open sourced the software. The Pi takes a full 12MP photo every minute in daylight only, working out the window from your latitude and longitude so it follows the seasons, and it looks after its own storage by deleting the oldest frames once the SD card passes 85%. A Mac collects the frames automatically whenever the archive drive is plugged in, and one command turns any date range into a video. There's also a film mode and you can control it from your phone.

The first photo is the camera on the wall, and the second is a frame it took of my garden (neighbours' side blurred).

It's open source and free to use, fork and change, all here: https://github.com/aityp/garden-timelapse-camera. A step-by-step build guide is still being written, but the README should be enough to get it running if you're comfortable in a terminal. There's also a build video if you'd rather see it in action, linked from the README. The code was written with AI (Claude) and tested on the real camera in my garden.

I made it because I'm about to pull my back garden apart for a retaining wall, a new fence and a shed, and I want all of it filmed from one fixed spot for the next couple of years. Happy to answer any questions.