Raspberry Pi for home
If you’re a regular around here, you might have noticed the new “For Home” option in our navigation bar up at the top of the page. But before you click it, wait a moment. We want to bend your ear about what we’re up to, and we want to pick your brains about what you think we should get up to.
For home
For Home is where we’re collecting together resources that will help you get started with your Raspberry Pi at home. From Raspberry Pi OS and Imager downloads to accessories and tutorials, we want For Home to be a great first stop on anyone’s Raspberry Pi journey.
Raspberry Pi tutorials
The most exciting part of For Home — for me, at least — is the tutorials section. The Raspberry Pi Foundation provides fantastic resources that focus on helping people learn coding and electronics, and we want to complement these with tutorials for some of our favourite trending projects, from RetroPie and NAS boxes to Raspberry Pi clusters and more.
Take a look and let us know how you get on with them. We hope they’ll help you set up that thing you’ve been meaning to sort out for ages, but not quite getting around to.
What should we make next?
We’re already putting together the next fun and interesting Raspberry Pi tutorials to add to our first few, and we’d love your ideas for what to try out next. OctoPrint is already on its way, as is a rather lovely Ambilight-like system using RGB LEDs. But what else?
What’s on your list? Which projects were on your list when you got your hands on a Raspberry Pi for the very first time? What should you have made when you got your first Raspberry Pi? Which one project is so cool or so useful that everyone should have a go? Tell us!
27 comments
Mark Norwood
I’d like to see a tutorial on displaying an image sideshow on the Pico using something like Pimoroni’s Pico display. It seems like something that should be simple but to a beginner is very complicated requiring the images to be pre-processed in an unusual way.
Harry Hardjono
I want to see Raspberry Pi Zero 2 being used for satellite office/home office computer, instead of the usual retro gaming usage. Can Zero be a servicable desktop computer when the main is unavailable?
Carl
IMO, no. The Zero 2W is a better Pi Zero, and thus best for embedded or CLI and headless uses, not a desktop backup. It only has half a gig of RAM, and you’re going to find it frustrating for connectivity (No ethernet; 1 USB O-T-G port versus 4 USB).
For a GUI desktop that doesn’t have excruciating lag, you need bare minimum of 1 GB RAM (model 3B/3B+), preferably a 2 GB or more with a model 4B or 400.
Sam Johnson
I own 8 Pi computers running everything from a weather station (w weewx) to a kodi client but I have yet to get into any home automation, though I do use Sonoff and TP Link (Kasa) wi-fi enabled switches. Just haven’t yet come across any particularly compelling applications. Some of my TO DO list projects include a “Magic Mirror” (a kit with Pi Zero 2 might sell) and some RFID sensor reading for logging which (ringed) chickens have spent time in nestboxes and perhaps, in future, ensuring their automated coop door doesn’t close if any are shut out.
The single most useful application, imo, is a pihole (ideally with unbound for DNS). It’s the first thing I do for friends and family interested in getting rid of as many ads, tracking cookies and malware as possible across all devices. A set of docker containers with apps and instructions for enabling people able to edit their router’s DNS settings and forward ports would be good to see. After pihole wireguard is high on my list of useful applications everyone should have on their home network and their devices.
Fred Cee
Totally agree with getting something on Home Automation.
The Raspberry Pi 4 is the ideal platform for apps like Home Assistant and Domoticz. Start by connecting to off the shelf switches & lights then add sensors, cameras, central heating, energy monitoring, alarm systems, home entertainment controls…. the list just keeps getting bigger.
It brings you into coding through scripting for the device configs and logic for the automations that make your house smart. It then leads on to building your own sensors and output devices using micros such as arduino or ESP8266 (and hopefully Pico’s soon).
We could really do with a MagPi essentials projects book. The apps web sites are good places, but navigating them can be daunting for beginners.
Jack Harris
Some users like me have a 3D printer, and make accessories like cases, camera holders, so helpful hints and designs would be an “At Home” category.
Dominic Jenner
Loads of suggestions: how to work with different types of motors from servos, steppers to DC. How to work with LEDS, neopixels, led matrixes, or any kind of flashy led. My head is literally exploding with ideas not sure o could put them all down in a comment. 😃👍 Good luck keep up the excellent work.
shifty
+1 for something explaining different motors. making things move and robotics is a huge draw for kids.
Jeff Geerling
The most obvious: Home Assistant!
And paired nicely with that (and already mentioned once above): a magic mirror or status display for the house.
Finally, some ‘citizen science’ projects you can do with a Raspberry Pi at home, like a weather station, or a Raspberry Shake!
Ben
Love your channel BTW :-)
Ob
Raspberry Pi as a family PC!!!
And, woah! Alex, long time no see!
:)
Alex Bate
Thank you. Ashley took the reigns from me but it’s nice to pop back now and again.
thagrol
Guides that are more than the typical five minute do this and it works one found all over the internet. The ones that don’t explain the why of things or what to do if they don’t work. That ommit stuff or contain inaccuracies. (e.g. https://www.raspberrypi.com/tutorials/nas-box-raspberry-pi-tutorial/)
Eric S
Where can I buy a raspberry pi these days? Supply shortages are worse than when the 4 came out! I would love to use a bunch of these in a bunch of projects but I cannot find them in stock for under $150 anywhere.
Walt
Q: Where?
A: Nowhere. I’ve looked everywhere.
Q: When back?
A: ????
Esbeeb
Signal Desktop for Raspberry Pi OS. Then the chatting that people do on their smartphones can also happen on the desktop, linked together.
Tim Wallace
Like to use pi for wireless device only on my home network.
b45
I would like to see a series of tutorials / reviews for using old tablets and e-readers as Raspberry Pi screens. I’m sure many people like me have a pile of ipads, amazon fires, nooks and kindles too old to work, too nice to throw away.
Maybe there is even scope for a Raspberry Pi TabletUpcycling App to support them.
Ben
Just wanted to say we’ll done to Sam for the great illustration.
Stephen
How about the birdbox cam project, brought up to date for a Pi running Bullseye (without the legacy camera support workarounds)?
Matt
Outstanding Illustration work Sam. “Which projects were on your list when you got your hands on a Raspberry Pi for the very first time?”
All I could think of were the numerous IoT projects in and around my house that needed an processor.
Secret-chest
When will picamera2 be available using apt/pip?
Jack Walker
I’ve written an app on a windows 10 box using PowerShell and a IRdroid usb transceiver to replace ALL of my remote controllers (tv, cable, dvd, etc), but would love to replace it with a Rpi. I’ve tried to get the transceiver to work on one of my RPi’s but to no avail.
A write-up on the installation of “off-the-wall” (but most useful ) devices would be over the top and very useful to me and it would think many other newly converted Pi_HEADS.
P.S. Viable alternatives to the above mentioned would also be welcome.
Tarsam
Dedicated YOUTUBE streamer for senior person as she is unable to handle menus .
Robert Noland
Great graphic!
Home automation with something like Shelly relays would be great.
Birdhouse camera would be ideal as well.
Esbeeb
The setup of Japanese/Chinese character auto-completion (using fcitx5) is **far** easier in Ubuntu than it is in, say, Raspberry Pi OS (or Manjaro KDE 22.02 for that matter). Sure, the fcitx5 packages exist in all three of these OS’, but Ubuntu is the only one where you can be do it all-graphically, while only pulling out about half of your hair (Raspberry Pi OS or Manjaro – virtually all of it). Please greatly streamline adding character input of Asian languages (via fctix5), **complete with onscreen character auto-completion suggestions**.
Esbeeb
I also would request Linux Mint’s excellent and simple “Warpinator” file-sharing tool be packaged up nicely, and made available for installation in the Raspberry Pi OS’ Add/Remove GUI software utility.