New year, new projects
By Rob Zwetsloot. Posted
I’ve probably thought this at the beginning of every year for the past 15 or so but… 2026 truly does sound like a random future year that a 1970s science-fiction writer would use, doesn’t it? Aliens, spaceships, moon bases, perfectly balanced meals in pill form, these are the kinds of things we should have now. Although we do have ridiculously powerful pocket computers, electric cars, watch phones, and tiny computers you can pop in other things to power them up. See, I was able to shoehorn Raspberry Pi in there somehow.
It really has just become a normal part of (my) life to make something smart with a Raspberry Pi. Not just in the superfluous way like a smart safe you can open with a good whack, but better TVs, better cooking equipment, better mirrors even. With the AI capabilities of Raspberry Pi (the good machine learning and analysis stuff, not the make an image of a six-fingered dog-man you can marry stuff), this is only going to get better.
Considered upgrades
There’s a joke that often does the rounds on my social media circles: ‘Tech enthusiasts: my entire house is smart –Tech workers: the only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it in case it makes a noise I don’t recognise’. Obviously hyperbolic, but I do generally agree. Not everything needs to be connected, mainly because that connection can easily go wrong.
I do want to experiment more in this new year though, while making sure there are plenty of fail-safes so that I don’t lose use of the item I’m trying to upgrade, of course. Pico is great for stuff like this, as it’s also a little more limited in what it can do – I’m not going to be able to use it to put a graphical web browser on a shelving light display.
Computer changes
You may already know this, but a lot of the magazine is produced on non-Raspberry Pi computers for various reasons. However, it doesn’t stop us from doing what we can on a Raspberry Pi. I recently grabbed myself a Raspberry Pi 500+ and it is very, very nice. I love typing on it. As a lot of this job does involve that, I’ve been working on ways to rearrange my workstation and make it so it becomes my primary machine for work. A few less distractions there as well, which is always a good thing.
One day it would be great to be able to do all the design work on a Raspberry Pi. I bet that day is coming sooner rather than later.
Rob is amazing. He’s also the Features Editor of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, a hobbyist maker, cosplayer, comic book writer, and extremely modest.
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