Raspberry Pi as a company has been on an upward trajectory, announcing its plans to go public on the London Stock Exchange – and subsequently doing so. As a solution, its low cost single-board computers that can be adapted depending on the final application have made it popular for a number of industries; IoT included. For the IoT industry which is turning its attention to Edge computing and handling large datasets, a Raspberry Pi IoT platform is increasingly being used for its affordability versatility, and capabilities.
What is a Raspberry Pi IoT platform?
Raspberry Pi’s bread and butter are their small, affordable single-board computers. What a single board computer actually is has been covered in more depth over at IoT Insider’s sister publication Electronic Specifier, but in short it’s a computer on a circuit board with the usual components; memory, storage and a processor.
A Raspberry PI IoT platform, therefore, is a system where the single-board computer is used as the central component for managing IoT applications. The platform uses the Raspberry Pi’s hardware, software and connectivity features to collect data from sensors and analyse this data.
The cost related with deploying IoT solutions can prove prohibitive and, in some cases, restrict the growth of an area. By using Raspberry Pi’s low-cost solution, SMEs and hobbyists in particular, have greater access to developing their own solutions.
The single-board computers are particularly suited for certain types of IoT projects, including home automation – where it acts as the central hub controlling smart devices ranging from lights to thermostats and cameras – Edge computing – processing data on the device, rather than in the Cloud – and for educational purposes, enabling students and hobbyists to experiment with IoT concepts at low costs.
The capabilities of Raspberry Pi models translate well to IoT; for example, it comes with multiple connectivity options including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet, essential for IoT applications that need devices to be able to communicate to one another. The General Purpose Input/Output (GIPO) pins on Raspberry Pi also make it easy to connect sensors, and actuators.
Using Raspberry Pi in Edge computing
Edge computing involves processing data closer to the source, the network, rather than using a centralised Cloud-based system, which was the norm. In doing so, this reduces latency and improves the responsiveness of IoT systems.
One primary use of Raspberry Pi in Edge computing is to process and analyse the data locally, where it is generated. It can perform preliminary processing like filtering, aggregation or running machine learning models. For smart farming, for example, a Raspberry Pi can be used to collect data from soil moisture sensors and process this data locally.
In situations where decisions need to be made quickly based on sensor information, a Raspberry PI can process the data and execute actions quickly.
The model picked depends on the project’s requirements.For basic IoT applications which don’t have intensive processing or memory requirements, a Raspberry Pi Zero W might suffice, but for the more demanding tasks, the Raspberry Pi 4 model has more processing power and RAM.
Basic applications could include reading data from a pool of sensors and processing this; while demanding tasks require processing large amounts of data in real time, such as processing video streams from multiple cameras or running machine learning algorithms to analyse sensor data.
Addressing existing challenges
There are limitations for Raspberry Pi that need to be addressed. Powerful processing models consume more power which can be a restriction for battery-powered IoT devices. Extended use can also lead to overheating, in turn resulting in throttling or instability.
In releasing an open-source project that allowed the configuration of Wi-Fi on the Raspberry Pi, Remote.It referred to one such limitation; onboarding devices onto Wi-Fi.
“The Raspberry Pi is the platform of choice for many of our partners building Edge and IoT devices, and when those devices are delivered into the field, one of the challenges has been the ability to easily onboard headless devices on Wi-Fi,” explained Ryo Koyama, CEO and Co-Founder of Remote.It. “With this solution, we wanted to provide the entire Raspberry Pi community with an easy drop-in solution that allows quick and easy wi-fi onboarding using a browser or mobile app.”
Remote.It detailed the current processes for configuring a Raspberry Pi for a Wi-Fi network, such as manual configuration, or pre-configured SD cards or USB devices. It explained in the press release that by using its solution, users are able to connect to PI devices from smartphones or computers via Bluetooth and share their Wi-Fi settings.
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