What it is
Raspberry Pi is a line of small, low-cost single-board computers made by Raspberry Pi Ltd, the trading arm of the UK Raspberry Pi Foundation. The main boards run a full Linux system, usually Raspberry Pi OS, from a microSD card or other storage. They have USB, networking and HDMI, so a Pi can sit on a desk like a tiny PC or run headless in a box with no screen at all.
What sets it apart from a laptop is the row of GPIO (general purpose input and output) pins along the edge. Those pins read switches and sensors and drive LEDs, relays and motor controllers, and they speak common buses such as I2C, SPI and UART. Add-on boards called HATs stack on top for things like motor control, GPS or cellular. There is also the Raspberry Pi Pico, a microcontroller board for simpler, low-power jobs.
How I use it
- Raspberry Pi boards and cheap sensors on rented equipment report location and status into Rental Pilot's billing system, so the invoice matches what is actually in the field.
- I use IoT devices to track expensive, large machinery down to power-on and usage statistics.
- For experiments I build robots on a Pi, programmed in Python against the hardware: GPIO, motors and sensors.
- Cellular shields and modems let a Pi report from anywhere, not just where there is Wi-Fi.
- The pattern I build with sends readings to AWS so they can be tracked, monitored, measured, viewed and read with AI.
A Pi is the right tool when the software needs to know something only the physical world knows, and a full Linux box at the edge is easier than custom firmware. I can SSH into it, run Python against the pins, and send what it reads into the same system that bills for the machine. It is cheap enough to put on equipment, and nothing about it is a locked vendor box.
Questions
Can a Raspberry Pi track rented equipment?
Yes. On my work, a Pi and a handful of cheap sensors on a machine report location and status into Rental Pilot's billing system. The goal is that the invoice matches what is actually out in the field.
Do you program Raspberry Pi hardware directly?
Yes. I build robots on a Pi and program them in Python against the GPIO pins, motors and sensors. The same skills carry over to sensors on real equipment.
Raspberry Pi or a microcontroller for an IoT device?
A Pi runs full Linux, so it suits jobs that need networking, scripts and remote access over SSH. A microcontroller board such as the Pico suits simpler, low-power jobs. I pick based on what the device has to do and how it is powered.