Re: Just got a Pi1B. What can you actually do with it these days?

On 06/06/2025 09:27, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

TronNerd82 <tronnerd82@aol.com> writes:

If you can think of any productive use-cases for an original Pi model
B (not even the B+) let me know, and I'll consider it :-)

I have a couple of (much newer) Pis around the house with temperature
sensors on, feeding a Grafana instance. I expect the 1B would be fine in
a sensor host role, if you can arrange connectivity.

I was going to suggest that, as that is what I used my old 256MB and
512MB Model Bs when I got the newer much more capable multiple core models.

You'll need a Pi compatible WiFi dongle, and reliability might be a bit
questionable, but that could have been down to using old mobile phone
chargers with the original Pi's, I would recommend the official PSU used
on later ones.

In principle it can do a reasonable job of displaying video but based on
https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2024/06/playing-1080p-h-264-video-on-my-old-256-mb-raspberry-pi/
getting it working is a bit of a run-around these days and the audio
performance is poor. It might be OK as a ‘digital picture frame’ but
probably not for anything you’re going to actively watch.

I did briefly use it as KODI media player on the bedroom TV, and it
could do a lideshow of camera photos from the NAS OK, but it wasn't
until the Pi 2B that many videos were possible.

---druck