If you have a ton of time on your hands, then I really hope you make these Raspberry Pi projects for me. I want to make them myself, but I just don’t have the time, however cool or useful they are.
Like most Raspberry Pi projects, they’ll be fun to make, I’m sure. Everyone will enjoy using them, no doubt. But the time to accomplish it, I do not have. Here’s five Raspberry Pi projects that I’d build if I had the extra time (and cash).
- Brand
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Raspberry Pi
- CPU
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Quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53
- Memory
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512MB of SDRAM
The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is super tiny and super affordable, but it packs enough computing power for a variety of DIY projects. You can use it to create a handheld retro gaming console, for Klipper/Mainsail, a super compact home or media server, and more.
RetroPie tabletop arcade
Peak nostalgia
I might not have grown up in the time when arcades were all the rage, but I do enjoy some retro arcade gaming.
RetroPie is an operating system that runs on a Raspberry Pi and allows you to emulate all kinds of older platforms. There are people out there who have built entire arcade cabinets with arcade-style controllers running RetroPie.
I think it would be super fun to have a system like that at the house. I can just see it now. We have some friends over and fire up the retro arcade cabinet and see who gets the highest score in Pac-Man. Or we get Frogger up and going to see who can last the longest.
There are all kinds of fun that you can have with RetroPie, and I’d absolutely love to build a tabletop (or wall-mounted) arcade with it if I ever had the time.
Batocera vs. RetroPie vs. Lakka: Which Retro Gaming OS Should You Use?
We look at three of the most popular retro gaming OS options available and what makes them different.
Smart mirror
A modern project that feels futuristic
I’ve seen smart mirror projects for years, and I’ve always wanted one. The problem is, they’re not extremely easy to build, nor are they simple to program.
If you’ve never seen a smart mirror before, it’s essentially a normal mirror (or mirrored window film) with a screen (or screens) behind it. The screens show various information through the mirror.
The biggest benefit is having a normal mirror when the screens are off, and getting a glimpse at information like the weather, news, or anything else when you want.
I’d love to have a smart mirror in my main bathroom. One of the primary uses I’d have for it is weather and news updates in the morning or before church. If I built one, I’d tie it in with proximity sensors and presence detection so it would automatically come up when someone walked up to the mirror.
Of course, I’d also integrate it with a switch of some sort so that way it could be manually toggled on and off. I’d also integrate it with the light switches in the bathroom, so if all the lights were turned off, the smart mirror would turn off.
This would just be the start, but I could see myself doing deep integration with Home Assistant so I could get updates of various things throughout the house, statuses from my homelab, and news sources.
The problem is, this would be a never ending project for me. As a woodworker, I could likely build the frame and get the basic functionality up and going in a few hours, but I’d constantly be working on tweaking and tuning the software and capabilities of the smart Mirror. Alas, this is likely why I don’t think I’ll ever have the time to build it.
How to Build Your Own Futuristic Smart Mirror
In a weekend (or two), you can build yourself an amazing smart mirror that shows calendar events, weather, and news.
Here’s a detailed guide to building the hardware and putting together the software.
Wall-mounted smart home dashboard
Okay, I might be working on this one
For about as long as I’ve wanted a smart mirror, I’ve always wanted a wall-mounted smart home dashboard. As my wife and I are in our house longer, I’m adding more and more smart devices to our setup.
Smart switches, light bulbs, thermostat, the list goes on. I also have a bunch of self-hosted services in my homelab—all of which are easily trackable in Home Assistant.
With a wall-mounted smart home dashboard, I’d be able to easily see at a glance what lights were on or off, and trigger specific groups. It would also allow me to play music in a certain area of the home, see what services are online in the homelab, and also check the weather at a glance. It’s a smart mirror, but with an interactive touchscreen and much smaller.
Out of all the Pi projects I want to do, this is one of the few that’s most likely to happen at some point in the future. A Pi Zero 2 W or a Pi 4 would be perfect for this, as both can be set up for PoE (Power over Ethernet), and I can also split the power out to run the monitor itself if necessary.
This is also likely one of the most functional projects on my list. It’s not just something that looks pretty, but it would let me take control of my entire smart home without having to pull my phone out or issue voice commands. Truly, that’s why I want a wall-mounted smart home dashboard, and hopefully I’ll eventually find time to build one.
TARS replica from Interstellar
It’s just too cool
This one is purely for nostalgia. Interstellar is by far one of my favorite movies, period. There are few movies that stack up to it in my mind. Not only is it quite accurate on the science and space side of things, but it’s also just a gripping story.
TARS is a key character in the movie, and the thought of having a mini TARS replica to walk around my desk is alluring, to say the least.
The project wouldn’t be a small undertaking. It requires servo motors, drivers, soldering, and a lot of programming. It would be a time sink, that’s for sure.
The project serves little purpose besides reminding me about my favorite movie. But, not all projects have to serve some huge purpose, right? Sometimes things can be for fun and that’s enough.
I’d love to have TARS sitting on my desk, with text scrolling on the screen, him randomly walking around, and maybe even a speaker so he could say some of his most iconic lines. But alas, I don’t think I’ll be building that cheeky sarcastic robot any time soon.
E-ink weather and news dashboard
Tons of data, minimal power consumption
Out of all the projects on this list, an e-ink weather and news station is also very likely to happen at some point, just like the wall-mounted smart home dashboard.
E-ink displays are just fun. I love how they look like paper, yet can be interacted with in unique ways. Building an e-ink weather and news station for my desk would bridge so many hobbies for me.
I love the weather, and all my friends typically ask me “What’s the weather going to be?” or if there’s a major storm, they’ll ask me how bad it’ll be. I don’t have my own personal weather station (yet), but I do monitor things closely, especially in storm season.
Having a little e-ink screen on my desk that pulled weather in from a local weather station and displayed it in a simple way would be super convenient.
I’d also love to have a news ticker off to the side that pulled news from X or Threads and displayed it on a piece-by-piece basis. I wouldn’t want to read an article there, just see headlines or posts so then I could look something up if I wanted to learn more.
This project is actually on the easier side of things to accomplish, and is why it’s most likely to happen at some point in the future. I’d love to design a 3D printed (or CNC machined out of wood) enclosure for the project and throw a little Pi 4 in the case ran by PoE and be ready to go.
We’ve all got projects we’re trying to get around to
Are you looking for simpler projects to do with your Raspberry Pi? Here are six ways to upcycle an old Pi you might have lying around. Also, keep in mind that you don’t need the latest 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 to do any of the projects above, an older generation Pi will do just fine for most tasks.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
