Tag Archives: Raspberry Pi

RasPad Test

So before getting started, i need to clarify something. I’m not getting paid for anything! This is a personal review and was in no way influenced by anybody! This said, here comes my review.

So i fell onto that Kickstarter campaign just before it ended and quickly decided to give it a try. Getting a touchscreen for the raspberry pi platform had always been my wish. I also included a nice screen, casing, and a battery for off grid usage. Honestly the only similar product i know is the pi-top device which comes at another price. Even it’s crowdfunding price was way more expansive… So this was why i decided to give it a try!

Only 4 month later, and this honestly is for Backer’s a really short and fast time, i received my device. Packaging and quality seems to be more than okay! Only a small hunch was the back cover where you place the raspberry. I don’t know if it was meant to be like that but still it closes completely and does what it’s meant to do.

Because i ordered a new Raspbery Pi B+ for my new toy, and because i ordered it to late, i first tried out to connect it to a Windows10 Computer. So as described in some pages on the net, i connected a HDMI from the PC to the Raspad and as well i connected it via Micro-USB to the PC as well, like any regular USB Device. And right out of the box without any more drivers needed Windows accepted the Touchscreen. So very positive for the first impression.

After receiving my Raspi, I continued my tests and out of the box with a new SD-Card with Rasbian on it, it simply worked! No need for touchscreen drivers, no calibration, everything worked fine! You might want to add a keyboard and mouse, because not everything is simply possible without these. But still… You find small and fancy things like that for reasonable prices.

I continued with a few security distributions and I have to say that they all worked fine for the touchscreen! No issues at all. But I realized that you might need to tweak the system for sound reasons. After reading around on the net, I saw a few posts about temperature issues. Some people even modified their houses and added fans to get rid of the heat. For the moment I can not yet confirm that, but I will definitely keep that in mind for the longer tests.

Another thing I will have to test out and keep an eye on, is the battery. I´m not sure yet if it simply is the way the battery indicator works, but I´m pretty sure this is the case. I will use my device for a long term test but here again you can read in some posts that the run time might be shorter than thought. What I can say is that by adding an additional USB WLAN Adapter the indicators dropped immediately to the last indicator, which might confirm my initial idea, that the battery indicator orientates himself on the voltage of the device. Turning of the Raspi immediately brings up one more indicator light of the device.

The only objective critics I have, are those for the internet and social media. The makers did put a web page on the packaging, which is non existing! That´s poor! A very simple page, with the digital descriptions and links to their project pages as well as some technical details or maybe the story of their Kickstarter campaign, some pictures. If you raise over 600k $ from more than 3.000 Backers, you should be able to do this… And to become member of their Facebook page, which is restricted to backers only apparently, you need to enter your details of your order to get accepted. Not very open minded there as well… I know that they might have other priorities but nowadays, this is a few hours of work and for your PR in my opinion a must have.

For the rest I can not complain about the product. Seems to bee good quality, properly worked out with a lot of thoughts for some details and the speed of the campaign was remarkable!

As always I’ve added a few pictures of the device, because they always tell more than a Story.

Second step – Make my W-LAN big

So after my start with one hotspot I ordered last month one UAP-AC-LR and this month another UAP-AC-LITE from Ubiquity. So my network now counts 3 hotspots, on 3 different floors and it covers most of my home. Maybe next summer I will reorganize everything but I am confident that the system should be able to handle my wishes ;-)

So where to start? First I needed a controller for the hotspots. My Virtual Computer could program everything but I wanted statistics to see the problems and the usage of my home. To be honest I didnt want to buy the controller. It is nice, it does its job, but I think that doing it yourself is always the best way to go. So I took a Raspberry Pi Model 3, packed everything together with a PiDrive from Western Digital I had lying around and with a little help from over here, I created the controller myself. It now runs for already some time, without any issues and the power consumption is okay. So the controller issue was solved easy and fast.

Buying more hotspots was the second step and it only was a question of time. I will have to see where I will place the different devices, but that’s for the summer and I need to get a network cable into the garden to maybe place one over there. Time will tell.

Next step in my project will be the Security Gateway (the USG) which I want to include. This should give me more detailed statistics and it should increase my security level for the connection. We’ll see that next time =)

pi-top CEED

After a few month of waiting for my second Crowdfunding Project, i finally recieved my pi-top CEED. I aditionally backed the Speaker so this was an Option in the funding. So wanted to Review a litte bit this Project which i followed from the beginning on.

First i have to say that the Initiators always kept a very good contact to the funders! They posted on a regular Basis News of the Project and so as a backer you were always kept informed. This was especially interesting due to the fact that at some Point they ran into Problems and had difficulties to stay in the schedule. In my opinion very positive and so as a backer i always felt myself very comfortable even with some weeks falling back! I never got the idea that my Money could get lost.

Another nice touch was that they posted on a few occasions Pictures of what we could expect as a result.

As the package arrived at my home i have to admit, that it was very well protected. The packaging itself was as already seen on the Pictures nice and trendy.

Using the device itself… Inserted the SD-Card which was provided and connected the Raspberry-Pi (i did buy it separately) and booted the device up. No Problems with defective Pixels for my device and the Speaker worked after the Installation as it should! Okay… It is not only the physical Installation but you also Need to install the Drivers. Inside the package you could find the How-to or you can read it from the page under this link.

Finally i have to say that the Linux-OS package provided from them is not my favourite… It is quiet Special and has apart from the standard Desktop a Icon based second Desktop. Apparently invented for Kids or Linux-Newbies this should do it work, but for People who are used to Linux not the Thing you want… I will try to get more into that distro and see if it is what i Need. Otherwise i will stick to as usual Distro for the Raspberry.

Anyway… The device itself is of very good Quality in my opinion! I got a green one and the Color is flashy =D I´m lovin it! The idea to hold the Raspi with Magnets is another glorious idea! The only negative aspect is that inserting any USB device may result in misplacing the Raspberry… By being careful it should work.

Roundabout it is a nice Piece which i got for a reasonable price by being a backer.

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