I have been chewing over whether or not to buy a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ single-board computer. They are generally priced at $35, as that is what the non-profit that designed them charges as a recommended price. As the firmware is partially closed source, there really aren’t exact Chinese copies, unlike many of the popular development boards like the 8-bit Arduino Nano or the many flavors of ESP 32 boards.

If I got a Raspberry Pi board, I would get a protective case, and I would most likely use it more like a computer then a microprocessor. While I have an SD card, I would need a case and a power supply. So I am probably looking at $50, which is more money then I really want to spend on a non-essential “toy” especially with my budget as tight as it is. I have a extra microSD cards, and a wireless USB keyboard with built-in track-pad that I could the Raspberry Pi with, along with my nice HDMI computer monitor, which only rarely really gets turned on. Most of my existing 5 volt supplies don’t really go beyond an 1.0 amp, with the except of the 4-plug unit I keep by my bed for charging my phone, radio, and headphones.

The Raspberry Pi is a bit different the Arduino and ESP 32 boards that use micro-controllers that I’ve worked with in the past. They are for one thing a fair bit more expensive. They aren’t microcontrollers, so they aren’t great at doing a single task repeatedly — but can do many tasks at once, but are not as well timed. The Raspberry Pi is essentially a mini low-powered computer, indeed the default software with it will boot a light version of Linux including a graphical interface and web browser.

The Pi uses upwards of 10 watts of power or 2,500 mA 5 VDC, which is quite a bit of power, although like my laptop, I would unplug it  when not in use. My laptop obviously uses more — 43 watts when charging — although it’s certainly a lot more efficient then computers even a generation ago.

For home projects, I would much rather use the much lower power $2 8-bit Arduino Nano (20 mA) or the slightly higher power (50 mA) but much more powerful $6 ESP 32, compared to the $35 Raspberry Pi that pulls upwards of 2,500 mA. Microcontrollers, with their simple, more straightforward design, are much better for my hobbyist electronic projects, because usually the tasks I want to do at home are things like controlling a display module or making lights switch on and off automatically — not something that requires  a full operating system to implement.

It’s true that many microcontroller-type projects can be implemented on the Raspberry Pi using a bash or python script, but it’s overly complicated and takes a while to boot up, and burns through a lot of electricity if constantly powered up — especially as I’m trying to minimize my energy consumption both for environmental reasons and because I need to maximize deficiency I’m hoping to eventually live in an off-grid house, with limited solar and batteries

I guess my question is in reality how much use would I get out of the Raspberry Pi? It might be nice to have a second computer, something small that I could plug into my monitor for displaying photos, light-web browsing when I’m out in the field for work, maybe even playing video. It’s Linux-based, so I could script things that I need to. It’s obviously too underpowered though to do GIS work for map making.

So while I kind of want to buy a Raspberry Pi to play with it but with my limited budget and unclear plans for using it, I am thinking of holding off. I think over-time, computers on a board will only become more powerful and cheaper. Spending $35 or even $50 might not seem like a big deal when I drive a truck that sucks $60 or $70 of gas down a time, but it’s still tough to fit in my budget.