Today I’ve been experimenting about with a C.H.I.P. board, supposidly it beat the Raspberry Pi Zero to being the worlds first < $10 computer.
Video player
I wanted to get the car DVD player screens that have been in the snug to work with an external input, maybe to display a video in our window for passers by?
@tobyspark do you have a video to use?
Anyway, managed to get a cable to allow composite input into the screen to work, tested on the Raspberry Pi access control server.
Next I realised that the C.H.I.P. board at home has composite out, so I popped back home to get it. Hooked it up and managed to get it outputting video easily using Mplayer:
mplayer -fs -display :0 /path/to/file.mp4
This coupled with a loop command would work well for the window.
AirPlayer
Then Pete suggested making it work with AirPlay and I found this simple set of instructions:
Just needed a couple extra steps:
-
apt-get updateto get the latest repo for apt -
apt-get install build-essentialto get the make CLI tool
After that the rest of it worked just fine and then there was noise!
Browser
Although it has Iceweasle, it’s really quite slow for loading complex sites, however it could display a status panel.
Summary of C.H.I.P.
On the plus side C.H.I.P. is low cost, but new and that shows it’s not as well supported as the Raspberry Pi, but it is just Debian at the end of the day and it has a growing community behind it.
With built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth it’s easy to connect to other things once it is setup, also the USB power interface also acts as a CDC Composite Device which includes a virtual USB ethernet adapter, meaning you can SSH in with a simple plug of a cable and ssh chip@chip.local
Also, unlike the RPi Zero it doesn’t need an SD card as it has built in flash memory which is loaded via a USB cable and a simple Chrome App, making it easier to reset and change firmwares, however this is somewhat marred by the regrettable lack of a button to get it into bootloader mode, so it must be done with a jumper paperclip (or wire) shorting a pin to ground, it’s done easily enough but a button would make more sense.
For the cost it seems like it still gives Raspberry Pi a run for it’s money, the near impossible to purchase Raspberry Pi Zero with annoying micro HDMI, USB OTG connector and SD card requirement just doesn’t live up to the hype, not to mention the lack of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The Zero is great for the accessory market as you can sell accessories with a no-profit Pi, but as a user these needlessly rare connectors make it hard to use and expensive to buy into.
What it comes down to is that for $4 more the C.H.I.P. is a better product than the Zero, and that the Raspberry Pi Foundation is committed to it is existing product line so there is a cost to maintaining a different tool chain, and they want to avoid supporting new chip manufacturers, I would imagine Broadcom don’t make a chip this low cost, and besides the Zero is just a RPi Model A so very little modification is needed.
What’s really missing from C.H.I.P. is the deal breaker in some ways is video output. It’s pretty much limited to composite out, although it has VGA and HDMI extender boards they are expensive. Both are more than the entire C.H.I.P. board, in fact you can almost buy two C.H.I.P.s for the price of the HDMI extender!
In reality this makes C.H.I.P. great for physical computing projects where it’s numerous GPIO pins make it a great competitor to Arduino, and it’s built in wireless, CPU power and audio have great potential for certain IoT projects. Video output is the let down, if they can fix this in future products it has real potential, that or if someone can make a cheap USB video adapter work.
Either way, the fact you can buy a C.H.I.P. makes it far and away better than the Zero, only issue is I can’t find a UK supplier so it’s going to ship from the USA.