Ask Lemmy

I’ve bought a number of raspberry pico chips abs a pack of generic esp32s over the last few years and every time I think I have enough as backups I suddenly find more uses for them! I have an old floor radio converted to act as a light/dimmer control, makeshift hvac control, and flip a night light (also made from a pico w) in the bedroom, another one in the living room in a little coffee table box using home assistants api over WiFi. I also have 3, soon to be four (adding some really fun electromagnet parts) to convert an old electric organ to a full virtual pipe organ. This project was what got me started, the “off the shelf” conversion kits looked like they were running off an esp32 ish and mcp23017’s and cost $1,500-2,000 for just the pcbs, no wiring and no speakers etc. doing it with the picos and a crap loads of doorbell wire $160+$600 for high quality speakers, and $260 for a touch screen and vesa arm. So complete project cost me $600 less than just the pcbs. The fourth one I was waiting for cheap used parts to appear on eBay, they are insanely expensive new ($30-50 each) and I need 56 of them. It’ll be a similar price saving at the end of the day!

Long ramble to say these chips are cheap and don’t take long to help make life more convenient, and sometimes way cheaper if the project was niche.