ChApTEr 2 ■ hArdwArE for IoT SoluTIonS
I’ve found the BeagleBone Black to be a capable board that can be used almost anywhere you
need a more powerful processor or need to do additional processing that exceeds the capabilities of a
microcontroller-based solution. I’ve used the BeagleBone Black in a number of experiments with hardware
and find it a viable alternative to the more popular Raspberry Pi. However, in some ways the Linux feel and
fit of the BeagleBone Black appeals to me more, but that is a personal choice. That said, I still have way more
Raspberry Pi boards than bones.
You can learn more about the BeagleBone Black hardware including compatible hardware accessories,
creating a bootable Linux image, and more at http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack.
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is the latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi. It has all the features of the original
Raspberry Pi but with a faster processor and more USB ports. The Raspberry Pi is a popular board with
developers mainly because of its low cost and ease of use. Given the popularity of the Raspberry Pi, I cover it
greater detail in Chapter 6 , including a short tutorial on how to get started using it. Thus, I will briefly cover
the highlights here and reserve a more detailed discussion on using the board for Chapter 6.
The Raspberry Pi 2B hardware includes a 900MHz A7 ARM CPU, 1GB RAM, video graphics with HDMI
output, 4 USB ports (up from just 2 on older boards), Ethernet, a camera interface (CSI), a display interface
(DSI), a MicroSD card, and 40 GPIO pins. Figure 2-28 shows the Raspberry Pi 2B board.
The camera interface is really interesting. You can buy a camera module like the ones at Adafruit
(http://adafruit.com/categories/177) and connect it to the board for use as a remote video-monitoring
component. I’ve used this feature extensively by turning a couple of my Raspberry Pi boards into 3D-printing
hubs where I can send print jobs over the network to print and check the progress of the prints remotely.
The software that makes this possible is called OctoPrint (http://octoprint.org/), and I cover it in great
detail in my book Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your 3D Printer (Apress, 2014). See http://apress.com/
9781430268093?gtmf=s for more details.
Figure 2-28. Raspberry Pi Model 2B