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by gruturo 2 days ago
To drive a touchscreen and serve as a Home Assistant interface you need neither a Pi nor an N100-class mini PC. That's the job of an ESP32. 20 bucks... for a pack of 5.

(plus the screen. And ethernet / PoE variants are rare, and not as cheap, so if that's a hard requirement, maybe not for your specific use case)
2 comments
AnthonBerg 1 day ago
Or! a "handheld gaming" device that runs mainline Linux.

Setting aside what they're for, Linux handheld gaming devices are kind of a perfect fit for a minor "house computer". Made cheap by commodification. Flexible. Sadly no GPIO in these I think but tack on an RP2350 and we're golden.

Strip or modify the chassis and embed them hidden or with the screen facing out. Kachinng.

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wao0uuno 1 day ago
True but that Raspberry Pi can be both the server and the interface if desired. It's also the easiest way to do all of this with RPis great software support and official plug and play accessories like RPi Touch Display 2. RPi is also going to be way more responsive rendering a complex Home Assistant dashboard.
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