I had drafted a blog called ‘Android 11 on Raspberry Pi’, but it was just a title. That was back in 2021! What’s quite funny is that I am running Android 14 on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a 7″ touch screen as a console on my desk for monitoring Home Assistant. I set this up at the end of last year after receiving one of the new Raspberry Pi 5s, and it was this I intended to make the focus of this blog.

So, let’s start with the Pi 5.  This was launched back in September 2023, and there was a mad scramble to pre-order a device.  I’d managed to get an order through Pimoroni, which had just made their first batch cut-off, although I still didn’t receive one until November 15!  I’d ordered a Pimoroni case and the Raspberry Pi 5 fan, which is a super neat configuration, but shortly after launch, things were still a bit limited in terms of what you could do with it.  You could obviously run the latest version of Raspberry PI OS, and it was noticeably quicker than a Pi 4. However, you’d expect that given that those were first launched in 2019 and other than an 8GB version, not much really changed.  One of the biggest benefits of the 5 was the inclusion of a PCI connector, which allows things like NVMe SSD to be connected, and this probably improves the user experience more than the bump in processor performance.  I managed to pick up a Pimoroni NVMe base and have been using the Pi 5 with that and Raspberry Pi OS with the KDE Plasma desktop on and off for a few months.  While it does work fine as a small desktop PC, the likelihood is that you have other devices that are far more capable and offer a better desktop experience than you’d get from a Pi 5, even with a NVMe SSD.

I was super pleased to see RetroPie support for the Pi 5 and found an excellent retro gaming build online.  It took some time to get this working as I was initially trying to connect it to my 4K monitor, which it didn’t like, but once I’d solved that by using a small 1080p monitor, I managed to configure the build to use my 4k monitor at 1080p!  There’s marked improvement for retro gaming on the Pi 5, with support for even more consoles, including the PS2, which is very exciting.  I’ve not really had as much time to play as I might like, so I suspect this might be something I need to return to.  I’ve currently got this running from a microSD card, as the Pimoroni NVMe base has the SSD installed between the Pi and the base, so switching drives requires a tool kit.  I’ve seen a number of cases recently that make this much more straightforward, so I might investigate one of those.  I was considering buying another Pi 5 as they are widely available now, and Amazon even had one discounted to £70, but then I did a quick inventory and realised I already have far too many Pi devices I’m not even using:

I’ve probably spent as much time playing with an old Raspberry Pi 4 as I have the Pi 5! It is hooked up to a WIMAXIT Raspberry Pi 4 7″ TouchScreen Monitor, which I picked up on Amazon for £45!  I’ve ended up using it as a Home Assistant monitor, and the best OS I found to do that was Android 14!  You can find some excellent YouTube guides and instructions to do this using a Kostakang build, which isn’t overly complicated and works beautifully.  While I’m using it 95% of the time to run Home Assistant, it’s capable of so much more.

Having written all that, it’s just dawned on me that I probably have a similar number of other computer devices, most of which are more functional and probably powerful than any of my Raspberry Pis.  Perhaps that’s a topic for a future blog?  What it reminds me, though, is just how great my MacBook Pro still is, which is still my go-to device when I need to get anything done.  I probably spend more time using my work HP EliteBook 830 these days, and I’ve been playing with an HP x360 Chromebook I was sent to test. I really enjoy the 360/touch screen form factor, but neither would replace the MacBook if I had to choose just one.

I also love the Raspberry Pi Foundation and will support everything it releases, regardless of how useful it might actually be to me.  Playing with a Pi always takes me back to the 1980’s, when I first discovered the home computer and fell in love.  I blogged about some of that here, so take a stroll down memory lane with me before going and doing something more interesting instead!

I’ve often finished a blog staying I’ll come back with an update after some use and experience, but I’m conscious that I rarely do, so thought I’d try and do a random update blog which touched on a few previous blogs with some more detailed thoughts!

Logitech Keyboard and Mouse

I blogged about this here when I was actually planning on blogging about the next thing on this list, the Portable Monitor.

I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with Logitech, as I love some of their products, but generally hate the customer experience they provide. I use one of their Harmony Elite remotes every day to control my TV, and it’s brilliant. Logitech has abandoned the macOS support on it though, which is rubbish.

I also backed a Kickstarter campaign a few years ago for some wireless headphones, Revols. At one point it looked like these would never come to fruition, and I was lucky to have the option of jumping ship and getting a refund some 18 months into the project. The company eventually got bought by Logitech, and they delivered a product, but by all accounts, it was pretty rubbish, when Logitech should have had the resources to make it a success.

So what about the Keyboard and Mouse I bought this year? Well, to begin with, I really liked it and felt it was a great upgrade from my Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse. After about 3 months though, I was having some problems using it across multiple devices. Reaching out to Logitech proved to be a complete waste of time, but I eventually resolved the issues by resetting the device and using the USB receiver with my iMac, which is what it connects to 90% of the time.

Overall they are both Logitech products I like and would recommend if it wasn’t for the atrocious support that you have to expect from Logitech. Just imagine how good they could be if they could just offer a decent level of support?

Portable Monitor

This has probably been one of the best purchases of 2020, and at the time I bought it I really wasn’t sure exactly what I’d use it for. It’s become a permanent fixture on my office desk, propped up with a pretty cheap and cheerful Amazonbasics tablet stand, connected via a small HDMI switch (another great purchase from Amazon).

By day it’s switched to my work HP Elitebook as a 2nd monitor, and by night to my Raspberry Pi 400 as a desktop computer, and potential replacement for my 2011 iMac which will die at some point and need to be replaced.

The only issue I had with this, was the settings being lost when it was connected only by USB-C as it won’t remember the brightness settings and defaults to 30% which isn’t really bright enough. I suspect this is a power-saving thing, as when it’s just connected by USB-C, it’s drawing power from the device it’s connected to, but it was a problem when I was using as a second monitor with my MacBook Air.

It’s not a problem how it’s currently configured, as it’s powered by USB-C and then connected to the two devices via HDMI and keeps the settings when powered off, even disconnecting the USB-C cable. I’d happily buy another as the picture quality is excellent and other than the settings issue it’s worked perfectly, It’s not really been used much as a ‘portable’ monitor, but at some point, it will and I fully expect it to continue doing a fantastic job.

Raspberry Pi 400

Given how strange this year has been with COVID-19, it doesn’t seem to have impacted on the quality of tech? The Raspberry Pi 400 is another device I’ve fallen in love with, that I really didn’t need, but I now use daily.

Is it perfect? No! They redesigned the board to fit the keyboard, but in doing so removed one of the USB ports so it only has one USB 2.0 and 2x USB 3.0 ports. The USB-C port is just for power, so you need an adapter to use any USB-C devices. They also removed the 3.5mm audio jack, which sounds fairly insignificant, but it’s surprising how much I’ve missed it.

But the form factor brings back such happy memories of computing from years gone by which I blogged about here. It runs faster and cooler than a standard Pi 4 and generally maintains the compatibility, although I’ve not had any success running Windows for Arm on the Pi 400 when it works perfectly fine on a Pi 4. I’ll blog a little more about that in 2021 I’m sure.

So there’s a random update on a few blogs from either in the year. The picture below shows them all in action and includes the Raspberry Pi HQ Webcam from this blog. I’ll be covering FreeNAS in much more detail in another New Year blog. Where last year most of the big changes were hardware related with the FreeNAS0 build, this time it’s much more of a software update, so watch out for that next week…