Using A Raspberry Pi For Distributed Object Storage With Minio

So I was researching object storage and I came across the open source distributed object storage software, Minio. This lightweight software was written with Golang and accomplishes similar things to that of Amazon S3. After all they are both object storage solutions. The difference here is that Minio can be deployed on your own hardware.

Being that Minio was written with Golang, it is cross platform for different computing architectures, ARM included. This means that the server software can be installed on Raspberry Pi micro computing devices. Object storage is great for data backups so it gave me the idea to turn my Raspberry Pi into an object storage backup solution.

Connect To A Raspberry Pi And Pi Zero With A USB To TTL Serial Cable

When it comes to configuring a Raspberry Pi for the first time, there are a few options, many of which can be a pain. This includes configuration of a Raspberry Pi and the smaller Pi Zero. Previously I had written about using a Raspberry Pi as a headless unit, but in that tutorial there was an ethernet requirement. Recently I had written about connecting to a Pi Zero through a standard micro USB cable and SSH, which wasn’t difficult, but it required a few potentially time consuming steps.

Is there a better way to connect to and configure these Internet of Things (IoT) devices?

I wouldn’t necessarily call it a better way, but more of another option towards Raspberry Pi configuration. You can actually connect to the Raspberry Pi and Pi Zero through the available GPIO pins with a USB to TTL serial cable. We’re going to see how to do that.

Control An Onion Omega2 IoT Device With Websocket Communication

I’ve been all about websockets lately. Up until recently RESTful APIs have been my whole world, but they don’t accomplish everything and what they do accomplish may not be the best fit. Not too long ago I got my Onion Omega2 Internet of Things (IoT) device with a bunch of accessories and I’ve been playing around with them non-stop. Previously I had written about displaying system information on the OLED expansion, but I wanted to take it to the next level and display data received through a websocket.

Realistically you probably wouldn’t use a websocket to display data on an IoT OLED screen, but it opens the door to new possibilities. More specifically in the realm of home automation and anything else that needs to be very responsive or real-time. For example, what if you wanted to turn on the lights in your house, but are working with a low bandwidth and low spec IoT device that can’t process large RESTful payloads very fast. The Onion Omega2 is an example of such device and while we’re not going to explore home automation in this example, we’re going to see how to do websocket communication.

Display System Information On The Onion Omega2 OLED Expansion

So I was a recent Kickstarter backer for the Onion Omega2 Internet of Things (IoT) device. My package finally came and I wanted to see what I can do with it. My package included the Omega2, expansion dock, and OLED display so I figured it would be cool to write an application that displayed to the screen.

A problem I always had with the Raspberry Pi, my other favorite IoT device, is that I never knew the IP address or system information because I was always using it as a headless unit. With that in mind, I decided to write an application that displayed this information to the Onion Omega2 OLED screen at boot.

We’re going to see how to write a basic script to show system information using Python and the OLED extension library.

Amazon Echo vs Google Home, My First Impressions

I don’t typically write product reviews, but since I’m a huge advocate for the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart home technologies, I think it makes sense to share some opinions. I own an Amazon Echo and a second generation Amazon Echo Dot. Today (November 4th), I received my Google Home that started shipping to everyone this week.

The following is my opinion between the two brands, where each succeeds and where each falls short.

Scan For Bluetooth Enabled iBeacons Via A Raspberry Pi IoT Device

Lately I’ve been working a lot with iBeacons and Raspberry Pi Internet of Things (IoT) devices. I’ve been building an office monitor for logging foot traffic around the office. I planted a few Raspberry Pi devices around the office and distributed some Gimbal iBeacons to a few of my coworkers so I could determine what part of the office experiences the most heat.

While Raspberry Pi 3 devices come with integrated bluetooth, Raspbian Linux is not configured to support BLE scanning. There are a few packages that must be installed to make BLE scanning possible.

We’re going to see what is necessary to scan for BLE iBeacons using a Raspberry Pi with Raspbian Linux installed.

Deploying Docker Containers On A Raspberry Pi Device

Recently I’ve been using a good amount of Docker for various deployment pipelines. As everyone knows, I’m a huge Raspberry Pi fan, so I figured it would be a cool idea to bring the two together. After all, Docker was built using Golang which is cross architecture.

We’re going to see how to create Docker containers on a Raspberry Pi and figure out the limitations of using Docker on IoT based architectures.