New Raspberry Pi 2 released

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#1242449 19-Feb-2015 16:06

richms: This is the other board I got - not sure if its real POE or a hack job - http://www.aliexpress.com/item/IBOARD-W5100-Ethernet-Module-Development-Board-with-POE-Xbee-and-SD-Card-Slot-Expansion-Free-Shipping/2017150060.html - has enough headers for enough useful things.

the price of that is right. is that a full arduino board or do you need something else, or is that a arduino clone and works similar?

I've never used arduino's before, so complete n00b at them. want something very basic that I can connect to network and can very easily (cause of my n00b status) connect a few sensors to. size only matters if its a wifi type board, if its got ethernet I'll probably put it in the roof and drill a small hole in the ceiling for some cables for the sensor.

also want to learn this stuff so when my sons a few years older I can teach him this sort of stuff (hes only 5 now).

reven

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#1242454 19-Feb-2015 16:10

also, 5minutes after I completely my purchase on nicegear.co.nz, I received an email saying my order was packed and waiting for delivery driver to pick it up. should get it tomorrow morning by 9am. never used nicegear before, but man, thats some good service. definitely dont mind pay another $10 for such good service.

SumnerBoy

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#1242455 19-Feb-2015 16:11

Totally agree re. NiceGear. I have used them a bit and the service is always great. Hadley is very helpful if you have any questions as well. Top notch local company.

Handle9

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#1245241 23-Feb-2015 22:14

How is everyone finding the Pi? I'm very interested in Kodi / Plex. I'm kind of over various issues on my rooted firetvs but curious if the performance of the new Pi is good enough.

I had an old 256mb Pi for Xbmc as it was them and it just sucked, especially menu performance.

sbaird

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#1245263 23-Feb-2015 22:46

Handle9: How is everyone finding the Pi? I'm very interested in Kodi / Plex. I'm kind of over various issues on my rooted firetvs but curious if the performance of the new Pi is good enough.

I had an old 256mb Pi for Xbmc as it was them and it just sucked, especially menu performance.

Menu performance is much much better, as is adding items to the library and streaming you tube(Doesn't take ages to open the video like the old one)

richms

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#1245291 23-Feb-2015 23:48

Its actually usable in the graphical environment, unlike the old pi.

Still not what I would call fast but things arent taking 4-5 seconds to open like on the old pi.

Richard rich.ms

reven

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#1245319 24-Feb-2015 06:46

im actually finding the pi2 very fast, well for kodi the desktop is a little sluggish and reminds me of computers back in the 90s. but I'm running osmc on it and its very fast with that. menu performance is great, icefilms, 1channel etc all work great. I'm likely going to buy a couple more of them. just wish it could do netflix somehow... (playon.tv is ok, but not ideal)

Sharesies kids

Free kids accounts - trade shares and funds (NZ, US) with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Handle9

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#1245461 24-Feb-2015 11:59

Cheers guys. I'm not sure if any of you have the fire tv, if you do, how would you compare menu performance, particularly for Kodi.

fizzychicken

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#1245522 24-Feb-2015 13:39

I actually find kodi (on the latest version when it was still xbmc) fine on all my pi b+, but I may get some pi2's to see what I can do with them.
Kodi works like a treat even on 1080 streaming etc, got youtube and twitch all set up and working great. I found the key things to performance are:

run openelec off a good usb key not the SD card
all content is streamed (via ftp) from WDMycloud device over the network, nothing is local
using a clean skin (amber)
use an additional pi as the centralised library server for all content (using raspian)
control is done mainly via yatze on android devices or the offical app on IOS, that way all menus are nice and fast on your local device, menus/navigation can still be used happily on screen but is unecessary.

my pi server also does some other stuff that I like to play with such as running a webserver, Jasper for voice control, amongst other things, so I would like to upgrade that to give it a little boost.

https://keybase.io/fizzychicken

SumnerBoy

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#1245526 24-Feb-2015 13:43

OT - but how do you find Jasper - I gave it a go a while ago but found it pretty hopeless - but that may have been due to my cheap microphone. Great concept, I just struggled to get anything reliable working.

fizzychicken

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#1245545 24-Feb-2015 13:51

its ok, I havent doen too much with it but it worked fine with my mic, I set it up to trigger a wakeonlan script to turn my pc on by voice "hello computer" (without the scotty accent) as the pi server is always on the same desk, and "annoy the cats" triggers playback of a soundbite of cats screaming which in turn makes my cats flip out looking for cats that arent there. It seems to use up an unecessarily large amount of data though but it seemed to have potential.

https://keybase.io/fizzychicken

reven

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#1245548 24-Feb-2015 13:54

now i need another pi2 for jasper....

timmmay

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#1245562 24-Feb-2015 14:14

If anyone in Wellington (specifically who works near central Wellington or lives near Johnsonville) makes an order for a Pi2 and case please PM me if you're happy for me to piggyback on your order - I may or may not get one. Can't be bothered doing my own order though, lazy ;)

PANiCnz

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#1245712 24-Feb-2015 16:50

fizzychicken:

run openelec off a good usb key not the SD card.

All research I've done recently indicates this no longer of any real benefit, investing in a SD card with decent 4k read and write speeds is all that is needed. Some people still suggest using USB to avoid SD card corruption but I suspect that is fixing the symptom not the root cause.

fizzychicken

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#1246031 25-Feb-2015 07:10

the benefit is in part to reduce the risk of corruption, but as a whole I find it did considerably improve menu navigation and FTP write speeds if accessing the device that way. It has the added benefit of portability, I can easily 'hot-swap' USB key images in an out, or use the key to edit/move things without having to faff about with the case to get the card out. I also like how the USB key becomes like a HDD activity light so the little blue light is a nice indicator of action (the inbuilt lights just don't do it for me). Of course this is all just 'nice to have' and not necessary.

https://keybase.io/fizzychicken

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