Can a N100-class minipc” be installed inside of a wall with a touchscreen and serve as a PoE powered Home Assistant interface? Can it be used to build a portable battery powered smartphone like PC (Compute Module 5)?
Raspberry Pi’s biggest strength is its form factor and low power draw.
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)
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.
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.
I might also point out that with Pi/mini PC pricing being the way it is, a used iPad mini mounted to the wall is also in the same price range. As a bonus you could remove it from the wall and walk around with it, and you’ve got way less DIY work to deal with.
Well, nobody's arguing about RPi prices here. I'm just advocating for using the right tool for the job. Lots of people claim that Raspberry Pis have been rendered obsolete by cheap N100 mini PCs but they simply lack the understanding of what RPi actually is and what are its optimal use cases. Hosting a home server on a 16GB Raspberry Pi is mental illness territory and that's where an x86 mini PC is going to make way more sense. Same with retro gaming (unless you really need Composite out). RPis shine when you need compact size, low power and heat with great selection of hardware accessories like cameras and other sensors but also want to run full Linux or need that extra performance that a micro controller just doesn't have.
Edit: Putting a device with permanently attached battery inside of a wall or even on a mount, always plugged in gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Basically, my point is that for the use case of “touch screen on a wall,” you can grab something modest like a 4GB Raspbery Pi 5 for over $110 with no screen, power supply, enclosure, etc.
Or you look at a mini PC and you really can’t buy one at all for much less than $200 these days. Again, no screen.
But Apple will sell you a refurbished iPad mini for $379 and you’ve got nothing to setup.
I share your concern about running it with the battery all the time, but I think it’s pretty common. I probably wouldn’t put it in my wall but I know of a place of business I frequent often that has one plugged in 24/7 and nothing has happened.
Apple power manages devices that are plugged in all the time, they’ll likely just park the battery at 80%. They are also about as good as you can get as far as hardware quality: Apple sells a bazillion devices and has definitely thought of fire risk.
The other benefit of the iPad is that the accessory ecosystem is vast.
Raspberry Pi’s biggest strength is its form factor and low power draw.