The Raspberry Pi is a diverse little piece of hardware. There are a lot of features that most Pi owners do not know about. And some of these can be really useful when it comes to Digital Signage.
So, what are these Raspberry Pi features?
Hardware Watchdog
The Pi’s SoC has a hardware watchdog. That means you can set the chip to cold-reboot in case your application or the whole system freezes up. If you have remote Digital Signage players miles away, that can really be a lifesaver.
HDMI Hot-plug Detection
The HDMI port has a pin that indicates that the port is connected to a screen. You can read that pin and determine if something is actually connected to the HDMI port of the Raspberry Pi or not.
HDMI CEC Support
The Pi includes a CEC adapter, allowing you to communicate with TV sets and turn them on/off, query TV status (on or standby), and more.
4K Resolution Support
The Raspberry Pi officially supports up to an output resolution of 1920×1200. By using some advanced parameter, you can set up the HDMI output to work on a 3840×2160 resolution (dubbed 4K or Ultra-HD) at 24Hz or 25Hz.
Ultra Low Power Consumption
The Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 use less than 3W of power when idle and connected to the Ethernet and wired network. Even under load, consumption will never go over 5-6W. That’s nothing when compared to an average 50-70W consumption of a standard PC.
Video Playback at Native Frame rate
The Raspberry Pi can playback video at its original frame rate, by changing the refresh rate of the screen. For example, playing a 25 FPS video will change the output sync rate to 25Hz to make sure video playback is perfect.
GPIO
You can hook almost anything on the GPIO pins of the Pi, including PIR motion sensors, relays, touchscreen digital signage displays and more.
Support for DSI and DPI
You can hook up DSI (Serial Display Interface) and DPI (Parallel Display Interface) displays on the Raspberry Pi. It allows you to use low cost TFT displays without HDMI port or complex electronics.
GPU
While the 4-core CPU delivers medium performance, the Graphics Processor of the Raspberry Pi is really good. It allows you to even run 3D games like Quake.
What about Yodeck?
For Yodeck, we plan to take advantage of all the above features. Some are already here, while others are on the way. In any case, Raspberry Pi is a great platform, both for your DIY project and for professional applications, like Yodeck.