Affordable, unobtrusive monitor for Raspberry Pi?
August 26, 2015 12:49 PM   Subscribe

I have a couple of Raspberri Pis that I'd like to play around with, but I have a small workspace and no room or desire for a dedicated, desktop-style monitor. What are some reasonably priced, low profile options to look at?
posted by ryanshepard to Computers & Internet (11 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
You can always go headless.
posted by Poldo at 12:57 PM on August 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


There are LCD kits available, like this one.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:00 PM on August 26, 2015


Adafruit has a ton of small LCDs that might be suitable.
posted by Alterscape at 1:31 PM on August 26, 2015


Doesn't the rpi have composite out? unless you need to read tiny text, i'd just go to goodwill and buy the cheapest portable DVD player with AV in, and a rca>3.5mm cable to plug into the pi. Should cost less than $10 and it'll be plenty small.
posted by emptythought at 1:32 PM on August 26, 2015


Depends on what you mean by “affordable” … I got a deal on a Gechic portable USB-powered monitor that's about the size and thickness of an iPad. It's VGA/DVI-pretending-to-be-HDMI, so no sound through the monitor. It's still 2-3× the price of the cheapest HDMI flatscreen, though.

If you go for the composite option, if there's an electronic surplus store near you, there was a certain camcorder to TV cable that does 3½ mm TRRS to composite that works well with the Raspberry Pi 2 or B+.
posted by scruss at 2:39 PM on August 26, 2015


I think your cheapest option (besides the thrift-store approach) would be a 3.5" monitor designed to be used with a rear-view/backup camera in your car. Amazon seems to carry a few for under $20, which isn't bad considering that they seem to have 640x480ish 4:3 panels (I would have assumed 320x240 at that size), and some of the reviews specifically mention using them with the RPi... although, depending on your model (A/B/+/2) you might need a TRRS to RCA cable (newer RPis can output composite video on the headphone/av jack in addition to the HDMI port, right?)

Your next step up size- and cost-wise would seem to be either the types of kits JoeZydeco and Alterscape mention above (if you're keen to tinker with custom enclosures, or like your electronics exposed), or a 5" or 7" field monitor or backup camera, which can be found starting at around $50-100, with 800x480, 1024x600, or 1280x800 16:9 panels with an HDMI input.

I currently hook up my RPis to either a disused 17" monitor, or an 800x480 pico projector when I want to futz around with them, but those 3.5" displays look kind of tempting, even though trying to read terminal output on them would be a nightmare... I'm pretty sure I've spent more on RPi cases, and I have a weak spot for junky, near-disposable electronics.
posted by drumcorpse at 3:34 PM on August 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I bought a 7-inch portable tv and used the s-video out. I also have a teeny LCD-touch from adafruit that I haven't gotten around to installing yet.
posted by Iteki at 2:14 AM on August 27, 2015


I've never considered hooking a monitor up to a Raspberry Pi; always just accessed it headless. Can you say more about what you want to see on the screen?
posted by Nelson at 6:45 AM on August 27, 2015


Motorola Atrix/Bionic Lapdock. Less expensive than most (all?) stand-alone monitors. The only catch is you'll need a micro-hdmi adapter, but those are very affordable at Monoprice.
posted by malaprohibita at 8:02 AM on August 27, 2015


(Disclosure: I do freelance work for Adafruit (often on Raspberry Pi things), and before that I worked for SparkFun.)

Other than a small HDMI monitor, you could go with a little TFT device - Adafruit has a number of these for sale, and there are knockoffs and similar products all over the place. Generally though, I think these are better for dedicated projects where you want a small touchscreen interface than they are for general purpose messing around use. They require a certain amount of configuration, and they're just too tiny and low res for very comfortable use of the console or X. (For me, anyway.) This one or something like it might be an exception, but I haven't personally used it.

You don't mention what kind of playing around you want to do - personally I've gotten the most actual mileage out of the Pi by running it headless and logging in over SSH, but if you're coming from a Windows machine and want to run graphical stuff, that might be a bit more awkward.
posted by brennen at 9:52 AM on August 27, 2015


The Raspberry Pi Foundation just released The Eagerly Awaited Raspberry Pi Display. It's a 7" capacitive touchscreen, and is US$80.
posted by scruss at 11:49 AM on September 10, 2015


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