Reference of hardware staples for projects.
Microcontroller
| Hardware |
Use case |
| ATtiny84 |
Bare chip, no USB, ISP-programmed; minimal embedded where Nano is overkill |
| Digispark (ATtiny85) |
Ultra-cheap USB HID via V-USB; simple triggers and automation |
| Arduino Uno / Nano |
Entry-level GPIO, sensor polling, serial comms |
| Arduino Pro Micro |
Native USB HID (ATmega32U4); custom keyboards (QMK), USB gadgets |
| Arduino Mega |
Many-pin projects: large LED matrices, motor shields, Marlin 3D printers |
| ESP8266 (NodeMCU) |
Wi-Fi-connected sensors and relays at minimal cost |
| ESP32 |
Dual-core Wi-Fi + BT; preferred for MQTT / ESPHome devices |
| RP2040 (Pi Pico) |
Real-time / USB HID; MicroPython or C SDK |
| STM32 (Blue Pill / Nucleo) |
Bare-metal or RTOS work; Voron 3D printers |
SBC
| Hardware |
Use case |
| Pi Zero 2 W |
Tiny always-on services |
| Pi 4 |
General self-hosting, Home Assistant, 3D printing |
| Pi 5 |
Heavier services with NVMe (NAS, Streaming) |
| Radxa Rock 5B |
Heavier ARM server (more cores/RAM than Pi 5) |
Mini PC
| Hardware |
Use case |
| Odroid H4 |
Multi-SATA NAS or router build |
| N100 / N150 mini PC |
Entry x86 - Proxmox / OPNsense / NAS / Streaming |
| Beelink SER / Minisforum UM (Ryzen) |
Multi-VM Proxmox host with Ryzen headroom; iGPU runs llama.cpp |
| Minisforum MS-01 |
10GbE Proxmox cluster node |
AI Inferencing
| Hardware |
Use case |
| Coral USB / M.2 (+ Pi or mini PC) |
Cheapest low-power Frigate vision (TFLite only) |
| Hailo-8 M.2 (+ Pi or mini PC) |
Multi-stream Frigate vision (more cameras, higher-res) |
| Hailo-10H M.2 (+ Pi or mini PC) |
Low-power LLM accelerator (~7B) |
| Jetson Orin Nano / NX |
Standalone CUDA box for vision and small LLMs |
Storage
| Hardware |
Use case |
| microSD |
Pi boot media; light buffer storage (limited write endurance) |
| USB flash drive |
Cheap portable storage; dash footage buffer when write volume is low |
| USB SSD |
Durable USB-attached storage; continuous dash recording, Pi-attached NAS |
| SATA SSD |
Internal SSD for mini PCs; OS, app storage, Frigate clips |
| SATA HDD |
Bulk capacity; NAS media libraries, long-term security footage archival |
| NVMe SSD |
Fast internal for Pi 5 / mini PCs; NAS, heavy read/write workloads |
Cameras
| Hardware |
Use case |
| ESP32-CAM |
Cheapest Wi-Fi camera; low-res tinkering, motion triggers |
| USB camera |
Standalone with SD card or attached to host |
| CSI Camera (Pi Camera) |
CSI-attached to Pi; good quality single-stream for close-range or Frigate |
| PoE IP camera (Reolink / Amcrest) |
Standalone wired camera for Frigate NVR; no separate compute per camera |
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