Low cost Raspberry Pi’s micro PCs have been part of the digital signage ecosystem for probably a decade now, but one of the knocks against the devices has been the need to put together the various hardware components – including a case – to come up with a serviceable, sufficiently rugged unit to put in the field.
So I was intrigued to come across a German company called Kunbus that has a series of industrial-grade Raspberry Pis that would maybe warm the cold hearts of IT people who specify systems, and otherwise might regard Raspberry Pis as gadgets for the maker crowd and middle-school electronics classes.
Revolution Pi, the company says online, is an open, modular and inexpensive industrial PC based on the well-known Raspberry Pi. Housed in a slim DIN-rail housing, the three available base modules can be seamlessly expanded by a variety of suitable I/O modules and fieldbus gateways. The 24V powered modules are connected via an overhead connector in seconds and can be easily configured via a graphical configuration tool.
Even that statement is somewhat over my head, but I get the base proposition that these are products built with IT and IoT needs in mind.
Most of the use-cases referenced by the firm – which says it has shipped more than 1M units – are for industrial applications, like water treatment plant control systems. But there is a direct reference to smart retailing, and using these devices for computer vision/shopper analytics.
It’s very helpful to know what you are doing, but people who know computing say the latest generations of Raspberry Pis are very capable media players for digital signage applications.