It’s hard to believe that the original Raspberry Pi 1 Model B was released 13 years ago in 2012! With a 700 MHz ARM processor, 512 MB of RAM, 2x USB 2.0 ports and 10/100 Ethernet, its hardware is nothing impressive by today’s standards. However, if you’ve got one (or many!) of these kicking around, there are still some viable applications to put it to good use.
The projects in this article are ones that the original Model B actually has adequate power to run without sacrificing usability or performance, not just “will run, but not well” projects.
Similarly, a lot of these should work with the Model A. However, keep in mind that the Model A only has 256 MB of RAM, which limits it further.
1. Raspberry Pi Print Server
Make an old USB printer WiFi and AirPrint compatible using an old Raspberry Pi with Raspbian. By connecting the printer to a USB port on the Pi and installing CUPS, you can share your USB printer with your network to make it wireless.
Additionally, CUPS also now supports broadcasting as AirPrint devices. Once the printer is setup in CUPS, you should be able to print to it from your Apple devices as well.
2. Pi-Based Digital Picture Frame
A digital picture frame is probably one of the lowest resource projects you can do. Therefore, this makes it perfect for the original Raspberry Pi. You’ll simply need an old screen with an HDMI input. You can even use a screen with a composite input, since the original Pi has a composite output!
Choose an OS, put your photos on your SD card or a USB key and install some image slideshow software. Some people even get creative with decorative framing around the screen.
3. Raspberry Pi Web Server
You can run a lightweight web server such as nginx or lighttpd on your older Raspberry Pi to serve static web pages and basic websites. You can also try Apache, but keep in mind that Apache is not as lightweight as nginx or lighttpd, so your performance probably won’t be as good.
The original Pi Model B definitely isn’t powerful enough to serve a website to hundreds of users, however, for a few users it should be more than adequate.
4. Self-Host Bitwarden
This is one of my personal favourites. Bitwarden is an opensource password manager that you can self-host. It has accompanying desktop apps, mobile apps, and browser extensions.
The original Pi may not be powerful enough to host full Bitwarden, but it will easily run Vaultwarden. Vaultwarden is an alternative implementation of the Bitwarden API written in Rust, which makes it super fast and less resource-intensive than full Bitwarden. You can still use it with the official Bitwarden apps and extensions.
Simply install docker and spin up the Vaultwarden container. Again, it might not work great for hundreds of users, but our Pi 1 Vaultwarden instance is working great for our family of 6!
5. Internet Radio, Bluetooth or AirPlay Receiver
This one is also a personal favourite to modernize an old stereo system. All you need is a stereo system or set of speakers with an AUX port. This way you can connect the headphone jack of the Raspberry Pi right into the stereo system. Alternatively, if the stereo is older and has an RCA input, you can use a 3.5 mm to RCA adapter.
Install an OS and run your favourite music apps to play directly to your speakers. Additionally, you can setup Bluetooth pairing to use it as a Bluetooth speaker. You can also install shairport-sync to support AirPlay from Apple devices.
Conclusion
The Pi has come a long way since it was first introduced. Even though at first glance the original Raspberry Pi 1 Model B looks severely under-powered by today’s standards, it still has some great uses for applications where a lot of processing power isn’t needed.
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