Best Raspberry Pi kit
No matter what kind of RPi enthusiast you are, there’s a kit for you. IAN PAUL reports
The Raspberry Pi is an incredibly flexible little computer. You can use it for a wide range of projects ranging from the pragmatic to the innovative to the nostalgic – the same hardware can power a retro gaming setup as readily as an ad-blocking server. But if you’ve never handled a circuit board in your life, getting started with a Raspberry Pi may seem intimidating.
Well, fear not: there are special kits out there that make it easy for you to get started. The basic ones bundle together a Raspberry Pi board and necessary components (minus the keyboard, mouse, and monitor). More advanced options come without a Raspberry Pi board and instead focus on the specialized hardware needed for a particular project.
We’ve sifted through the options to find the best Raspberry Pi kits on the market. Our top picks include something for everyone, whether you want to build a simple secondary PC or dive right into advanced maker-style projects.
Pi Desktop
Price: £39 from fave.co/2X0ovjq Board included: No
We’re kicking off this list with a kit that doesn’t include all the bells and whistles. Visually similar to Intel’s Windows-based NUC kits, the Pi Desktop is a big
square box that comes with an add-on board that connects to the Raspberry Pi via its GPIO pins. There’s also a variety of PC-like innards, including an mSATA interface, power controller, system clock, and heat sink.
All you need to bring is a Raspberry Pi 3 board, an SSD up to 1TB capacity, and a DIY can-do attitude. In no time you’ll be up and running with your own snazzy looking Raspberry Pi desktop PC.
CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 Complete Starter Kit
Price: £64 from fave.co/2Bzzveu Board included: Yes
This kit is a healthy step up from a basic starter pack. CanaKit’s Complete Starter Kit includes everything you need to get started with a Raspberry Pi: you get a Pi 3 board, a 32GB microSD with the NOOBS operating system pre-installed, a case, power adaptor, two heat sinks, and an HDMI cable. If you want to dive right in without having to wait for separate shipments for your components, this particular kit’s the way to go.
Retro Gaming kit Price: £70 from fave.co/2BvhayX Board included: Yes
One of our favourite uses for the Raspberry Pi is as a classic gaming console. If you don’t want to scour Amazon and other retailers for the materials you need, this gaming kit from Pi Hut puts it all together for you in one place. In addition to the Raspberry Pi 3 and accompanying case, you get two Super NES-like game pads, a blank microSD card, microSD-to-USB adaptor if you need it, power supply, and a six-foot HDMI cable.
For legal reasons, the retailer can’t supply the operating system or video game ROMs, so you’ll have to download all of that stuff on your own. If you aren’t sure how to get started, read our how to build a retro gaming emulator article in Tech Advisor August 2017.
PiAware Aircraft Tracking Kit Price: £85 from fave.co/2WWQbpr Board included: Yes
Now this is an interesting project kit for air travel fans. It lets you transform your Raspberry Pi 3 into an ADS-B
(automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast) ground station – you’ll receive real-time data from planes within range of the included FlightAware antenna. The kit includes the Raspberry Pi 3, a Raspberry Pi case, microSD card with PiAware software installed, power supply, video cable, Ethernet cable, heat sink, FlightAware Pro Stick or Pro Stick Plus, USB cable, 1090MHz antenna, 1090MHz band-pass SMA filter, and a keyboard.
Freenove RFID Starter Kit Price: £34 from fave.co/2WXP3Sg Board included: No
Some Raspberry Pi kits include the board and everything you need to get started. Others, like the Freenove RFID Starter Kit, don’t bundle in the actual
Raspberry Pi but instead give you a whole lot of tools for hardware hackery.
This kit focuses on projects that include radio frequency identification (RFID) with components such as a keypad, breadboard, stepping motor, and (of course) an RFID module. Freenove offers 53 projects with the kit that involve three programming languages: C, Python, and Java.
Freenove Ultimate Starter Kit Price: £34 from fave.co/2X9sj1U Board included: No
This particular Freenove kit comes with practically everything you need to start hardware projects: the Ultimate Starter Kit includes more than 200 trimmings
for 57 projects. The only thing missing is the Raspberry Pi itself. This package includes a breadboard, stepping motor, keypad, joystick cap, and switches, LED lights, wires, and resistors. The included tutorials and projects use three programming languages: C, Python, and Java.