5 products that my Raspberry Pi cannot replace

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There is no doubt how versatile the Raspberry Pi is. It's not just useful for DIY projects The spectrum ranges from entertaining to productivity-enhancing, but is also ideal for entertainment purposes such as: Retro gaming or as a media server. However, it's just not suitable for everything. In fact, there are five products that my Raspberry Pi may never be able to replace.



5 My TV's Roku features

Since major streaming apps aren't supported outside of a web browser, replacing my Roku is nearly impossible

Although it is true, you can use it Kodi media server If you want to manage your media library and enjoy it on your TV, streaming services fall short. There are add-ons for some channels and services such as YouTube, Crackle and others. But the list is far from complete.

Above all, you will not find any official apps on Kodi for watching content from Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV+ or Max. The add-ons that provide access to these services are usually third-party solutions I just don't trust my login details.

Plex Media Server, Jellyfin and similar media systems are the same. They often help you view the available content in a single place. However, when you subsequently view this content, it opens in a browser window.


For me, watching my favorite streaming movies or TV shows through these providers' websites is far from ideal. However, the Roku features built into my TV make it easy to watch my favorite shows. Since I'm not the type of person to let my devices dictate what I can and can't see, the Raspberry Pi is pretty much out of the question as a replacement for my Roku.

4 My Apple TV and my HomePods as smart home centers

There are options beyond Apple HomeKit, but these typically don't work properly with my Apple ecosystem

I've been tied to the Apple ecosystem for years for many reasons. An important part of this is my smart home setup. I have several lights that I control by “talking into the air” with one of my HomePod mini smart speakers, and I also use automation to turn things off when I leave the house and forget.

HomePod Mini in five different colors


There are options for the Raspberry Pi like HomeBridge and Home Assistant, but these don't tend to work particularly well with Apple's Home app. I already have that Apple Home devices for other purposes, and I just don't want to spend the time trying to get everything to work through a different hardware and software layer.

The increasing adoption of the Matter standards makes the need for a Raspberry Pi layer for smart home options negligible anyway, so I don't see the point in trying to use a Raspberry Pi as a hub for my smart home setup .

3 Video editing and editing

The latest Raspberry Pi 5 can handle this task, but my Mac's exponentially faster processing is preferable

The Arm processor built into the Raspberry Pi can handle some light video conversions. The Raspberry Pi 5 also features a new hardware image signal processor, allowing it to perform video editing and processing better than its predecessors.


MacBook Pro M3 shows off video editing software

However, when I edit and process videos, I prefer to get the job done as well and quickly as possible. Since I have a Mac Studio with an M1 Max SoC, this is the best tool for the job.

If my Mac were down and I was in a pinch, my Raspberry Pi 5 could handle most of my video editing and processing needs, albeit much slower than I would like. For this reason alone, the Pi will never replace my Mac for video work.

2 Fast, easy and powerful image editing

Sure, there are excellent image editing apps for the Raspberry Pi, but there are often too many compromises

I edit even more images than videos, and many of these images are screenshots. Yes, there are some fantastic image editing programs for Raspberry Pi, such as Gimp and ImageMagick. You can even automate your image editing to crop, resize, or add filters to large numbers of images without having to sit and edit them one by one.


Photoshop is the best photo editor

Unfortunately, these options still don't provide a workflow that meets my needs. I take most of my photos with an iPhone and for screenshots I use a robust software package. For me, it's much more efficient and productive to keep my photo editing on my Mac.

1 Development for iOS and iPadOS

The most common complaint is that you need a Mac to develop native iPhone and iPad apps

Even though I don't develop iPhone apps nearly as much as I used to, I still need to compile and test apps on my iOS or iPadOS devices from time to time. I don't think it's a surprise that Apple still requires a Mac for this task.

Predictive code completion in Xcode.

Source: Apple


As long as Apple requires iOS and iPadOS development to be done in Xcode, there's really no way a Raspberry Pi can replace my Mac for this type of work. Yes, I can do a lot of other programming on the Raspberry Pi, but not everything I want to do natively on my Apple devices.

Raspberry Pi has its place in my home, office and lab, but it is not useful for all of my needs

I have several Raspberry Pi devices that I use every day. I have my retro gaming system running on a Raspberry Pi and also use one as a router for my home network. Another Raspberry Pi acts as a NAS server for file archiving and storage. I even use a Raspberry Pi to monitor my aquarium's water conditions. As much as I love the tiny single-board computer, there are a few products it can never replace in my life.

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