A party in France wraps up, two people fold a 35 kg photo booth flat, and a print slides out in under 30 seconds with a Raspberry Pi 5 running the whole show. That scene comes from the latest “Powered by Raspberry Pi” roundup on the Raspberry Pi blog, and it is a handy look at what a Pi becomes once it leaves the breadboard.
What the companies built
Horace, a photo booth company in France, uses a Raspberry Pi 5 with Node-RED to control two Raspberry Pi High Quality Cameras and stream live 2K video. Elk Audio in Sweden builds low-latency DSP audio gear on a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8 GB RAM, including the Nina twelve-voice analogue polysynth reference design. Finland’s Handlet sells a 5-inch battery-powered Pi 4 tablet with a 2 GB base model and a 40-pin GPIO header exposed on the case. Germany’s YUMA Engineering pairs a Pi with dual GPS, an IMU, a barometer and a 5G/LTE modem for aircraft prototyping.
How they got from prototype to product
Prototyping on a Pi is cheap. The hard part is compliance testing once you want to sell the thing. The Powered by Raspberry Pi accreditation standardises that paperwork, and the Production Information Portal lists the test data per board, so a small team does not repeat radio and safety testing from scratch. Node-RED in the Horace booth is also worth noticing: a flow editor on a Pi 5 handles camera triggers, the printer queue and the video stream without custom firmware.
The takeaway for student builders
A thesis prototype and a shipping product share more parts than you might expect: the same GPIO header, the same Linux, the same Python or Node-RED glue. If your capstone uses a Pi, document your pinout, power budget and enclosure from day one, because that is the gotcha companies hit later. Read the full showcase at the source article, then browse Raspberry Pi boards, cameras and HATs at circuit.rocks.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Horace photo booth use for control?
A Raspberry Pi 5 running Node-RED, with two Raspberry Pi High Quality Cameras, a live 2K video stream and a dye-sublimation printer that outputs prints in under 30 seconds.
What is Powered by Raspberry Pi accreditation?
A program that standardises compliance regulations and testing for products built on Raspberry Pi hardware. Manufacturers use the Production Information Portal to find test data and show a visible quality mark.
What will I learn if I build this?
You learn to move from a breadboard prototype to a product: choosing a Pi model, wiring GPIO peripherals, using Node-RED for control flows, and planning power, enclosure and compliance. Useful for ECE capstone and school robotics projects.
