One thing is for sure, with enough Raspberry Pi you could heavily automate a smart home so crazy that Captain Picard would blush. We've seen tons of cool smart home creations like this ChatGPT smart fridge project or this Fallout-themed home automation terminal. But it's the little things that really make a difference, like Thinklearndo's latest Pi-powered creation—a keyholder that automatically backs up data from any flash drive you connect to it.
Not everyone keeps a flash drive on hand and but for those that do, it can be a very personal device with tons of important information. But what happens when that data is lost or stolen? That's what inspired Thinklearndo's latest creation which will create backups of your data instantly each night when you plug your flash drive to this Pi-powered keyholder.
To use the system, all you have to do is plug in your keychain flash drive into the USB port on the keyholder. An LCD screen lets you know when it's ready to receive a new connection and when the backup is complete. When it's time to take your keys in the morning, there is a button you can press so you can know that it's safe to remove the flash drive. According to Thinklearndo, the backups run overnight and over Wi-Fi.
The main board powering this project is a Raspberry Pi 3A+ but you could definitely use the latest Raspberry Pi 5 or even something smaller like a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. However, Thinklearndo has made a special PCB that fits both the Pi 3A+ and the LCD snugly into place. All of the hardware, including the LCD screen, is housed inside of a 3D-printed shell. Some buttons are thrown in as well as hooks on the bottom to hang your keys.
As of the software used in this project was made open source and is available for anyone to explore over at GitHub. What's neat about the Raspberry Pi and projects like this is that you could double up the functionality by putting something else on the Pi. Raspberry Pi OS is super flexible so adding in something like a temperature monitor would be useful in a smart home setup.
If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, you can check it out in greater detail over at Reddit.
