arduino / raspberry pi ?

what's the difference?
as much as I've picked up, they seem to be two very similar things
any reasons for either preference?

I'm sure someone can explain it better but I'll have a go.

The Pi is a mini Linux based ARM computer. It has a HDMI display output and audio, camera accessory and GPIO pins to do stuff with LEDs, relays, inputs, etc.

The Arduino is based around an 8bit microcontroller. It only has 32KB RAM to run the sketches. It can drive LEDs, relays, LCDs and stuff like the Pi does, obviously no high res HDMI monitors. Pretty simple to load up a sketch, upload it to the board and have it do STUFF.

Chris has explained it pretty well.

I see the Raspberry Pi as being a computer - a small computer (and now fairly powerful with the RPi 2) that is capable of doing a lot of physical computing. Using sensors, LEDS, relays, motors etc etc.
If you want a "clever" device to run these things then a Raspberry Pi is good for that. It has a full operating system, networking, can use USB devices (webcams, storage etc). Fairly low power too, especially the A+.

I see the Arduino as being a "simple" microcontroller. They're very very capable devices and they're great for similar things to the Raspberry Pi but without any networking with the cheap Arduinos and much less clevers. I'd say they are more reliable for certain things, I wouldn't ever expect an Arduino to crash/freeze etc (unless the code was rubbish) but a Raspberry Pi is more liable to have issues because it runs on a bloaty OS (in comparison). Very low power compared to the RPi.

When you pair the two you can have quite a powerful setup for physical computing, automation etc.

The preference would depend on what you want to do.

Arduino is cheaper - I price them at about £2 per board (on ebay from China), cheap enough to make them pretty much disposable in my eyes.

What else can you dispose of in your eyes?

Vodka.

What an and Chris said, really.

Arduino : a very cheap and basic and easy to learn microcontroller. It's really no different to what you'd find running a washing machine, for example. The only difference is that it's been designed for easy learning, easy programming, and super easy to connect sensors etc. to. Typically run at a few Mhz (8 I think, but some are 16) and has a few kb of ram.


Pi: it's an actual computer with a cpu and gpu and all that, and runs Linux (and windows 10 at somepoint). Runs at around 1ghz and has 1gb of ram or more. Only difference between a Pi and a PC us that it's the size of a credit card and a number of the cpu pins are available to connect external sensors etc. to.

 :-|

 T_T

 

ta guys, I think maybe a Pi is the way to play then