Currently I’ve got a RPi4 without Coral, running Frigate with 2 cams, HA, Paperless, Photoview and Qbittorrent. This works well but maxes out the RPi4. As I want to add Immich and more cams, I have to upgrade. Budget allows for either a USB Coral with the existing RPi4 or buy a secondhand HP Prodesk 600 g4 with Intel 8th gen. According to Frigate I can use Openvino for object detection. Otherwise, I could add a Coral mini pcie, with a mini pcie to pcie adapter. But that stretches the budget. Besides frigate the HP should be able to run the rest.
Any thoughts?
I personally graduated from a Rpi3b to an Intel NUC years ago and never looked back. Real RAM slots and Storage options internally and you can get as nice a processor as your budget allows. So my vote is to move to the SFF PC and let your Pi stick around for other projects.
Thanks for your insights. Thought about a NUC as well, but AFAIK it doesn’t have pcie slots? So I won’t be able to install eg a graphics card or pcie coral?
Three versions that I know of have it but you’re right it’s not common. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000091705/intel-nuc.html
I wouldn’t go NUC if you need a PCIe slot. The HP you were talking about would fit the bill though.
I believe they make a Coral that fits where the wifi chip goes too. As long as you are ok ditching the wifi/bt functionality for a TPU. For a server doing image processing that’s almost a no-brainer to me.
Interesting re the wifi chip, as all posts I’ve found said it only works for a wifi card. Do you have a source for that?
Yeah, no wifi is no problem. It’ll be connected via cable
Oh I’m not sure if it actually works. I thought they just made one to fit that slot