Raspberry Pi 400 Question & Opportunity

Ideas & Suggestions
#1

I pre-ordered two Raspberry Pi 400s last night: one to use for my kiddo’s online learning and one to donate to Ryan Holmes’ STEAM Lab. I have a question and an opportunity for anyone who may be interested:

The question:

I need to connect a webcam that is durable to a 2nd grader, but practically every article I’ve read recommends unspecifically “a USB webcam.” Can anyone recommend a USB webcam that is durable, easy to connect to a Raspberry Pi, and perhaps can clip to the top of a monitor?

The opportunity:

If anyone else is interested in buying a Raspberry Pi 400 to donate to Ryan Holmes’ STEAM Lab, let me know and I can work with you to coordinate getting them to him. He’s also known as Lansing Ghostbuster/Chalk Guy and is does amazing demos in the STEAM Lab!

#2

I’ve always had decent luck (on Windows) with Logitech’s webcams - extremely common so usually decent default drivers. The Logitech HD Webcam C310 is under $40, the C920 is under $70 with more features. I haven’t actually hooked them up to my Pi4, but my Bro-in-law did hook up the C920 I own, so I know there are drivers available… I just don’t know if they are there out of the box or if he had to do an hwprobe. For full compatibility you could always get the Raspberry Pi Camera Module v2, Which runs under $30. However, the Official Pi Camera doesn’t have the pretty housing that is designed to sit on top of a monitor, and isn’t USB - It uses a ribbon connector. I don’t know how it would connect to the Pi 400.

2 Likes
#3

Thanks! I picked both a Logitech webcam and headset — both USB — and they work really well. The only issue I ran into was audio playback on Google Meet in Chromium, but I resolved that by turning off all other audio output so device auto-detection always resolved to the headset. :sweat_smile:s