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Raspberry Pi's new AI HAT adds 8GB of RAM for local LLMs


Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2

Today Raspberry Pi launched their new $130 AI HAT+ 2 which includes a Hailo 10H and 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM.

With that, the Hailo 10H is capable of running LLMs entirely standalone, freeing the Pi's CPU and system RAM for other tasks. The chip runs at a maximum of 3W, with 40 TOPS of INT8 NPU inference performance in addition to the equivalent 26 TOPS INT4 machine vision performance on the earlier AI HAT with Hailo 8.

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Raspberry Pi Pico Mini Rack GPS Clock


I wanted to have the most accurate timepiece possible mounted in my mini rack. Therefore I built this:

Raspberry Pi Pico GPS Clock for Mini Rack

This is a GPS-based clock running on a Raspberry Pi Pico in a custom 1U 10" rack faceplate. The clock displays time based on a GPS input, and will not display time until a GPS timing lock has been acquired.

  • When you turn on the Pico, the display reads ----
  • Upon 3D fix, you get a time on the clock, and the colon starts blinking
  • If the 3D fix is lost, the colon goes solid
  • When the 3D fix is regained, the colon starts blinking again

For full details on designing and building this clock, see:

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Local Email Debugging with Mailpit


For the past decade, I've used Mailhog for local email debugging. Besides working on web applications that deal with email, I've long used email as the primary notification system for comments on the blog.

I built an Ansible role for Mailhog, and it was one of the main features of Drupal VM, a popular local development environment for Drupal I sunset 3 years ago.

Unfortunately, barring any future updates from the maintainers, it seems like Mailhog has not been maintained for four years now. It still works, but something as complex as an email debugging environment needs ongoing maintenance to stay relevant.

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Raspberry Pi is cheaper than a Mini PC again (that's not good)


Almost a year ago, I found that N100 Mini PCs were cheaper than a decked-out Raspberry Pi 5. So comparing systems with:

  • 16GB of RAM
  • 512GB NVMe SSD
  • Including case, cooler, and power adapter

Back in March last year, a GMKtec Mini PC was $159, and a similar-spec Pi 5 was $208.

Today? The same GMKtec Mini PC is $246.99, and the same Pi 5 is $246.95:

GMKtec N100 Mini PC vs Pi 5 16GB pricing 2025

Today, because of the wonderful RAM shortages1, the Mini PC is the same price as a fully kitted-out Raspberry Pi 5.

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JeffGeerling.com has been Migrated to Hugo


Since 2009, this website has run on Drupal. Starting with Drupal 6, and progressing through major site upgrades and migrations to 7, 8, 9, and 10, I used the site as a way to dogfood the same CMS (Content Management System) I used in my day job for over a decade.

JeffGeerling.com - Old Drupal site

But as time progressed—especially after completing a grueling upgrade from Drupal 7 to 8—my enthusiasm for maintaining what's now a more enterprise-focused Digital Experience Platform or 'DXP' for a personal blog has waned.

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Testing the Mono Gateway, a custom-built 10 Gbps Router


Mono Gateway

Last month, the stars aligned for me to bring the Mono Gateway (a 10 Gbps router that YouTuber Tomaž Zaman and his team at Mono built from scratch) on a trip to Phoenix, and test it with one of the most OP network test boxes I've ever seen, at the ServeTheHome HQ.

In this video, Patrick (from STH) and I put Gateway through a real-world torture test using CyPerf:

Mono Gateway

The Gateway is a small (1U/desktop) router with features like a 4-core Arm CPU, 8GB of ECC LPDDR RAM, and decent expansion options for a compact router.

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