Price: $119 as reviewed
Manufacturer: Cytrence
Link: www.cytrence.com
It’s awkward to modify headless Raspberry Pi projects. I’ve played around with SSH, VNC, and just editing the SD card on a laptop, but all these have drawbacks. For simple and foolproof Pi hacking, there’s the Cytrence Kiwi.
Kiwi turns your laptop into a keyboard/video/mouse, so your Pi doesn’t need a bulky external setup. Just connect HDMI and USB to the target machine, and a USB 3 cable to the host, and you can watch the target boot up, no network connection needed. With a sizable amount of projects that have sat unfinished because bringing them to a screen was awkward, I was eager to see how many I could check off while reviewing our samples. Setup was fast and easy, with nothing to install on the Pi, and felt basically like working directly on it. I didn’t try the latest first-person shooter, but inputs were responsive enough for simple games.
Navigating and editing files was seamless. Audio from YouTube had no noticeable lag. Kiwi even supports copying and pasting text from laptop to Pi — perfect when you want to copy code from the web to SBCs too RAM-deficient for Chromium. If you need to document your work with screenshots and video, there’s the Kiwi Pro, which also adds features like GPIO pins and file sharing. If you need even more bonus functionality, there are three flavors of Kiwi+ to enjoy.
Kiwi+ Drive can be used as a removable flash storage device. You can transfer 32 gigs of data at a time by virtually mounting it to the host and then target computer. All three models have a file sharing feature, but it’s experimental and was a little buggy when I tried it. But the Drive transferred files easily on the first try. Kiwi+ Net easily creates a network link between two machines, great if you’re moving big batches of data. Kiwi+ USB lets you plug in an accessory device, although that device can only be read by one system at a time. It would be great for a large backup drive, sensor, camera, or other USB peripheral.
All of the sample units worked painlessly with Mac, Linux, and Windows. If you regularly manage headless computers, Cytrence Kiwi could make your kit a whole lot lighter.
This review appeared in Make: Volume 98.
ADVERTISEMENT
