I remember a few weeks ago I was playing programmer with my Raspberry Pi 4. I'm used to doing everything on my laptop while sitting on the couch, but that's not possible with any simple board. What I did then was program from my laptop, send the file to the RPi, and then check from there that everything worked… or not. If I did that today, it would all be much easier thanks to Raspberry Pi Connect , a new tool that was recently released.
Currently in beta, Raspberry Pi Connect only resembles KDE Connect in name. The KDE tool allows users to receive messages and share the clipboard, among other things, but this new offering allows you to manage your entire desktop remotely . While other tools do this, Raspberry Pi Connect promises greater ease of use and functionality.
Raspberry Pi Connect only works on 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS
To use this solution, you need the 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS , which is the one Wayland uses. Therefore, the only compatible devices are the latest Raspberry Pi 5 and the 4/400 series . If you meet the requirements, installing Raspberry Pi Connect is just a few commands away:
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade sudo apt install rpi-connect
After installing the package, simply restart your operating system and look at the top right corner. There will be a new icon in the system tray; click on it, select "Sign in," and follow the instructions. They should be easy to understand, but if you need more help, there is more extensive documentation available here.
The release notes explain that a P2P connection is established between the two devices using WebRTC, the same technology used in Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. In short, we'll be able to connect to the Raspberry Pi from a web browser and control everything that happens there.
As it turns out that not everything is as direct as they claimed, I thought it was a good idea to update this article with a new explanatory section. Yes, it is easy, but a little less than intended and the instructions lack a little clarity. What you have to do is:
How to connect
- You need to have a Raspberry Pi ID, so you will first need to create an account. This can be done from the Raspberry Pi Connect/Sign in icon, which opens the browser to make the connection. So the first thing we will do is click there.
- In the browser that opens, we either create an account or identify ourselves.
- If we have to create it, we will also have to confirm the creation of the account by clicking on the link sent to us in the registration email. The best thing is to do everything from the Raspberry Pi, trust me.
- Once we have the account and we have identified ourselves with it, we have to add a device, and I think this is the most difficult thing to understand: will the device to be added be the one that connects to the Raspberry Pi or is the Raspberry Pi the one? What do we have to connect? The answer is that we have to add our RPi, or the connection to it. Therefore, names such as rpi4, rpi5, or rpi400 may be valid. I have used rpi4 for this test.
- What we have now is our Raspberry Pi accessible from the Internet, specifically from https://connect/raspberrypi.com. It is important to put the complete protocol with the S or else it will give an error.
- It will ask us to log in. We do. It will take us to the devices section, where we will see the name of our board, in my case rpi4, and we will connect to it by clicking on "Connect".
It's not complicated, but I think the instructions could be a little clearer; Maybe they are also in beta.