View your Raspberry Pi (Zero, 2, 3, 4) display on-the-go without VNC or prior configuration. Great inexpensive device for your toolbox! Laptop required 🙂

I have a bunch of R-Pis of various flavors. I also use R-Pi cameras (regular, IR and HQ) on a regular basis. I don’t always know the WiFi or network config for where I’m going. Sure, you can change files on your SD Card to configure things for WiFi or connect to a laptop via VNC (if you know about access point configs or know the network ahead of time). A GREAT tool I’ve added to my toolbox is an inexpensive video encoder – also known as an HDMI Video Capture USB Device. I picked up 2, at different times, off eBay for about $15/each. They are very small and light – about 2″ x 1″.

I was prompted to write this as I saw an Adafruit Tweet that mentioned their (new) product, “USB 2.0 to HDMI Video Capture Adapter.” A good deal at $20 with HDMI cable. All you do is plug your video-out from an R-Pi into the HDMI input and plug-in the adapter to a USB port. It then acts like a webcam in that you can use apps to view the R-Pi display on Mac, PC or Linux laptop (or desktop). This is an awesome, easy way to view video to focus a camera or preview an image or video stream – without stutter or dropped frames – that you get using VNC.