Thursday 5 November 2020

Connecting to the Zero from an iPad

The Raspberry Pi Zero W is much smaller than my desktop PC, but it was still using a monitor, keyboard and mouse. That was not very convenient for use with the Novag Citrine. I had an old iPad Mini version 1, and wanted to use that to display the Zero's desktop and control the device. I used the free VNC Viewer remote desktop app to do that.

https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/vnc-raspberry-pi

On the Zero, select:

Menu > Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration > Interfaces

Set the VNC radio button to Enabled. A VNC button appears on the right hand side of the menu bar. Click it to open VNC Server, and note the IP address.

Install VNC Viewer on the iPad. Ignore the VNC Connect account login (I blanked the screen and reinstated it). Enter the Zero's IP address and raspberrypi. Type pi and the password. Pinch to zoom out.

To click a button on the Zero with VNC Viewer on the iPad, slide the cursor with one finger to position it over the button (or pull-down or menu item). Then tap the cursor.

Tapping the three dots at the top right hand side of the screen shows a series of options, including bringing up an on-screen keyboard. The Zero can be closed down by tying sudo poweroff in the Zero's terminal.

VNC Viewer worked very well, and was much more convenient for controlling the Citrine than a monitor, keyboard and mouse. VNC Viewer is also available for Android, and indeed for desktop computers. I had considered setting up a web server on the Zero, but VNC Viewer does a good job.

The iPad connects to the Zero via my WiFi router. It is possible to use the Zero to set up a WiFi hot spot (there are several tutorials on the web), but I have not done that.

No comments:

Post a Comment