Raspberry PI Wireless Display Receiver

In industrial automation & other fields, data often needs to be viewed remotely in control rooms or head offices. But this challenged me to come up with the Raspberry Pi Wireless Display Receiver. I am happy to be a small part of Raspberry Pi achieving the 10-million-Unit sales mark on the Sept 8th, the product’s 10th birthday. It’s a PC the size of a credit card, but it’s inconvenient to also have to carry an extra screen just for debugging and project purposes. Additionally, some of us will also lack the ability to connect to a HDMI monitor. I have been searching for a method to wirelessly connect to my Pi for SSH and potentially as a Wireless Display, with or without internet access.

List of Required Items for Raspberry PI Wireless Display Receiver :

• Raspberry Pi 3 (with Pixel UI Raspbian). Buy Now.
• DSTV Drifta Wifi Dongle or Wifi Accesspoint or Smartphone Wifi Hotspot.
• Windows 10 PC
• Advance IP Scanner. Download
• RealVNC.  Download
• Putty for SSH. Download
• (Optional) Components required for setting it up the first time:

1. HDMI/HDMI to VGA module (Now Available) for use with a VGA Monitor.
2. Keyboard and Mouse.

The reason why I came up with this tutorial was because one day, I was having challenges with how to work on the Raspberry Pi while at school because I did not have my 32-inch Display or any Portable Screen at my disposal. Therefore, I developed this tut so those in the same boat as we were could use the display of our laptops as the monitor for the Raspberry Pi.

HOW DOES Raspberry PI Wireless Display Receiver WORK?

The primary goal is to engage with the Raspberry Pi’s desktop GUI on your Laptop screen. First, we will connect the Raspberry Pi to the PC either through Wifi or ethernet for Wireless Display, ensuring both are in the same network. Numerous software options exist for connecting your Raspberry Pi to your laptop. The Pi will be connected to your laptop using the RealVNC server software.

Connecting to that VNC server on your Raspberry Pi means you can use a mouse and keyboard to control its desktop environment remotely. This also means that you can position your pi at any other preferred position within your home but still be able to control it. Additionally, WiFi from a laptop can be shared via Ethernet or shared WiFi access. This also enables you to connect the Raspberry Pi to the laptop display and access the internet. The programs on your Pi require an internet connection for installation.

STEP 1: SETTING UP YOUR RASPBERRY PI

Before connecting Raspberry Pi to the laptop display, you need to have an SD card with the OS installed on it. An extensive number of blogs and tutorials are available on how to prepare an SD card for Raspberry Pi. If you are new to it, you can easily access a free eBook guide for beginners on Raspberry Pi. This will show how to boot the operating system on the raspberry pi.

After formatting your SD Card, insert it into your Raspberry Pi. Next, participate in the worship by connecting your micro USB cable to power the Raspberry Pi. Insert the keyboard and mouse, and link the Raspberry Pi to the laptop via the Wi-Fi network (type Wi-Fi name on Pi taskbar) or via ethernet.

Next, hook up the HDMI monitor (the HDMI connection is only required during the initial boot of the Raspberry Pi). Turn on your Raspberry Pi and then proceed with the following steps to connect it to a laptop screen.

STEP 2: SHARING INTERNET.

STEP 2.1:

When connected to WiFi with Internet Access both the Pi and PC have been assigned IP Addresses automatically

STEP 2.2:

This move aims to illustrate how one can use an Ethernet cable to connect the laptop internet to the Raspberry Pi. To share the internet with many users through the Ethernet in Windows, go to the Network and Sharing Center. Next, select the WiFi network.

Select Properties (depicted below), proceed to Sharing, and enable “Allow other network users to connect”. Ensure that the networking connection is switched to “Local Area Connection”.

By doing this, your laptop’s Ethernet port and other devices connected to it will be assigned a dynamic IP address. Next, in order to verify the IP address that has been assigned to your laptop, simply click on the recently created link for the new local area connection.

My laptop has an established IP address of 192. 168. 137. 1, as demonstrated earlier. These are the procedures to go through to establish the validity of the IP address given to the ethernet device that is connected. Since the IP address of your laptop has been obtained as 192. 168. 137. basic network number is 1 and the subnet mask is 255. 255. 255. 0:

• Open command prompt.
• Ping on broadcast address of your IP. (Type) Eg: ping 192.168.137.255
• Stop the ping after 5 seconds.
• Check the reply from device: arp –a

STEP 3 : SETTING UP THE VNC SERVER TO CONNECT RASPBERRY PI TO LAPTOP DISPLAY

3.1: IF YOU HAVE AN HDMI DISPLAY:

Install the VNC server on your Raspberry Pi using the HDMI display connected to it. Access the LX-Terminal and input the specified commands to install VNC.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install tightvncserver

3.2: IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN HDMI DISPLAY:

• Install Advance IP Scanner.
• Install Putty and run it
• Install RealVNC
• Once you are done open Advance IP Scanner, Click on the IP button to reset the IP Address Search Parameter, and Press Search (Green Play button)

• If you are connected either by WiFi or Ethernet you should see the Raspberry Pi Address, take note of it.

• Open Putty input the Raspberry Pi IP Address and use port 22.
• login with Default Username: pi and password: raspberry and a Terminal will appear, run this sudo codes.
• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
  

  3.3: STARTING VNC SERVER ON PI 

  For starting VNC, enter the following command in SSH terminal (with in Putty or Raspberry Pi GUI terminal)

  vncserver :1

  You will need to input and verify a password. This question will only be asked once, during the initial setup. Provide an 8-character password. Please be aware that this is the password required for remotely accessing the Raspberry Pi. You will also be prompted to choose whether you wish to set up a distinct “read-only” password – decline (n).

  The VNC server is currently active on your Pi and we can now try to establish a connection with it. First, we need to transition to the laptop so that we can remotely control the Raspberry Pi. Next, configure a VNC client to establish a connection to the Raspberry Pi.

  STEP 4 : SETTING UP THE CLIENT SIDE (LAPTOP)

  Download VNC client from here and install it. When you first run VNC viewer, you will see following:

Enter IP address of your raspberry pi given dynamically by your laptop (you got the address from the earlier step). And append with :1 (denoting port number) and press connect. You will get a warning message, press ‘Continue’:

Enter the 8 digit password which was entered in VNC server installation on raspberry pi:

Finally, the Raspberry Pi desktop itself should appear as a VNC window. You will be able to access the GUI and do everything as if you were using the Pi’s keyboard, mouse, and monitor directly. As with SSH, since this is working over your network, your pi could be situated anywhere as long as it is connected to your network.

STEP 5: RUNNING VNC SERVER AT STARTUP IN RASPBERRY PI

Accessing your Raspberry Pi through VNC remotely is acceptable as long as your Pi does not experience a reboot. If so, you must SSH into the system and reboot the VNC Server. Alternatively, set up the VNC Server to start automatically when the Raspberry Pi is restarted. To make sure VNC launches automatically upon booting up, execute these commands in the terminal:

Open the “.config” folder from pi’s: user folder (it is a hidden folder).

Open the “.config” folder from pi’s: user folder (it is a hidden folder).

cd /home/pi
cd .config

Make a folder named “autostart” and place it inside. Additionally, make sure to create a file named “tightvnc.desktop” within the same folder. You can utilize any well-known text editor to produce a file. I utilized the Sudo Nano function for this task.

mkdir autostart
cd autostart
sudo nano tightvnc.desktop

Edit the contents of the file with the following text and save the file:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=TightVNC
Exec=vncserver :1
StartupNotify=false

The next time you restart your Pi, the vncserver will automatically begin. The Raspberry Pi would be smoothly linked to the laptop display.

Whenever you need to use your Raspberry Pi, simply connect it to the WiFi (ensuring it remembers a previous network), plug an ethernet cable into your laptop, or turn it on and power it up. Next, launch VNCViewer and enter the IP address of your Raspberry Pi. You have the option to utilize your laptop screen as the monitor for the Raspberry Pi.

Don’t forget to find the Raspberry Pi’s IP address when switching Wifi networks, as VNC will not connect without using the latest address. The Pi’s address constantly changes across networks due to DHCP.

Credit for this post goes to:

https://brainschildblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/wireless-display-for-raspberry-pi-3/