The Raspberry Pi is not the only tiny computer available. There are many companies producing similar machines. Some are more powerful and/or cheaper than the Pi. Intel has their own variation with the Edison (Wikipedia.)
Image from Wikimedia
It really is tiny at 25x35.5mm. That's smaller than a Pi Zero, but you compromise by not having much in the way of connections. You can add boards which can stack to add these and it looks like you need one just to get power to it. That combination costs around $70. It's got a pretty powerful CPU that sips power and it has on-board storage too. It's intended for embedded applications, like the Pi. You can use a PC as a desktop machine, but I can't see much reason to if you have a more capable PC unless you need something that's really low power and your requirements are limited to less intensive applications.
I'm interested to play with an Arduino some time. That's a real micro-controller that can be used to link sensors to a network and/or control devices. Is anyone using them?
These are great times for the electronics hobbyist. You can put some intelligence into any device for a very low price.
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I have 2 Arduino's
My son and I built a robot car, which got upgraded using a teensy (long story), but you can do amazing things with Arduino's
I dont know how much they cost now, but I think they are relatively cheap, and you can power them with batteries so no special power supplies needed
I will have to find time for some nerderies soon.
I have a Rasperry Pi 3 also, but I have heard of Edison and Audrino. I went with the Pi because it runs Linux and I will be setting it up to monitor steemit and some trading exchanges. I'm wondering if it can alert me somehow. I'll google and find some Python code to send emails or texts. Best wishes with all your projects!
I'm also thinking of monitoring Steemit with a Pi. I did start installing the Python libraries, but had some issues. Need to look again at that. I have a scrolling LED display that could display updates. Looking at MQTT to pass on messages. Could use IFTTT to get them to other services. I just need to find time to play with this stuff.
I've used microcontrollers many times, and the Arduino is a useful prototyping thingy when you want to play with them. When you are into (analog) electronics, a microcontroller is luxury; when you come from PCs, it's primitive, but there is a lot of fun to be had by doing things with the minimal amount of code in the fastest way, all the while counting clock cycles 8-).
The Raspberry Pi is huge overkill for many applications, and it has an enormous power consumption. I build things like MPPT for small-scale, portable solar energy applications, and the controller should ideally use less than 2mA. Even for doing sensor integration a microcontroller is powerful enough; here's a link to one of my projects.
The Pi is not too bad at a couple of watts, unless you want to run from batteries. Certainly better than running a normal PC if you just need a simple server. I have ideas for projects that could use an Arduino. Need to get hold of one and experiment when I find the time.
A couple of watts is huge! It depends on what your reference is, I suppose 8-). My last design for a portable solar battery charger uses under 10mW ...
I'm using a Pi to run my home automation and I think it uses less power than the old system (Cytech Comfort). Running a whole Linux stack is overkill for a lot of application.
I may be setting up a solar system some time. Looking to build a garden shelter and solar could do the lights for that. I'll have to think about what other features I could incorporate.
For small applications, this may interest you. It depends on your power needs, of course, the chip mentioned outputs a max. 2A into the batteries, but the way it works is brilliant, a kind of poor-man's MPPT. Should be implementable using a microcontroller.