15 Gift Ideas Raspberry Pi Fans Will Love in 2023

If you are looking for gifts for your husband, your wife or even for you kids interested in Raspberry Pi, you are at the good place.
Even if you are a Pi fan yourself, you’ll find interesting ideas to ask for in this post 🙂

But before anything else, as you may be completely new to this world, let’s start with a quick reminder, just in case.
A Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer, really cheap (check the price here), but allowing us to build many projects, including:

• As a basic computer
• Retro gaming console (to games from the 90s) or media center
• Creating electronic circuits or building robots
• Hosting servers to share files, host a website or security
• Etc.

As they are many possible uses, it might be a good idea to investigate a bit on what he or she is doing on their Raspberry Pi currently, and the current stuff, so that you could aim for the perfect gift.

My name is Patrick, I’m a fan of the Raspberry Pi myself and will share with you some originals ideas I would like to receive myself as a gift this year 🙂

A Retro Gaming Console Case

A gamer will likely appreciate a custom case for its retro gaming machine, especially if there is a particular attention by offering the favorite console from the 90s 🙂

They are case looking like the old console systems, that you can use and put the Raspberry Pi inside. It’s perfect to push a little further the gaming experience.
Here are two examples :

• NesPi case, inspired from the first Nintendo
• The Game Boy alternative

But you can probably find the other ones or make a custom one.

A Smart Mirror Toolkit

A smart mirror is a common project on Raspberry Pi. The idea is to mix a screen, a mirror in a Raspberry Pi.
A short video will be easier to explain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJghZO9lIp8

So, it’s easy to know if it will be something new or not 🙂
To help you, here are the required components:

• A Raspberry Pi : will stay inside, so it may be required even if he or she already has one. A cheap one is OK.
• A two-way glass mirror
• An old monitor with the same size, or any slime like this one should be ok for the previous glass mirror. It will be hidden behind the mirror glass.
• A frame to put everything inside (DIY)

It is a pretty expensive gift, but it will delight the person, yourself and impress their friends, so why not 🙂
If it’s too expensive for you, just buy the glass mirror, a Raspberry Pi fan will understand the message, and most of them already have all the other components at home.

A smart T-shirt

This is a classic but it would be a nice nod to his or her passion.
Depending on the person preferences, you can look for funny ones, inspiring or just the ones with the Raspberry Pi.

Doing a simple search like this in the Redbubble search engine will give you many ideas.
I like this website, it’s affordable and products are good quality overall.

A book about Raspberry Pi

I’m buyist here, but offering a book is also an appreciated present.
It may be a bit more complicated if you have no idea about the level or interests of the person, but you can probably guess it before the deadline 🙂

I have my e-book available here, that would be a perfect gift for beginners, especially if you are late to find it, as it’s digital and can be downloaded a few seconds after the order.
But you can also find other great books on Amazon or whatever, I have an entire article with book ideas for Raspberry Pi if you are looking for other specific topics.

A robot kit

How can someone not love this present if it’s really a Raspberry Pi fan?
It’s an original robot dog kit from Freenove (click to read my full review about it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BmIZ8_R9d4

Yes, it’s awesome and fun. An excellent project for any Raspberry Pi user, whatever the level.
A beginner will need to learn a few things before, so it’s a good goal to have in mind. And a more advanced user will like doing this, even if he or she already has another robot kit.

You can find it on Amazon, the price is decent for an advanced kit.
Excepting the funny movements, you can program it for face recognition, following a ball and many other interesting projects.

By the way, I have an entire guide with the best robot kits available on Raspberry Pi, if you want to check other ideas or cheaper ones. But no one is as fun as this one 🙂

A low tech gift

Let’s check another one which is absolutely zero tech, but a cool idea too.
Why not making a joke from his or her passion and offer something absolutely not related to the technology?
This way, you can’t make any mistake if you know the person a little, but have no idea about the Raspberry Pi level or hardware she already has.

Here are a few ideas as inspiration:

• A kitchen mold for any usage?
• A cookbook?
• A plant?

You can probably find other ideas depending on his or her passions, but you get my point here.

A Raspberry Pi 400

Ok, this one is back to tech, but as it’s pretty new it could be a good idea.
The Raspberry Pi 400 is the latest model available, with an original design: it’s integrated in a keyboard, so you just need to plug it on a monitor or TV.
Wi-Fi is built in and it’s USB powered, so you don’t need anything else (except a mouse obviously).

I think it can be the perfect gift for a kid that want a computer, or even for a fan which doesn’t have it yet. It has been released in November 2020, so it’s still recent and not so many people have one.

I have more detail about the Raspberry Pi 400 in this post.
I don’t really praise for it in this article, but as a gift (especially for kids), it makes sense.
If you are still interested, you should be able to find a good price on Amazon.

A magazine subscription

Another gift idea from the Raspberry Pi official website, with a magazine subscription.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has an official magazine: “MagPi”, which is available here.
It’s a monthly magazine, that will remind your gift to this person during the whole year. You can even order the last one to have a physical thing to offer.

As far as I know, it’s the only magazine dedicated to Raspberry Pi, but there are many others, more general about Linux (like Linux Mag, Linux Format, …) or electronics (Make or HackSpace for example).

A Sense HAT

Depending on your own level, it may be harder to know if this one is a good fit or not.
A HAT is an additional board you plug on the Raspberry Pi, to add new features (“Hardware Attached on Top”).
This one is easy to recognize, as there are 64 colored LEDs on it:

It’s the Sense HAT from the Raspberry Pi. It’s a must-have for any Raspberry Pi user, and it’s pretty cheap. You can find it at the best price on Amazon.

Except the LEDs part, it allows many experiences and projects with the integrated sensors: gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, temperature, pressure, humidity.
You can find more details here, if you want to know more about this idea.

An inspiring mug

Similarly to the t-shirt one, here is another risk-free gift for any occasion.
While doing a cool reference to their passion, you can offer them a mug without knowing anything about Raspberry Pi.

Geeks love showing their interests with mugs, or have jokes on them.
Depending on the person you want to offer this, there is a lot of choice on RedBubble for you. They have the three models displayed on the picture (classic, tall or travel mugs).
There are also many other websites with that kind of products, including Amazon with more mug models but maybe fewer designs.

Philips Hue lights

I really like this one because it’s not a problem if you offer this to someone who is interested in the light, in the Raspberry Pi interface or even in programming.
Philips Hue are smart lights that you can control from any device, including your phone and obviously a Raspberry Pi.

I have a tutorial about Philips Hue if you want to read more.
I have some for years, and already tried some fun projects with them.
And even in my case, I have a lot of stuff for Raspberry Pi and some Philips Hue lights too, but I would love to receive a gift like this to experiment event more, they have many models available.

Even for kids (or teenagers maybe), I think it’s a good idea.
They like experimenting with visual things. If you can teach them to code while seeing the result on the colored light, they will stay motivated (hopefully) 🙂

A sensor kit

This one is the perfect fit for someone who you often see building electronic circuits with different components, but you have no idea what he or she already has.
The idea I have is a kit with so many sensors in it that nobody has them all 🙂

You can check this link on Amazon to see all the details. But basically, it includes everything required to start almost any project.
A few examples: temperature sensor, buzzers, remote control, and many wires, buttons and tools to get started.

I have a quick tutorial for beginners on how to use the GPIO pins, if you want to understand what I’m talking about.

A Raspberry Pi screen

He or she always uses the TV while you want to watch something? Only one monitor for the computer and the Raspberry Pi?
You can solve this problem by offering a screen, especially created for Raspberry Pi usage.

The one on the picture is from Sunfounder, a popular brand on Raspberry Pi, and you can find it on their website for about half the price of any classic monitor.
It’s a touch screen, so it’s easy to use it, even without a mouse if the app is optimized for small screens.

By the way, it’s a picture of my desk, I’m using it everyday now and I have a review available here if you want to learn more about this.

Another original HAT (Piano Hat)

I already introduced the concept of HAT (extension plugged on top of the Raspberry Pi), and the most popular one (the Sense Hat).
But this one is really fun too, and less popular, so the person may not have it yet!

I think a short video will better explain this gift idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mHRoG6Jjw4

It’s the Pimoroni Piano HAT, available here on Amazon, and as you can see it add a piano feature to the Raspberry Pi 🙂
Probably a good way to mix two passions, and also to interest young people to learn programming sooner (you can code it to make the sound you want, so it should be really fun).

Google Voice Kit

The last one here is a toolbox from Google that could be a good gift, as it’s all-in-one.
The Google Voice Kit is a kit to build a smart speaker. You can try voice recognition, or apps like Google Assistant, Alexa, etc.

You can check on Amazon how the completed kit looks like. It’s pretty cool!
As you can see on the picture, it includes everything in the package, including a Raspberry Pi Zero and the user guide.

It’s a basic for any Raspberry Pi fan, that open many new projects.
Your gift will be a success 🙂

Conclusion

That’s it, I’m done with my gift ideas list if you have one to offer to a Raspberry Pi fan, or even if you are someone following this website and want to add some of them in your letter to Santa Claus 🙂

To make this post really useful and complete, can you answer these questions in the community?

• Do you have others original ideas for gifts to offer to a Raspberry Pi (aspiring user or already fan)?
• If you ever received some Raspberry Pi gifts, which one was the best for you?

I will add the best ones in a future update.
Thanks!