After playing with Arduinos and microcontrollers for a year, I decided to get a Raspberry Pi in January 2013. I also soldered a PowerSwitch Tail kit which allows an 110-volt outlet to be controlled from a small digital signal. Putting them together, I was able to turn on and off our simple espresso machine via the internet, which meant I could start its 20-minute pre-heat from my iPhone before driving home.
Matt Richardson wrote about my build, inspired by his book Getting Started With Raspberry Pi, in a post on Make: magazine’s website.