Why Raspberry Pi 5 for AI Agents?
If your agent primarily uses cloud APIs (Claude, GPT, Gemini) and you just need an always-on box to run the orchestration, the Pi 5 is unbeatable on value. At under $100 total cost and $1/month in electricity, it’s the cheapest way to have a 24/7 AI agent.
What You Need
| Component | Recommendation | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberry Pi 5 8GB | Required | $80 |
| Power Supply | Official 27W USB-C | $12 |
| Case | Official case with fan | $10 |
| Storage | 64GB+ microSD or NVMe HAT | $15-40 |
| Total | $117-142 |
Best Use Cases
- API-only agents: Run OpenClaw/LangChain, connect to Claude/GPT APIs
- Home automation hub: Combine agent with Home Assistant
- Lightweight local models: Gemma 3 4B for simple classification/routing
- Always-on Slack/Discord bot: Low resource, always available