How to Live Monitor YouTube Views and Google Analytics With a Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a low-powered device perfect for jobs that require lengthy uptime. Use one to keep tabs on YouTube data and Google analytics.
People who make YouTube videos or produce web content often set up dedicated displays to monitor performance statistics live, such as YouTube Analytics and Google Analytics. The live analytics data can give an insight of trending content, while the statistics can be used to quickly tweak and optimize related content.
In an ideal world, live monitoring should start at the flip of a power switch or the push of a power button on the television remote. A Raspberry Pi connected to a television or a monitor is ideal for this.
Using a Raspberry Pi for Live Analytics Saves Energy
Compared to regular computers that use 230V, 110V, 19V or a 12V power supply, the Pi can be powered by the TV’s 5V USB port. So, switching on/off using the TV remote will boot the Pi and turn it off along with the TV, resulting in power savings.
This implementation works with Pi4 as well as the Pi3. Many Pi3s are shelved because of an upgrade to the much more powerful Pi4. This use case will find a purpose for those Pi3s as it has sufficient processing power to drive this activity.
Energy Consumption of a Raspberry Pi
A Pi4 running at standard clock consumes six watts of power and an overclocked Pi4 consumes 8 Watts.
Total energy consumption in a year (12 hours of usage daily):
8 (Watts) x 12 (Hours) x 365 (Days) = Around 35 KWh
Compared to the Pi4, PCs use much higher power. A Mini PC which is at the lower end of the power consumption spectrum, has a processor that is usually rated to consume around 15 Watts. Club that with the power consumption of the motherboard, and it is in the zone of 25 Watts.
25 (Watts) x 12 (Hours) x 365 (Days) = Around 110 KWh
The calculation shows that the Pi can save around 75 units of electricity every year. Mini PCs may have the additional processing power, but you would not use the excess anyway for live monitoring.
All of this points to the Pi being the right device for the purpose. It has just the right amount of processing power, and it consumes little power. It has a small footprint and can be powered from the host USB using a single cable (less clutter).
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