Lighter browser just to show the Node-Red DASHBOARD in localhost on Raspi 4

Dashboard
1

Dear All,
I have a raspberry Pi 4 with 8Gbyte ram and latest raspian OS, Node-red version4 and all the palette upgraded.

I just need to make a "kiosk" with browser started into raspberry, that point lo LocalHost Node-Red installed into raspi to show a dahboard with gauge and graph that each second receive a new value.

the issue is that the "Pi web browser Chrome" is lagging and require too much processor power; see the HTOP with just Node-red and chrome started.

I'm asking if exist a lighter browser web just to show the Node-Red DASHBOARD.
Does anyone have experiane with a better browser just to do this? I don't need to navigate inside Internet...

immagine
immagine756Ă—416 160 KB

Thanks in advance!

2

Have you tried any of these?

https://windowsreport.com/lightweight-browsers-raspberry-pi/

3

Are you viewing the browser locally or via VNC?

Have you tried Chrome?

4

Also, what desktop are you running on the Pi? Maybe switching to a lighter-weight one would be better?

And Chrome itself is a known hog.

5

Dear All,
Im using the browser "locally", I have the monitor connected via HDMI to raspberry and I use the Chromium Version 125.0.6422.133 calling the address: http://localhost:1880/ui/

My system is as follow:Here the info of my system:

OS=  Raspbian 11 bullseye debian v. 11.9
DE= LXDE-pi
Server grafic = x11
Kernel= armv7l Linux 6.1.21-v7+
Shell= bash 5.1.4
WM= OpenBox.
6

Try Firefox (ESR) lighter and solid so far. Bookworm comes with Firefox pre-installed.

It will still use a fair amount of CPU (esp on complex dashboards) but I find it lighter than Chromium as it drops out of activity quickly and uses less memory.

Back in Stretch / Buster days I used Midori a fair amount but that was against a very simple dashboard.

7

I think (depending on how many values you are keeping on the screen) - this will be the ultimate limit as it requires a lot of Horsepower to update something like this - what timeframe have you set on the graph ?

I have an IPad mini that i use mainly for Kindle reading (its about 5 years old) and i notice the pause on it rendering on my graphs on pages is much more noticeable than my Samsung S24 - which has no lag changing menu tabs etc - similar to my Intel desktop/Laptop.

Craig

8

Thank you.

In terms of speed of system / Firefox, with the raspberry pi4 with 4gbyte RAM is better to install the 32 or 64 bit version of raspbian "Bookworm" (Debian 12?)

9

Except for the old Pi Zero boards here I use the 64Bit version for everything as it gets rid of the weird 64Bit kernel and 32Bit user space structure and longer term I feel 64 bit will be more supported (e.g. Unifi only provide a 64Bit codebase for their WiFi controller).

You may not see any real memory difference on a 4GB (as the 32 bit was compiled to allow threads to access 3GB of memory if needed) but I find it seems to run smoother. I do not push my processors very hard so speed differences are not noticeable for me (see the Phoronix review here for artificial benchmarks).

The other thing to note is that 64Bit is the preferred OS in the Pi Imager (v.1.8.5 Mac) for the Pi 4 - maybe a subtle hint by the trading group this is their long term target. Total speculation on my part.

1 Like
10

In that case, I am surprised to see vncserver using such a large amount of processor. I would expect it to be trivial if no client is connected.

11

Wonder if the OP is using VNC to connect to the Pi and then browse to Node-Red locally?

I've done that when there is no remote access to the Pi due to CG-NAT or a firewall that cannot have a port open (cr*p ISP router) using the RealVNC cloud connect function.

Now I've moved to a Cloudflare tunnel and reverse proxy direct to the dashboard - way easier as I do not need the client on devices.

1 Like
12

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.