For a few weeks I've been beta testing remote shell, the latest addition to Raspberry Pi Connect. Just a couple hours ago I was on a flight home from the new Micro Center in Charlotte.

One huge problem with VNC or remote desktop is how flaky it is if you have limited bandwidth or an unstable connection, like on an airplane.

It takes forever to start a screen sharing session, and the airplane's flaky WiFi usually causes the session to lock up, meaning you can't do much at all.

Remote terminal access, just relaying text commands, is the best solution for that problem. And sure, I have a VPN I could use with SSH to get to my Pi, but Raspberry Pi Connect just added support for remote shell access.

It's similar to SSH works, but with SSH you'd need your Pi exposed to the Internet. Not good. That's why I have a VPN, but a private VPN isn't something most people want to set up and maintain.

So for any situation where you don't need the whole graphical environment, or where you have limited bandwidth, you can use the new remote shell feature.

From my Southwest flight, I could connect straight from my laptop to the Pi in my rack at my studio, and terminal commands ran without a hitch.

The initial connection was quick, and I could even watch a movie through it! Well... at least if that movie is Star Wars ASCIIMATION playing through telnet!

But it was way more stable, and I could get actual work done. My lone attempt at screen sharing froze the first time I tried launching an app.

I have a brief video covering my testing on my 2nd YouTube channel:

I'm glad Raspberry Pi's adding this functionality to Pi Connect (the community has been asking for this feature since day one!). It's not quite the same thing as Tailscale, Cloudflare Tunnel, or Twingate, but it's useful if you have a Raspberry Pi you want to remote into without any VPN.

I have more about Raspberry Pi Connect, including how to get started in my earlier blog post. You can also read more on Raspberry Pi's announcement blog post, including how they're supporting every Pi device now, at least for remote shell access.