Nov '25 • ⚡Pi Project Ideas
🔧 Pi Project of the Day: Network Wide Ad-Blocker with a Raspberry Pi
Hey makers! Want to give your home network a boost of privacy and speed? Let’s turn your Pi into a stealthy ad-blocking powerhouse.
🧰 What it does
This project uses a Raspberry Pi to run Pi‑hole — a DNS-level ad-blocker that filters out ads, trackers and unwanted requests for every device on your network.
📦 Required parts
- Raspberry Pi (any model with network access)
- SD card with Raspberry Pi OS installed
- Network connection (Ethernet recommended)
- Basic access to your router’s DHCP / DNS settings
🎯 Why it’s valuable/fun
- Blocks ads for every device on your network (phones, tablets, TVs…)
- Reduces distraction + speeds up page loads
- Teaches you about DNS, network settings, and system configuration
- Totally “set-and-forget” once configured — but with lots of room to tweak
🪜 Setup steps
- Flash Raspberry Pi OS, boot the Pi and update it (sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade).
- Run curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash and follow the on-screen installer.
- Assign a static IP to the Pi or reserve it in your router.
- Point your router’s DNS server (or individual devices) to the Pi’s IP so all DNS queries go through Pi-hole.
- Open the Pi-hole admin dashboard in your browser, review what’s getting blocked, and optionally add extra block-lists or whitelist trusted sites.
✨ Optional customization
Link your Pi-hole with a dashboard like Grafana or set up email alerts when blocking spikes happen (could indicate a device got hacked or an ad-infested app).
Have you ever managed DNS settings or network-level blocking before? Would you set this up for your whole family’s devices or just one part of the network? Let’s hear your thoughts below 👇
🎥 Video walk-through
Here’s a solid tutorial to get you started:
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🔧 Pi Project of the Day: Network Wide Ad-Blocker with a Raspberry Pi
