I was thinking more along the lines of battery powered operations. I can stick a Pi, a car battery, a solar panel into a weather proof box and set it in the woods if I needed to.
It's just an example, but you can pull an old car battery from the junkyard and they have better temperature extremes. NiMH from a wrecked hybrid is also a good option for durability.
Yeah I am loving all these micro Linux computer options. Not much bigger than a raspberry pi but it's a full computer. If you need gpio you can hook up an Arduino through USB and connect super easily. The one I have been using even has an integrated video card. All for around $100 and they are always in stock lol.