To add temperature to the frame caption, I first do a check to see that it is running on a Raspberry Pi. This function does that.

void SetPiFlag() {
	struct utsname buffer;
	tempFlag = 0;
    if (uname(&buffer) != 0) return;
    if (strcmp(buffer.nodename,"raspberrypi") !=0) return;
	if (strcmp(buffer.machine,"armv7l") != 0) return;
	piFlag=1;
}

Note you have to add this include

#include <sys/utsname.h>

Now you need to call this function to return the temperature as a float.

float ReadPiTemperature() {
    char buffer[10]; 
	char * end; 
	if (!piFlag) return 0.0f;
	if (SDL_GetTicks() - tempCount < 1000) {	
		return lastTemp;
	}
	tempCount = SDL_GetTicks() ;
	FILE * temp = fopen("/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp","rt"); 
	int numread = fread(buffer,10,1,temp); 
	fclose(temp); 
	lastTemp = strtol(buffer,&end,10)/1000.0f;
	return lastTemp;
}

Things to notice.

1. If it’s not running on a Pi it always returns 0.0C.
2. No matter how often it’s called, it only reads the temperature once a second.
3. In between reads it caches the temperature in a variable lastTemp

When I first wrote this, it was reading the temperature on every frame. It actually changes that quickly but that made it hard to read. So once a second is fine.

Reading the temperature of a Raspberry PI can be done in a couple of ways. This command:

vcgencmd measure_temp

Outputs something like temp=32.7’C. My 3B+ PI has heatsinks and a cooling fan so runs cool. Even with asteroids it only peaked at 50.5C. Well below the throtle back temperature of 85C.

Another way (I suspect they are the same) is to do

cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

Which outputs values like 32705. Just divide by 1000 to get the temperature in Celsius.

But how do we do it in code? Well I’ve tested this code below and it seems to work.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <strings.h>

int main(void) {
  char buffer[10];
  char * end;
  FILE * temp = fopen("/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp","rt");
  int numread = fread(buffer,10,1,temp);
  fclose(temp);
  printf("Temp = %5.2fC\n",strtol(buffer,&end,10)/1000.0);
}

It reads the device as a string then converts to a long using strtol and divides that by 1000 then prints it. Output is something like:

Temp (C) = 34.88C

Now it just needs combined with the code to detect that it’s running on a Pi and you’re good.