BeagleBone Black can be described as low cost single board computer that can be plugged into a computer monitor or TV via a HDMI cable for output and uses standard keyboard and mouse for input. It's capable of doing everything you'd expect a desktop computer to do, like playing videos, word processing, browsing the Internet, and so on. You can even setup a web server on your BeagleBone Black just like you would do if you want to set up a webserver on a Linux or Windows PC.

But, differing from your desktop computer, the BeagleBone boards has the ability to interact with the physical world using the GPIO pins available on the board, and has been used in various physical computing applications. Starting from Internet of Things, Home Automation projects, to Robotics, or tweeting shark intrusion systems. The BeagleBone boards are being used by hardware makers around the world to build awesome physical computing systems which are turning into commercial products also in the market. OpenROV, an underwater robot being one good example of what someone can build using a BeagleBone Black that can turn into a successful commercial product.