You can't buy a Raspberry Pi right now(jeffgeerling.com)
jeffgeerling.com
You can't buy a Raspberry Pi right now
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/you-cant-buy-raspberry-pi-right-now
249 コメント
I think what makes it worse is the "No, piss off" attitude of their forum team when anyone asks for an update, followed by locking the thread.
In all fairness, a forum thread would collect a bunch of anecdata but is not an official way to request a sale.
If the Raspberri Pi foundation doesn't want to sell you their product, there's no way you can force them to sell you one. That there are no blog posts probably just means that some exec from Broadcom told Eben not to post anything.
If the Raspberri Pi foundation doesn't want to sell you their product, there's no way you can force them to sell you one. That there are no blog posts probably just means that some exec from Broadcom told Eben not to post anything.
what do you all expect from a company that markets as the most open platform that is full of closed firmware and NDAs?
Everything is a tradeoff. They get parts for cheap from certain manufacturers. Those have proprietary firmware that you and I can't have the source code to. Everything else is open source. For me, that's fine. It lets me buy them for much cheaper. You could probably design your own board and find completely open source hardware and software yourself, but I doubt if there's much profit in it. If you have a better path and can keep the board as cheap as it is then you should probably get in touch with their engineers.
What infuriates me is Ebon selling himself as some sort of hero, claiming that they're prioritizing things so that "people don't lose their jobs." How brave and noble of him, right?
If he stopped supplying OEMs, nobody would lose their jobs. The opposite, in fact. More engineering staff and contractors and consultants would get work because these companies would have to re-develop their products to use an in-house SBC or any of the hundreds of industrial SBCs out there.
Everyone else can't do that. Your average hobbyist can't just call up an industrial SBC company and buy. That was the whole point behind the Pi (well, the whole point was using up shitty SoCs that Broadcom hadn't been able to sell, but that's beside the point.)
What's really going on is that Ebon is prioritizing large OEMs who use Pis because they don't want to be bothered spending R&D to develop their own embedded system.
Meanwhile he's fucking over every small guy. All the retailers who have lost all that revenue and associated accessory sales? Fucked. What about their livelihoods? What about the logistics people they employed? They apparently can all get fucked.
All the non-profits (like libraries, hackerspaces, schools, etc) who may have secured budget and grant money for Pi-based programs that now cannot be spent? Fucked. rarely can money secured for purpose A be diverted to purpose B, and more often than not, you simply lose the funding entirely and you lose that amount of money from next year's budget, too.
How about the thousands of cottage industry small entrepreneurs making a living off Pi-based products they've developed? Fucked.
How about all the researchers, using Pis for data collection and controlling experiments? Fucked.
How about all the people who had home or business automation who need to replace a damaged or fried Pi? Fucked.
But thank god we're saving jobs at those large corporations who went with Pis because it was a cost-saving measure.
The Pi Foundation isn't even particularly competent. Every single Pi model has had problems, and the Pi 4 had basic, obvious-within-minutes-to-anyone-who-tried-to-use-it problems with power because the Pi foundation fucked up their USB-PD implementation.
Ebon says they're making 6M Pi's a year but it's months between any US supplier getting Pis, which means he's doing way more than "prioritizing OEMs."
If he stopped supplying OEMs, nobody would lose their jobs. The opposite, in fact. More engineering staff and contractors and consultants would get work because these companies would have to re-develop their products to use an in-house SBC or any of the hundreds of industrial SBCs out there.
Everyone else can't do that. Your average hobbyist can't just call up an industrial SBC company and buy. That was the whole point behind the Pi (well, the whole point was using up shitty SoCs that Broadcom hadn't been able to sell, but that's beside the point.)
What's really going on is that Ebon is prioritizing large OEMs who use Pis because they don't want to be bothered spending R&D to develop their own embedded system.
Meanwhile he's fucking over every small guy. All the retailers who have lost all that revenue and associated accessory sales? Fucked. What about their livelihoods? What about the logistics people they employed? They apparently can all get fucked.
All the non-profits (like libraries, hackerspaces, schools, etc) who may have secured budget and grant money for Pi-based programs that now cannot be spent? Fucked. rarely can money secured for purpose A be diverted to purpose B, and more often than not, you simply lose the funding entirely and you lose that amount of money from next year's budget, too.
How about the thousands of cottage industry small entrepreneurs making a living off Pi-based products they've developed? Fucked.
How about all the researchers, using Pis for data collection and controlling experiments? Fucked.
How about all the people who had home or business automation who need to replace a damaged or fried Pi? Fucked.
But thank god we're saving jobs at those large corporations who went with Pis because it was a cost-saving measure.
The Pi Foundation isn't even particularly competent. Every single Pi model has had problems, and the Pi 4 had basic, obvious-within-minutes-to-anyone-who-tried-to-use-it problems with power because the Pi foundation fucked up their USB-PD implementation.
Ebon says they're making 6M Pi's a year but it's months between any US supplier getting Pis, which means he's doing way more than "prioritizing OEMs."
To be fair, the RasPi folks are saying that if you email their sales department directly they do have some stock allocated to ship out to good causes. They are simply beholden to their OEM contracts for most of what is getting produced currently.
I doubt anyone foresaw that RasPi would be forced to ship less than 400k units across all their models monthly. The chip shortage is catching everyone by surprise, and we’re probably lucky RasPi is considered important enough to get a regular allocation of their BoM at all, given the low margins they’re operating on.
As I understand it, there are quite a few OEMs who have staff allocated to improving the Pi ecosystem as well, so it’s not like the educational and hobbyist markets gain nothing from their OEM engagements. RasPi has become the de-facto standard for the, “I need a cheap card that can run Linux in under 10 watts,” market in large part because of its robust support.
I doubt anyone foresaw that RasPi would be forced to ship less than 400k units across all their models monthly. The chip shortage is catching everyone by surprise, and we’re probably lucky RasPi is considered important enough to get a regular allocation of their BoM at all, given the low margins they’re operating on.
As I understand it, there are quite a few OEMs who have staff allocated to improving the Pi ecosystem as well, so it’s not like the educational and hobbyist markets gain nothing from their OEM engagements. RasPi has become the de-facto standard for the, “I need a cheap card that can run Linux in under 10 watts,” market in large part because of its robust support.
Sounds like he wants to keep the OEMs in business because they will keep him in business
>we should drop the ruse that this thing is an educational board.
rPi stopped feeling like educational material when they moved on from whatever low price they were at the beginning.
You are not going to convince me that a computer selling for $150~300 each or whatever it is nowadays is "for education". An educational computer is something like an Arduino board, which apparently sells for $25~50 currently from some quick checking.
If I'm dropping two or three Franklins on a computer, I'd rather just get an older Intel NUC or something so I can take advantage of the much larger and capable Windows and Linux ecosystems.
rPi stopped feeling like educational material when they moved on from whatever low price they were at the beginning.
You are not going to convince me that a computer selling for $150~300 each or whatever it is nowadays is "for education". An educational computer is something like an Arduino board, which apparently sells for $25~50 currently from some quick checking.
If I'm dropping two or three Franklins on a computer, I'd rather just get an older Intel NUC or something so I can take advantage of the much larger and capable Windows and Linux ecosystems.
The base price of the Pi has remained at $35, they just aren't possible to get. Regardless, the Pi Foundation / Pi Trading Company / whatever weird part of the Pi Empire actually sells them haven't raised the base price version-over-version.
If they aren't possible to get for that price, then that isn't actually the price.
sure, but it's like tickets at a concert. They sell most of them for $30. There's nothing they can do to prevent scalpers from buying them and jacking up the price 10x, but that doesn't make it the performer's fault you can only buy them for $300.
yes, it sucks, but the performers (and the Pi makers) did the best they could to offer them to folks at a cheap price.
yes, it sucks, but the performers (and the Pi makers) did the best they could to offer them to folks at a cheap price.
>There's nothing they can do to prevent scalpers from buying them and jacking up the price 10x
There is, actually. They can raise their price until supply equals demand
There is, actually. They can raise their price until supply equals demand
Then that is just giving in to capitalist excess. The only way I could see stopping it would be to stop OEM purchases and sell to individuals who sign up with real credentials (like a phone number or credit card that can be verified) and limiting the number of sales to those individuals and even that is only going to sort of work.
They can always let the middleman have the difference between the actual price and the MSRP, but then they might as well take it themselves if there is no difference for the end consumer anyway.
Equilibrium price is capitalist excess? Help me out here: if they can't meet market demand at 35/unit, doesn't raising the price mean they can make more units? Then, they are easier to find and so there is less unmet demand to support scalper prices at $150-300, ultimately making it cheaper for end users who don't 'get in' the first batch of orders?
Not everything is all about the laissez-faire market, if the seller wants to control who buys something. Luxury item companies and artisans do it all the time.
Can you elaborate? I'm not completely following. Are you saying RPi wants to sell cheaply to specific customers and prevent everyone else from getting their hands on the product, even at the cost of increased revenue and (probably) margins?
The goods will get sold at market price either way. The only question is whether that will happen formally, with the manufacturer profiting, or informally, with the profits going to flippers. In order to satisfy more buyers, they will have to increase their production quantity. The study of this & related phenomena is known as economics.
I think you're wrong. If the manufacturer requires ID to purchase then they absolutely can stop scalpers as it would be too expensive for the scalper to hire people to buy their limited number (say 3) of items per month/per year. Capitalism can be beaten into submission if you're willing to take the proper actions, if they're interested in the Pi's going to hobbyists and schools rather than to scalpers who buy hundreds of them and then resale them at 10x the price on eBay or other auction sites. I know libertarians don't like to hear that not everything is about money, but sometimes it is if the source truly wants to see the pi units get to the right people.
No. If they don't raise prices what is going to happen is that the difference between the sale price and the real price will end in the scalpers pockets, who will have an incentive to keep scalping.
Instead, if they raise prices the difference will end on the foundation pockets, and they could use that money to ramp up production.
What they are doing right now reeks of either corruption or stupidity.
Instead, if they raise prices the difference will end on the foundation pockets, and they could use that money to ramp up production.
What they are doing right now reeks of either corruption or stupidity.
Eh - I suppose with the music analogy it's more like the Pi folks chose to play arenas instead of festivals, and keep putting corporate box seat customers on the guest list ahead of GA attendees. I think there's some blame here, I just also think it's flat-out incorrect to claim that Pi prices have increased.
It's what they sell them for. The scalpers will do what scalpers do when demand outstrips supply. It's a hard problem to solve in this day of automated everything. If you have a solution for them to keep scalpers from gouging then I think you should get in touch with the RPi foundation and help them solve the problem.
Supporting OEMs is definitely the right choice. I even shifted a project away from the pi for now because of the shortage, and there are alternatives, but if I had already invested in product that depended on them and couldn’t order them, it would be a much bigger loss. Even from a hobbyist point of view, I’d feel more confident using them knowing that OEMs get priority shipments.
Second that opinion I think OEMs provide so much value to the Foundation that goes to the hobbyists in the end that I cannot be angry that I cannot buy a Pi just because I want.
I'd rather have a hard time finding a pi then have them go out of business.
Basically if this is survival mode during the chip shortage, I hope they can do everything possible to make it through this in good shape.
Also I have enough pi's for my needs already, I'd love to build a cluster but IMO cluster projects should be of the lowest priority customers.
Basically if this is survival mode during the chip shortage, I hope they can do everything possible to make it through this in good shape.
Also I have enough pi's for my needs already, I'd love to build a cluster but IMO cluster projects should be of the lowest priority customers.
For learning purposes, you don't really need that many Raspberry Pis to get started. I recently slapped together a cluster with 3 pi and figure I'll add more overtime as I need/desire them.
I do agree, though, that cluster projects should have a low priority!
I do agree, though, that cluster projects should have a low priority!
i disagree, the rpi is not just a hobbyist tool, it's a learning tool and something for folks creating on the low-end or implementing custom solutions to use.
For a major vendor (someone linked some korg devices below) to loot this market is no better than the auto vendors who are buying washing machines simply to pull out microcontrollers, or cryptominers destroying the GPU market.
Major vendors can hire fabs to push out their own designs. The RPi is a licensed implementation of ARM, it isn't an industrial platform, from a supply chain point of view, clearly.
Everyone who is shipping a product based on RPi is doing so because they were able to get cheap individual samples to build on. Now that's not possible for new folks.
RPi was designed as an affordable learning computer, now there is not an affordable learning computer available to anyone who can't buy 10,000 parts or whatever.
For a major vendor (someone linked some korg devices below) to loot this market is no better than the auto vendors who are buying washing machines simply to pull out microcontrollers, or cryptominers destroying the GPU market.
Major vendors can hire fabs to push out their own designs. The RPi is a licensed implementation of ARM, it isn't an industrial platform, from a supply chain point of view, clearly.
Everyone who is shipping a product based on RPi is doing so because they were able to get cheap individual samples to build on. Now that's not possible for new folks.
RPi was designed as an affordable learning computer, now there is not an affordable learning computer available to anyone who can't buy 10,000 parts or whatever.
I get the impression right now they're stuck at "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
If you view the current supply shortage is a temporary issue (as much as it doesn't feel very temporary right now), then not being able to provide stock to "us" is also a temporary issue. But failing their OEMs is a long-term issue - if not a permanent one. If Sharp's commercial display business takes a hit because they bought into the rpi ecosystem, and it bit them in the ass - they will not be back (See also: Apple vs nvidia). You seem to take the view that the OEMs deserve it for taking "our boards" - but rpi still take the hit when partners leave them. (and OEMs are a snowball effect: being able to point to examples like Sharp helps them win the next OEM - and I'm pretty sure that if they start publicly losing partners, the loss would only encourage the next loss).
For the rest of us - there's not many great contenders. I'm surprised at this - traditionally pi-alternatives have struggled from the lack of community. If someone else has a way around the supply shortages, this would seem like the best time to get in there and steal that community. But so far they haven't, so there's the best chance we're just going to sit here and wait for the return of the pi.
It's not ideal, it's not fair, life's a bitch. I am annoyed that it impacts me, but I can't begrudge rpi for taking the most sensible option.
If you view the current supply shortage is a temporary issue (as much as it doesn't feel very temporary right now), then not being able to provide stock to "us" is also a temporary issue. But failing their OEMs is a long-term issue - if not a permanent one. If Sharp's commercial display business takes a hit because they bought into the rpi ecosystem, and it bit them in the ass - they will not be back (See also: Apple vs nvidia). You seem to take the view that the OEMs deserve it for taking "our boards" - but rpi still take the hit when partners leave them. (and OEMs are a snowball effect: being able to point to examples like Sharp helps them win the next OEM - and I'm pretty sure that if they start publicly losing partners, the loss would only encourage the next loss).
For the rest of us - there's not many great contenders. I'm surprised at this - traditionally pi-alternatives have struggled from the lack of community. If someone else has a way around the supply shortages, this would seem like the best time to get in there and steal that community. But so far they haven't, so there's the best chance we're just going to sit here and wait for the return of the pi.
It's not ideal, it's not fair, life's a bitch. I am annoyed that it impacts me, but I can't begrudge rpi for taking the most sensible option.
> They are still prioritizing OEM customers (who have built their products around the Pi)
I think of the magazine, MagPi. An OEM customer? Indirectly. How can you sustain a hobbyist magazine on the Raspberry Pi when the hobbyist cannot get a Pi for less than $100?
I think of the magazine, MagPi. An OEM customer? Indirectly. How can you sustain a hobbyist magazine on the Raspberry Pi when the hobbyist cannot get a Pi for less than $100?
What are some of the alternatives you've been using, near the same price point and capability?
Banana Pi, ODroid, Beaglebone black, even an Intel NUC. Depends on your constraints, those won’t do to replace a zero or pico
MangoPi MQ-Quad [1] looks like a good option for Zero form factor.
1: https://www.hackster.io/news/mango-pi-launches-allwinner-h616-based-mq-quad-single-board-computer-mcore-h616-som-87343b7936afhttps://www.friendlyelec.com/
Damned, I like their boards/schematics/wiki. Single-page wiki entries with /most/ of the info I want (connector=FOO, voltage=BAR, power converter=BAZ (oh, so it's claimed 12V, but commenfary says 9-14V is definitely in the range and the chip manufacturer for the power regulator (like on my NanoPC-T4) says I'll be safe with 5.5-28V).
Cool.
Their boards do have some problems (none that have bothered me for long - look at the schematics and realize that that port is easy to over-tax so swap the cables and life is good), the different software distro's (Ubuntu this, Ubuntu that, Buildroot, Android Xx an Yy) are nice as examples when I'm replacing it with my own.
Damned, I like their boards/schematics/wiki. Single-page wiki entries with /most/ of the info I want (connector=FOO, voltage=BAR, power converter=BAZ (oh, so it's claimed 12V, but commenfary says 9-14V is definitely in the range and the chip manufacturer for the power regulator (like on my NanoPC-T4) says I'll be safe with 5.5-28V).
Cool.
Their boards do have some problems (none that have bothered me for long - look at the schematics and realize that that port is easy to over-tax so swap the cables and life is good), the different software distro's (Ubuntu this, Ubuntu that, Buildroot, Android Xx an Yy) are nice as examples when I'm replacing it with my own.
Battery-backup RTC, too.
For my project, I could get most of the functionality I needed from an Arduino board by attaching some additional modules, but for more powerful SBCs, I’ve been impressed by Olimex products, although they may have limited quantities available.
Jeff is always a raspberry foundation supporter. I do feel a bit more pushback is needed. The other companies he mentions like Apple and Nvidia have shown considerable improvement in recent months. The raspberry is only ever harder to get.
I have a feeling Broadcom is the main problem here, they probably prioritize other customers. Which is surprising in some ways because a lot of raspberry pi foundation members are ex-broadcom or still even work there.
However I guess the other companies are willing to offer more whereas if the pi became more expensive there would be a lot of uproar (and rightly so because it defeats the purpose)
I have a feeling Broadcom is the main problem here, they probably prioritize other customers. Which is surprising in some ways because a lot of raspberry pi foundation members are ex-broadcom or still even work there.
However I guess the other companies are willing to offer more whereas if the pi became more expensive there would be a lot of uproar (and rightly so because it defeats the purpose)
It's probably a price issue...
You need a laptop/expensive graphics card, you needed it back them when you started on a "waitlist" (official or your own), and after them becoming available, you buy one laptop/card, and you're done.
With raspberrypis, everyone doing anything with them outside of purely first time hobbyists, will order 5, 10, 50, however much they can get, because the waiting is killing the business. When rpi zero w 2 came out, it was hard to get, but the moment I could get one, I bought 3 pieces, even though i needed only one at the moment, but I knew, if I needed more, I wouldn't be able to get them for months again.
You need a laptop/expensive graphics card, you needed it back them when you started on a "waitlist" (official or your own), and after them becoming available, you buy one laptop/card, and you're done.
With raspberrypis, everyone doing anything with them outside of purely first time hobbyists, will order 5, 10, 50, however much they can get, because the waiting is killing the business. When rpi zero w 2 came out, it was hard to get, but the moment I could get one, I bought 3 pieces, even though i needed only one at the moment, but I knew, if I needed more, I wouldn't be able to get them for months again.
I wonder what Broadcom's endgame is. They appear to be selling the SoC very cheap to the foundation. I thought maybe this is to encourage other customers to buy that same SoC at a higher price but it appears they don't sell it. If there's no path for Broadcom to make reasonable margins then of course they have no incentive to increase production.
The pi foundation was started by a group of Broadcom engineers. If not for that connection, Broadcom would likely have never given them the time of day - they are notoriously bad to deal with if you are a small company.
It's possible they see this as some sort of marketing, but I don't think they are using it to drive a sales funnel of low-volume customers.
It's possible they see this as some sort of marketing, but I don't think they are using it to drive a sales funnel of low-volume customers.
The first Pi was based off a failed set-top streaming box SoC that Broadcom didn't know what to do with.
The original goal (remember that?) was to make it a cheap educational Linux system. And it was a nice idea. The cheap sticker price got it noticed compared to the other more expensive (but better supported) ARM single-board computers. And here we are.
I sure as heck don't know what Broadcom's endgame is here either, because like you say they don't even answer your call if you're <100K EAU. So unlike other EVKs that can be used to rip apart and spin into real projects, you're stuck with RPi as a standalone unit.
The chip shortage is hurting everyone, but at least with other SoCs you can find them from multiple sources eventually. Or use a broker if you're desparate.
The original goal (remember that?) was to make it a cheap educational Linux system. And it was a nice idea. The cheap sticker price got it noticed compared to the other more expensive (but better supported) ARM single-board computers. And here we are.
I sure as heck don't know what Broadcom's endgame is here either, because like you say they don't even answer your call if you're <100K EAU. So unlike other EVKs that can be used to rip apart and spin into real projects, you're stuck with RPi as a standalone unit.
The chip shortage is hurting everyone, but at least with other SoCs you can find them from multiple sources eventually. Or use a broker if you're desparate.
Yup, Raspberry Pi kind of sucked the oxygen out of the Beaglebone ecosystem. Speedier and cheaper. The Beaglebone has a lot of features that hardcore embedded engineers want (real-time support, eMMC, tons of IO, good platform documentation), but the Raspberry Pi really appealed to the maker crowd. I guess the $25 price difference made a big difference? I never really understood it.
I was a big Beaglebone Black supporter, but figured the winds were blowing towards the Raspberry Pi, so just started using that instead. Now I'm here with the need for several mini Linux boxes and instead I have nothing. Beaglebone Black feels outdated. Raspberry Pi is unobtainium. Unfortunate where the random walk leads.
I was a big Beaglebone Black supporter, but figured the winds were blowing towards the Raspberry Pi, so just started using that instead. Now I'm here with the need for several mini Linux boxes and instead I have nothing. Beaglebone Black feels outdated. Raspberry Pi is unobtainium. Unfortunate where the random walk leads.
In a world where TI had been able to get a foothold with hobbyists on the beaglebone, the world might be very different. TI doesn't hate small-volume sales like Broadcom.
The hobbyist market has weirdly strong network effects: we saw this with Arduino, too, which was a lot more expensive than its competitors! I assume there is a measure of influencer marketing here that old-guard tech companies didn't grasp.
10 years ago, the beagleboard was a game changer, though. They are still making beaglebones and beagleboards, both of which are cool, but they are last-generation computers with lots of useful embedded SoC features, while the Pi is a computer first.
The hobbyist market has weirdly strong network effects: we saw this with Arduino, too, which was a lot more expensive than its competitors! I assume there is a measure of influencer marketing here that old-guard tech companies didn't grasp.
10 years ago, the beagleboard was a game changer, though. They are still making beaglebones and beagleboards, both of which are cool, but they are last-generation computers with lots of useful embedded SoC features, while the Pi is a computer first.
Yeah, TI always seemed nice to hobbyists. I think the RPi foundation was just better organized. Beaglebone always felt very scrappy. RPi feels like they have full time employees around to do all the running-the-org stuff. Well run org + OK project > OK org + great project, I suppose.
From my POV the companies were happy to see people experiment with their designs and SoCs but they just didn't have the resources to put the necessary amount of customer support forward.
In my many argumen^H^H^Hdiscussions with RPi users here and elsewhere, the counter-argument for Pi has always been the community support is excellent. And, yes, it is. When you aren't large enough to get a TI or NXP FAE to answer your email then having a robust community is great. But it was built ground-up from all the RPi fans having the object in their hands and little else to do with it.
When TI dropped OMAP I left for Freescale, now NXP. I've been developing on i.MX for well over a decade now and have really enjoyed it. Their foothold in automotive has allowed them to keep growing the line and branching it out in different ways, more so than TI or Broadcom will.
In my many argumen^H^H^Hdiscussions with RPi users here and elsewhere, the counter-argument for Pi has always been the community support is excellent. And, yes, it is. When you aren't large enough to get a TI or NXP FAE to answer your email then having a robust community is great. But it was built ground-up from all the RPi fans having the object in their hands and little else to do with it.
When TI dropped OMAP I left for Freescale, now NXP. I've been developing on i.MX for well over a decade now and have really enjoyed it. Their foothold in automotive has allowed them to keep growing the line and branching it out in different ways, more so than TI or Broadcom will.
NXP does seem to be the next good vendor of ARM SoCs (i.MX and QorIQ are both pretty impressive lines).
The idea of "community support" is kind of interesting - it clearly had an effect here, but I'm not so sure how they got it. I guess the foundation just made it very easy for people to talk to each other about RPi projects, while TI put you on some forum in a dark corner of their website.
The idea of "community support" is kind of interesting - it clearly had an effect here, but I'm not so sure how they got it. I guess the foundation just made it very easy for people to talk to each other about RPi projects, while TI put you on some forum in a dark corner of their website.
NXP has been doing solid work with ARM for almost 20 years now. Their LPC line, which they had before the Moto/Freescale acquisition, is a solid workhorse set of SoCs. I've done many projects with the LPC17xx (Cortex-M3) family and they all come out pretty great.
And I believe you're right about the community support. The RPi groups have been run by actual owners and enthusiasts, whereas the factory support forums in my experience have been minimally maintained with almost no interaction from anyone at the actual companies.
And I believe you're right about the community support. The RPi groups have been run by actual owners and enthusiasts, whereas the factory support forums in my experience have been minimally maintained with almost no interaction from anyone at the actual companies.
QorIQ is seriously impressive, except for the enclosures for the official dev kits. Pop the lid and toss it in the bin - it will be much quieter.
> TI doesn't hate small-volume sales like Broadcom.
I didn't like the way TI exited the Android world; I'm glad the beagleboard lost. However, my ideal is for both TI and Broadcom to lose.
I didn't like the way TI exited the Android world; I'm glad the beagleboard lost. However, my ideal is for both TI and Broadcom to lose.
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if broadcom were supplying at below cost as a marketing expenditure it would explain a bunch of things such as why raspberry pi doesn't allow bulk sales but would give them away with magazines
It doesn't, but the foundation does make a loss on the zero as far as I remember (remember reading somewhere..) which is why they never lifted the "one per order" restriction. It's very annoying because I give trainings sometimes and it would be nice to give each participant one.
they are notoriously bad to deal with if you a large, small, medium, government or anything....
Which is why i soooo excited they bought VMWare.
Which is why i soooo excited they bought VMWare.
It's too bad they can't buy Microsoft and Apple.
This is a key question that needs more daylight/exposure. I guess Pico is their first hedge, perhaps there will be more.
Relying on Raspberry Pi as a business means relying on the goodwill of Broadcom - which is a severely broken company.
Relying on Raspberry Pi as a business means relying on the goodwill of Broadcom - which is a severely broken company.
> The other companies he mentions like Apple and Nvidia have shown considerable improvement in recent months.
Well, Nvidia and AMD GPUs have only shown improvement because the writing was on the wall that Ethereum was going PoS and the downturn in worldwide economies made the rest of the shitcoins unprofitable.
Well, Nvidia and AMD GPUs have only shown improvement because the writing was on the wall that Ethereum was going PoS and the downturn in worldwide economies made the rest of the shitcoins unprofitable.
My lack of imagination lacks the imagination to address this:
> They are still prioritizing OEM customers (who have built their products around the Pi)
OEMs use RPis? What are they using it for, does anyone know, got any examples? I've always assumed RPis to be a hobbyist tool. All the blog posts, documentation, examples I encounter are around the hobbyist's mindset. I've not encountered any "business" oriented documentation or examples or blogs.
Edit: Everyone, thanks for the examples. I'm going through each one. It's like a whole new world opened to me.
> They are still prioritizing OEM customers (who have built their products around the Pi)
OEMs use RPis? What are they using it for, does anyone know, got any examples? I've always assumed RPis to be a hobbyist tool. All the blog posts, documentation, examples I encounter are around the hobbyist's mindset. I've not encountered any "business" oriented documentation or examples or blogs.
Edit: Everyone, thanks for the examples. I'm going through each one. It's like a whole new world opened to me.
For the market that I've seen, don't think "OEMs making products for the consumer market", rather "OEMs making solutions for the business market." RasPIs are huge in industrial automation for example. Sure, you likely won't find them at the Ford Motor Companies of the world, but at Tony's Midwest Hotel Supplying Baking Company? Absolutely, all over the place. Put together by crafty integrators at the lowest possible cost.
I've written software for Pi based setups that measure something and are deployed in a few factories across the world.
Wouldn't use them for something mission critical but for statistics where you don't mind missing a few minutes like in this case they're ok.
Also I'm using a Pi to do some tests for a project that will run on custom hardware (not even Broadcom) eventually. Saves time when you don't have to deal with Yocto and editing dts files just to talk to something on spi and see if it can do your job.
Wouldn't use them for something mission critical but for statistics where you don't mind missing a few minutes like in this case they're ok.
Also I'm using a Pi to do some tests for a project that will run on custom hardware (not even Broadcom) eventually. Saves time when you don't have to deal with Yocto and editing dts files just to talk to something on spi and see if it can do your job.
It's not always lowest possible cost for hardware, there are cheaper SBCs ;)
(edit for clarity)
(edit for clarity)
Right. But these come with all the paperwork and compatibility required for "serious" automation. Yes, then there are also cheaper industrial controllers, but they are probably much harder to use (if nothing else because the RPI's mind share is higher in some circles). This puts the Raspberry Pi in a pretty good spot for a lot of people.
Perhaps when you factor in development/engineering time. The machine is only a part of the cost of an automation project.
This is exactly it.
I work at a company that has used raspi's in hardware.
There are cheaper alternatives, but there are not better supported alternatives. The most expensive rPi is a rounding error in terms of engineering time. Why bother saving ~$30 if you have to spend $1k worth of engineering time to diagnose a compatibility issue on some less well documented board.
There are cheaper alternatives, but there are not better supported alternatives. The most expensive rPi is a rounding error in terms of engineering time. Why bother saving ~$30 if you have to spend $1k worth of engineering time to diagnose a compatibility issue on some less well documented board.
I’m super curious, how do you solve for the issue where SD cards wear out in raspis reasonably quickly?
There's eMMC and SATA, even NVMe via PCI bus (with addons) as well as sd cards (hell even boot from usb now too).
You can also reduce your write wear with putting stuff like temporal logs in ram etc.
You can also reduce your write wear with putting stuff like temporal logs in ram etc.
I looked into this for an industrial monitoring project. Its possible to configure the SD card as read only but kind of a pain to not be able to change anything.
This is purely dependent on what SD card you are using. If you use a random cheap SanDisk off of amazon it will probably corrupt and fail eventually. A SLC or pSLC industrial card has better ECC, write longevity and power recovery than a commodity card.
> The most expensive rPi is a rounding error in terms of engineering time.
* depending on volume.
For a couple hundred/thousand devices doing industrial automation yes. For a million and up, it makes sense to pay an engineer 3 months to reduce the BOM by 10 cents.
* depending on volume.
For a couple hundred/thousand devices doing industrial automation yes. For a million and up, it makes sense to pay an engineer 3 months to reduce the BOM by 10 cents.
Totally true.
Our volume would be well below 1 million at market saturation. More important for us to be able to iterate and customize.
Our volume would be well below 1 million at market saturation. More important for us to be able to iterate and customize.
"Support." Wake me up when one of the Rpi boards starts supporting basics like suspend to RAM.
Is that needed a lot in industrial apps?
Yes; not needing a full time Linux kernel developer and electrical engineer debugging your hardware and drivers because the SoC you're using was abandoned by the vendor 2 years after release is a big benefit.
Sorry Jeff, I mean Suspend to RAM :)
This is a drag on anything battery powered, yes.
Here are two
https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/wavestate/
https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/opsix/
Although that's with the CM3
https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/wavestate/
https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/opsix/
Although that's with the CM3
the modwave too.
> OEMs use RPis?
Yes. As an example, we use RPi in MusicBox[0], together with HifiBerry[1] sound card, as a music player appliance.
In fact, you can still buy (well, you could, if you could buy any) RPi 1's, since OEMs tend to standardize and stick to a platform. Our base platform is 1B+, for example.
[0] https://musicbox.com.hr/ (Croatian only, sorry, it's for the local market)
[1] https://www.hifiberry.com/
Yes. As an example, we use RPi in MusicBox[0], together with HifiBerry[1] sound card, as a music player appliance.
In fact, you can still buy (well, you could, if you could buy any) RPi 1's, since OEMs tend to standardize and stick to a platform. Our base platform is 1B+, for example.
[0] https://musicbox.com.hr/ (Croatian only, sorry, it's for the local market)
[1] https://www.hifiberry.com/
> OEMs use RPis?
It is used in a lot of products, specially legacy products that have been given a “facelift” to switch from buttons + screen to touchscreen.
I’ve been always against it when it comes to the non-CM versions.
The foundation receives donations, both private and public, and works as a non-profit with the original goal of giving every kid a computer, and now more broadly to teach through their platform. Having private companies leeching off it for me is very much scummy behavior.
A company I worked for used the 2B, 3B and 3B+ in a bunch of products. My complaints were dutifully archived in the trash.
It is used in a lot of products, specially legacy products that have been given a “facelift” to switch from buttons + screen to touchscreen.
I’ve been always against it when it comes to the non-CM versions.
The foundation receives donations, both private and public, and works as a non-profit with the original goal of giving every kid a computer, and now more broadly to teach through their platform. Having private companies leeching off it for me is very much scummy behavior.
A company I worked for used the 2B, 3B and 3B+ in a bunch of products. My complaints were dutifully archived in the trash.
>Having private companies leeching off it for me is very much scummy behavior.
The private companies are funding the foundation. It’s hard to call it leeching when the pi is a comparatively expensive board compared to alternatives
The private companies are funding the foundation. It’s hard to call it leeching when the pi is a comparatively expensive board compared to alternatives
> The private companies are funding the foundation.
Except that if you look at their financials, it’s clear that they make very little on them. The sales of Rpis are not how they keep going, it’s all the other activities around it.
> It’s hard to call it leeching when the pi is a comparatively expensive board compared to alternatives
It’s not only about COGs, support is a big ticket in this area, and one that most manufacturers are way behind. Also, yes, there are some cheaper SBCs, but most of them are sold at “ask us for price”, and they aren’t any cheaper, especially at low volumes.
Except that if you look at their financials, it’s clear that they make very little on them. The sales of Rpis are not how they keep going, it’s all the other activities around it.
> It’s hard to call it leeching when the pi is a comparatively expensive board compared to alternatives
It’s not only about COGs, support is a big ticket in this area, and one that most manufacturers are way behind. Also, yes, there are some cheaper SBCs, but most of them are sold at “ask us for price”, and they aren’t any cheaper, especially at low volumes.
> Except that if you look at their financials, it’s clear that they make very little on them.
As opposed to losing money, which is what happens with consumer sales with at least one model, hence limiting to one per customer
As opposed to losing money, which is what happens with consumer sales with at least one model, hence limiting to one per customer
I don't get your argument, something tells me we are talking past each other..
If you are using a model from Raspberry from which they have a margin (essentially all the things on the Compute Module line), that's fine by me, it's great that the foundation can use that as an income stream.
I feel very differently when you use models that are obviously sold at a loss to pad the margins on your product.
If you are using a model from Raspberry from which they have a margin (essentially all the things on the Compute Module line), that's fine by me, it's great that the foundation can use that as an income stream.
I feel very differently when you use models that are obviously sold at a loss to pad the margins on your product.
> OEMs use RPis? What are they using it for, does anyone know, got any examples?
Korg released a few new digital synthesizers in the past couple of years: Opsix, Wavestate, and Modwave. They are all running Raspberry Pis inside.
Korg released a few new digital synthesizers in the past couple of years: Opsix, Wavestate, and Modwave. They are all running Raspberry Pis inside.
I understand, but why?
Texas Instruments has a big catalog of cheap and DSP-capable chips.
Texas Instruments has a big catalog of cheap and DSP-capable chips.
For astrophotography ZWO has a custom distro for pi and extra hardware for custom, wireless control of an astrophotography setup, telescope, tripod, camera and all.
https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asiair-plus
https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asiair-plus
The compute module is specially made for companies to integrate into products. Around the time they introduced the first compute module years ago they split Raspberry Pi into a formal company (with CEO etc) and a non profit charity/foundation. You've seen a lot of what the foundation has done but there's also a profit seeking company behind Raspberry Pi too.
I believe companies use them in tools like air quality monitors, time lapse cameras in construction and other small batch boutique hardware.
I believe most of them don't advertise the fact they use Raspberry Pis as it might cheapen their offering in the eyes of customers
I believe most of them don't advertise the fact they use Raspberry Pis as it might cheapen their offering in the eyes of customers
Not sure if this counts, but Gardyn[1] uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W in their second-gen system. (Can't speak to the first-gen.)
They leave an SSH port open (found with nmap) and I've asked support if I can have the password, but they won't give it to me. >:(
My system is now currently powered down. I think it'd be cool if someone were to reverse engineer it and write their own FOSS firmware for the system. Shouldn't be too hard, right?
[1]: https://mygardyn.com/
They leave an SSH port open (found with nmap) and I've asked support if I can have the password, but they won't give it to me. >:(
My system is now currently powered down. I think it'd be cool if someone were to reverse engineer it and write their own FOSS firmware for the system. Shouldn't be too hard, right?
[1]: https://mygardyn.com/
> uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W in their second-gen system
(assuming it's a standard version and you haven't already)
Couldn't you just grab the SD card out of it and inspect the file system, then try to get the password through that? You'd have to spend some time bruteforcing it most likely, but it should eventually (tbh, seeing solutions like this I'd expect quickly) give you the password.
(assuming it's a standard version and you haven't already)
Couldn't you just grab the SD card out of it and inspect the file system, then try to get the password through that? You'd have to spend some time bruteforcing it most likely, but it should eventually (tbh, seeing solutions like this I'd expect quickly) give you the password.
Wow! What a great idea! I definitely would never do that because it'd violate their TOS. Don't ask me how I know that it's a Zero W in the first place because opening the thing up is a big no-no. Yup. Would never do such a thing… Never ever… No way… Nu-uh… Nope nope nope the land of ten thousand nopes…
When first reading this it sounded really strange. Buying a device and TOS don't really fit.
Checking the website it seems to be a kind of PaaS, plant as a service. Am I reading that website correctly? They are offering remotely-managed plants for rent?
Checking the website it seems to be a kind of PaaS, plant as a service. Am I reading that website correctly? They are offering remotely-managed plants for rent?
Can you provide a review of their product? Is it any good? What do you actually get out of it?
It's certainly easy to use. I got it at a steep discount, so that was nice. Otherwise, I'd consider it to be rather expensive. It puts out a ton of light, which can be very nice in the right room. (We liked it.) The app sucks, and the subscription is very expensive for getting more plants than you'll be able to use. (I don't have a subscription.)
There's some CAD models for various parts; I'd rather 3D print some of the e.g. rockwool baskets and caps rather than buy from the company. If you get one, make sure you stay on top of root maintenance. You could also certainly find the plant food for cheaper.
It can produce a ton of lettuce if that's what you want to grow. We liked trying different greens. I grew some nice jalapenos as well. Can't recommend much other big fruiting plants though—they're trickier to take care of.
There's some CAD models for various parts; I'd rather 3D print some of the e.g. rockwool baskets and caps rather than buy from the company. If you get one, make sure you stay on top of root maintenance. You could also certainly find the plant food for cheaper.
It can produce a ton of lettuce if that's what you want to grow. We liked trying different greens. I grew some nice jalapenos as well. Can't recommend much other big fruiting plants though—they're trickier to take care of.
Massive user base, great documentation, they're supported for 10 years, Have industrial cases and a plethora of accessories (not cheap, some of them), easy to swap compute units.
I have a MarineTraffic antenna at home, and it uses a Comar AIS receiver. The first one I got was a purpose-built device, but they later sent me an "upgraded" version from this series: https://comarsystems.com/product-tag/intelligent/
I opened it up and I can confirm it has a Rpi inside.
I opened it up and I can confirm it has a Rpi inside.
It's not the biggest OEM marketplace by a longshot (more of a boutique marketplace), but there are a few modules for modular synthesizers that use RPi's inside. The two I can think off off the top of my head: Sleepy Circuits Hypno and Erogenous Tones Structure, both video synthesis modules.
A project I led shipped a system based on multiple RPi's used basically as web kiosks to drive large TV's monitors. We also built another Pi-based system used for monitoring equipment remotely, but I wasn't part of that effort.
I've come across a commercial HVAC system (like the big units on top of office buildings) based on the RPi Compute Module. Actually seen that from two different companies.
There was a subreddit that's now subsumed into /r/Raspberry_pi that was all about sightings of Pi's used in commercial products like airport displays, billboards, kiosks, etc.
I've come across a commercial HVAC system (like the big units on top of office buildings) based on the RPi Compute Module. Actually seen that from two different companies.
There was a subreddit that's now subsumed into /r/Raspberry_pi that was all about sightings of Pi's used in commercial products like airport displays, billboards, kiosks, etc.
Some TVs user RPis:
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/tv-thats-not-necs-pi-...
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/tv-thats-not-necs-pi-...
Probably should look into what TVs were using Pis a couple years ago, buy them refurb/2nd-hand and resell the Pis at profit.
Huh. Wished I had known about that. I built a system for a customer that used RPi 4 to drive a few large TV's in this size class.
ISTR that Wyse Technology (fond memories of their WY-60 terminals) made thin clients out of Raspberry Pis.
Stratodesk makes them now:
https://www.stratodesk.com/solutions/raspberry-pi-thin-clien...
How Good is the new Raspberry Pi 4 as a Thin Client? (2019)
https://www.stratodesk.com/how-good-is-the-new-raspberry-pi-...
Stratodesk makes them now:
https://www.stratodesk.com/solutions/raspberry-pi-thin-clien...
How Good is the new Raspberry Pi 4 as a Thin Client? (2019)
https://www.stratodesk.com/how-good-is-the-new-raspberry-pi-...
Industrial automation is one use case: https://revolutionpi.com/
Soma Shades used to have a "Soma Connect" device whose sole purpose in the world was to communicate with their shade controllers via Bluetooth and make them controllable over WiFi or ethernet. Just checking their website just now, it is now a strictly bring-your-own Pi arrangement, presumably because they can't get them, either.
We use a CM3 in our Blackboard Classic control surface:
https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/control/range_cn/index...
https://www.filmlight.ltd.uk/products/control/range_cn/index...
I could see it being folded into custom IoT / home automation setups where a relatively low-power controller is used just to coordinate signals across a network. Or how they are often used as dashboard-machines for home infra like solar panel setups.
Many go into service as Home Assistant servers (and Nabu Casa is even making their own product for this purpose, the Home Assistant Yellow: https://www.crowdsupply.com/nabu-casa/home-assistant-yellow).
There are also hundreds of boards that work with the CM4 to build different types of systems or integrate into automation, industrial gear, and commercial products—this is a tiny listing that doesn't even cover stuff that uses the Pi 4 or older Pi models: https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/boards_cm
There are also hundreds of boards that work with the CM4 to build different types of systems or integrate into automation, industrial gear, and commercial products—this is a tiny listing that doesn't even cover stuff that uses the Pi 4 or older Pi models: https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/boards_cm
[deleted]
Futurehome did use Pi's inside their hub, but may have moved to a custom board with the latest version
https://futurehome.io
https://futurehome.io
Look like you can get one inside of a DevTerm:
https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/devterm-kit-cm4-ser...
https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/devterm-kit-cm4-ser...
[deleted]
I know for sure that anti-icing system of thr Crimean Bridge is running on raspberry pi, for example.
Smart lockers, for one. Though we’re getting rid of the Pi ASAP in part due to these supply issues.
I think this is referring to OEMs like ClockworkPi, Pi-Top, and Kano.
Analog Devices uses it to build osciloscopes or clock generators.
Any suggestions for a generic cheap but good ITX running Linux from a vendor I could use for a small home server? I have two System76 Meerkats which I love (one for personal, one for work) but I don't want to fork out that much money for a home server to host things like PiHole and VaultWarden. I looked around last month for a RPi but as this article says they aren't to be found.
If you're OK with something that is like a 30W electrical load, you can do basic things a lot cheaper by buying a used ex-corporate "SFF" or "USFF" Dell or HP x86-64 desktop PC for under a hundred bucks on ebay. They fit in a quite small space under a desk or similar.
Will almost certainly cost a lot less than buying a new mini-itx motherboard and compatible case, power supply, ram, etc.
randomly chosen example in 20 seconds of searching, figure that the shipping cost is actually $25 of the price here, built into the final buy it now price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/204098861051?hash=item2f853d77fb:g:...
Will almost certainly cost a lot less than buying a new mini-itx motherboard and compatible case, power supply, ram, etc.
randomly chosen example in 20 seconds of searching, figure that the shipping cost is actually $25 of the price here, built into the final buy it now price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/204098861051?hash=item2f853d77fb:g:...
Beware power supply issues with Dell SFF PCs - an issue Dell has had for 10-15 years, if not longer.
It's also worth looking around your local area for auction houses selling old hardware, a lot of ex-gov and ex-enterprise hardware gets sold off at these places for pocket change.
Universities too. We have a surplus outlet for stuff like this.
EDIT: see at the bottom for x86 SBCs
Not ITX, but since you're responding an RPi thread, you may possibly be interested in Hardkernel's products, which have always been very competitive with RPis - in my opinion, simply better than them, although less popular.
Currently, they offer the C4 (https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-c4), and the blazing fast N2+ (https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-4gbyte-ram-2).
The N2+ not only ships the A73 (the successory to the RPi's A72), but it also runs it at high frequency.
I am actually a big fan of the H2(+), but sadly, went out of production (it's an x86, whose form factor I absolutely recommend).
EDIT: There actually are x86 SBCs. Two random picks:
- https://www.axiomtek.com/Default.aspx?MenuId=Products&Functi...
- https://www.seeedstudio.com/ODYSSEY-X86J4125800-p-4915.html
Not ITX, but since you're responding an RPi thread, you may possibly be interested in Hardkernel's products, which have always been very competitive with RPis - in my opinion, simply better than them, although less popular.
Currently, they offer the C4 (https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-c4), and the blazing fast N2+ (https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-n2-with-4gbyte-ram-2).
The N2+ not only ships the A73 (the successory to the RPi's A72), but it also runs it at high frequency.
I am actually a big fan of the H2(+), but sadly, went out of production (it's an x86, whose form factor I absolutely recommend).
EDIT: There actually are x86 SBCs. Two random picks:
- https://www.axiomtek.com/Default.aspx?MenuId=Products&Functi...
- https://www.seeedstudio.com/ODYSSEY-X86J4125800-p-4915.html
I've been using these for probably over ten years now for a home router, they've been solid and haven't had any problems at all:
https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm
https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm
These are really great as a router/firewall. Multiple Ethernet ports, a low power (fanless) x86-64, battery backup for RTC (which is missing from a lot of SBCs), good connectivity for storage and wifi modules.
I do wish it had video out as that would simplify setup & diagnostics for me, but the serial console is fine.
I do wish it had video out as that would simplify setup & diagnostics for me, but the serial console is fine.
Their EOL policy says the APU 2/3 should be available through 2024. However, it is their newest model. I wonder if a replacement is in the works.
For my home server I went with a Lenovo Tiny after watching the project TinyMiniMicro on Youtube[0].
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx4_QCX_khU
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx4_QCX_khU
I run my homeserver in a Lenovo m920q I bought for about 300USD (but it's a 32GB, 1TB NVMe 9th gen i5 model, there are models from like 100USD up).
These 1-liter PC's are amazing, almost completely silent, idles at like 4W, but has enough grunt to transcode for plex and other stuff like that.
Another alternative is a laptop with a failed display, from ebay or your local thrift store. Plug in an old monitor from the same place when you need to, or ssh in.
Look for USFF sized PCs on eBay. They run around $80-100 for fairly recent Intel CPUs, and don't use much power.
You can get an Intel NUC 11 Essential kit [1]. It comes with a low power N5105 Jasper Lake with 4 cores. This is an atom core (Tremont), the rev before Gracemont (Intel E-core) built on Intel 7. It's about $165 with case, power supply. You need to supply RAM (DDR4 SODIMM) and SSD (M.2 2280 NVMe or SATA). It's probably one of, if not the best bang/buck small unit on the market from a major US based vendor.
[1] https://www.tech-america.com/item/intel-nuc-11-essential-nuc...
[1] https://www.tech-america.com/item/intel-nuc-11-essential-nuc...
Not ITX, but if you are willing to accept a custom form factor (which are even smaller) check out ServeTheHome's Project TinyMiniMicro, they are great bang/buck for that kind of thing. If you can wait for some company to go through an upgrade and dump a load up on ebay or whatever, you can get particularly good deals.
https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/
They aren't going to be quite as small or efficient as a Raspberry Pi or equivalent, but instead you get full x86-64 cores, and they are still pretty small and efficient.
https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/
They aren't going to be quite as small or efficient as a Raspberry Pi or equivalent, but instead you get full x86-64 cores, and they are still pretty small and efficient.
Something like the ASRock J3455-ITX will do the job. 10 watt quad core, though my beef with this board is it features an m.2 B key wifi slot instead of an M key for an NVMe storage device which is a poor choice. There might be a better board out there with a similar low power celeron.
I have an older asrock j1900 celeron board running my 9front CPU/Disk/Auth server at home 24/7. No issues and it has been solid. At the current electric rate it costs about $2/month.
I have an older asrock j1900 celeron board running my 9front CPU/Disk/Auth server at home 24/7. No issues and it has been solid. At the current electric rate it costs about $2/month.
Something like a Dell thin client or what they call a Micro Form Factor could do the job. I got a couple of the micros to play around with and they're nice machines that sip power. I prefer them to rpi's now and with the pricing/availability issues of the pi's, they're price competitive used on ebay. I'm thinking there are a lot of offices that went remote and are unloading their desktops these days.
I got a Dell thin client (Wise 5070) recently for next to nothing ($85 including shipping). Its a much, much nicer machine than anything ARM I've ever had, and has no problem running more or less anything Linux you'd like (its a recent-ish Intel Celeron with UEFI firmware).
My Xigmanas based NAS runs off a Supermicro X7SPA-L mainboard I bought used on Ebay; I also built a similar one for relatives of mine with roughly the same configuration and they both still work flawlessly after years. If you can find a X7SPA-H board, it employs 6 internal SATA ports, though for more ports you can always add a cheap SATA+eSATA PCI-E controller, such as the ASM1062 based one I have on my NAS; they're cheap on Ebay. The CPU's TDP is around 10 to 13 Watt; certainly higher than a Raspberry PI 4, but in the same ballpark and well worth the gain in performance and expandability. Speed is not stellar, still enough for most tasks including serving different HD video files (important: files, not streams) to more Kodi boxes.
A future development I want to explore is using one external eSATA box so I can add more drives. I'm not sure however about any incompatibilities between BSD (or Linux) or the PCI-E controller and external SATA port multipliers.
A future development I want to explore is using one external eSATA box so I can add more drives. I'm not sure however about any incompatibilities between BSD (or Linux) or the PCI-E controller and external SATA port multipliers.
After having direct experience with the following SFF systems, I recommend in order of descending preference (most to least):
* Gigabyte Brix - size, performance, features, expandability, longevity
* Chromebox (Asus) - size, performance, expandability, longevity
* R.Pi - size, support for Debian, longevity (I confess a particular fondness for the Pi 400)
* Odroid - size, performance
* Gigabyte Brix - size, performance, features, expandability, longevity
* Chromebox (Asus) - size, performance, expandability, longevity
* R.Pi - size, support for Debian, longevity (I confess a particular fondness for the Pi 400)
* Odroid - size, performance
I bought an old used Buffalo TeraStation like this[1] and followed online directions for getting a generic Debian install on it. Its intended use is a NAS so in addition to running my Linux services, it can act as my media server, too. You can probably still get them at a bargain (~$100) from ebay.
1: https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-TeraStation-Network-Attached-...
1: https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-TeraStation-Network-Attached-...
There's cheaper devices available in the same form factor as the Meerkats. Intel's NUC11ATKC2 has a recommended retail price of $130, so it's a bit more pricy than a Pi as you'd need to add about another $50 for storage and memory; but it's also a lot more powerful.
I went that route, regretted it, and bought an x86 synology. It has a docker environment that can easily be client-side encrypted and backed up to S3 or similar.
PC Engines' APU 2 line is also great, assuming it meets your needs.
PC Engines' APU 2 line is also great, assuming it meets your needs.
I got a refurbished thin client, a Fujitsu Futro S720 with 2GB RAM (expandable via 2 slots) from ebay for 20€. Havent had the need to upgrade the RAM, but I put a 512gb mSata in it. Works great.
I bought a Lenovo Mini PC M53 on EBay. It came with with 4GB RAM and I added a 500GB SSD. It's running Debian as a small office server (Apache, SMB, SSMTP, Node-RED and Mosquitto).
I recently bought a used thinkpad from my local university surplus store for $25. Installed Linux Mint on it, then pihole and it's now my home lan ad blocker. Love it.
Odroid? I bought two HC-4. I started installing one and it works fine so far.
I think I'll never be back to Raspberry after all this drama. Fool me once, etc.
I think I'll never be back to Raspberry after all this drama. Fool me once, etc.
I was going to ask this as well; I'm thinking about setting up a pihole but not sure what to buy for it.
Pretty much anything that can run Linux and has a network port would work. Most languages, libraries and well known software has been ported to work the same way on a lot of hardware. Save for low level hardware specific code, the rest is more or less standard.
The Orange Pi other users suggested is a good choice, as would be the very similar NanoPi, and many others. However, although the scarcity hits more the popular boards such as the Raspberries, others also became somewhat harder to find, so I would suggest for example to take note of which board is supported by a well known distribution, then look for vendors offering it. A good start would be the Armbian and DietPI download sections in which you can easily find dozens of boards and devices with their support status.
https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported
https://dietpi.com/#download
The Orange Pi other users suggested is a good choice, as would be the very similar NanoPi, and many others. However, although the scarcity hits more the popular boards such as the Raspberries, others also became somewhat harder to find, so I would suggest for example to take note of which board is supported by a well known distribution, then look for vendors offering it. A good start would be the Armbian and DietPI download sections in which you can easily find dozens of boards and devices with their support status.
https://www.armbian.com/download/?device_support=Supported
https://dietpi.com/#download
1.5 years ago I bought a Orange Pi Zero for less than 20 USD. I am using this device for pihole. Without any issue, it is running smoothly.
search for 'orange pi zero LTS', shipping included is less than $30 now, I got it for $18 all included before the pandemic(a case, power adaptor). it's solid to run pihole for me.
I'd really love to find something low power like this that can run 6-10 SATA drives without using USB.
Check out the recent additions to Topton's lineup on their Aliexpress store. They have a couple with multiple SATAs. There are some video reviews of their other units on ServeTheHome's YT channel.
In the UK, I've seen a lot of vendors (when they do get stock in) only sell them as part of a bundle, with power adapter, case, SD card, usb and hdmi cables etc, which adds £20-£30 onto the price of the Pi.
Probably partly as it's extra profit, but also to discourage multi-buys I guess. I dunno if it discourages the scalpers.
These bundles never appear on rpilocater.
Probably partly as it's extra profit, but also to discourage multi-buys I guess. I dunno if it discourages the scalpers.
These bundles never appear on rpilocater.
At that kind of price you can just buy an all-in-one Intel box off Ali Express
I was looking at those recently. They're all small, sub $200, and usually have a Celeron N5105. Do you have to worry about Linux support when you're looking at something like that, or will it work pretty much out of the box?
I have one running Alpine Linux on it presently. Seems to just work for the most part. Nothing weird about it I have found yet.
I was about to comment - there's absolutely no issue buying an RPi4 in the UK currently, if you don't mind buying a bundle. Pimoroni has few different ones in stock currently.
And yes it discourages the scalpers - while the stuff you get in the bundle is usually worth the price being asked for it, to a scalper it's worth 0 and it makes it difficult to make profit flipping the boards themselves. Same principle is successfully used to fight PS5 scalpers.
And yes it discourages the scalpers - while the stuff you get in the bundle is usually worth the price being asked for it, to a scalper it's worth 0 and it makes it difficult to make profit flipping the boards themselves. Same principle is successfully used to fight PS5 scalpers.
I wouldn't say there's 'absolutely no issue' buying one in the UK, I just checked on Pimoroni and they're all out of stock, every single one:
https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi?product_t...
I wasn't able to actually find any website other than eBay at 100+ quid that have them in stock, even as kits.
https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi?product_t...
I wasn't able to actually find any website other than eBay at 100+ quid that have them in stock, even as kits.
You're looking at bare boards. I specifically said bundles are in stock, and no, they are not "100+ quid"
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-essentials...
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-essentials...
I started a little hardware project about a month ago. Was going to use one of my pre-existing Raspberry Pi's but the shield didn't get along with my existing cases and I didn't want to bother disassembling them.
Rather than remove one from their case, I decided to run to Microcenter to just grab a new one.
Nope. Not a single Raspberry Pi in stock. I was honestly shocked. I was completely unaware of the shortage.
Rather than remove one from their case, I decided to run to Microcenter to just grab a new one.
Nope. Not a single Raspberry Pi in stock. I was honestly shocked. I was completely unaware of the shortage.
The convenience of having RPis in brick-and-mortar locations near me has been one of my favorite things about the Pi. It was like being able to stop at a local Radio Shack or Frys and pick up ICs back in the day.
I mentioned this in another RPi thread, I've had good luck with the LePotato as an alternative to the Pi (https://libre.computer/products/s905x/). The hardware footprint is 99% similar to the Pi, it works with the standard cases. Has the same 40 pin header, etc. The default RPi images usually won't run on it, you are better off with an ARMbian build, or tweaking your own. So, it's good for linux hobbyists, or anyone that can handle the minor differences between it and an actual RPi. They are ~$55, and usually in stock on Amazon.
If you are looking to buy, here’s tips and tricks from rpilocator:
https://rpilocator.com/tips-and-tricks.cfm
https://rpilocator.com/tips-and-tricks.cfm
Jeff, if you're reading this, your website is pretty much unreadable without the reader view in Firefox. It's not just the tiny font which is solved by zooming, it's the combination of font choice and white text on black background.
For dark mode, the site shows white text on pure black, to help shave energy use on OLED displays. For light mode, the site shows black on pure white.
The text should look great across most browsers/sites, and I make sure the layout flows well if you increase or decrease font size... but if you can send a screenshot of what you're seeing and your device/screen configuration, I can take a look at what might be going on.
The text should look great across most browsers/sites, and I make sure the layout flows well if you increase or decrease font size... but if you can send a screenshot of what you're seeing and your device/screen configuration, I can take a look at what might be going on.
> For dark mode, the site shows white text on pure black, to help shave energy use on OLED displays. For light mode, the site shows black on pure white.
That's exactly the problem. Too much contrast is a thing with text and can make a website uncomfortable to look at (for me at least). It's hard to find a source for that, but most people seem to agree (see ~95% of other sites).
That's not a problem on commodity LCDs (maybe the one you're using) because "black" is fairly bright, but on OLED especially that's almost infinite contrast.
That's exactly the problem. Too much contrast is a thing with text and can make a website uncomfortable to look at (for me at least). It's hard to find a source for that, but most people seem to agree (see ~95% of other sites).
That's not a problem on commodity LCDs (maybe the one you're using) because "black" is fairly bright, but on OLED especially that's almost infinite contrast.
> That's not a problem on commodity LCDs (maybe the one you're using) because "black" is fairly bright, but on OLED especially that's almost infinite contrast.
Therefore, instead of having your browser enforce a lowered contrast for yourself, you prefer that the majority of the rest of us, with commodity LCDs, suffer too little contrast by asking for the colors to be changed on the website.
Therefore, instead of having your browser enforce a lowered contrast for yourself, you prefer that the majority of the rest of us, with commodity LCDs, suffer too little contrast by asking for the colors to be changed on the website.
No, you should properly profile your display and set the correct LUT and contrast settings so that you may get clipping in dark scenes, but correct contrast everywhere else.
Design websites for correct display devices, and calibrate your display devices to correct for imperfections.
Asking for users with good displays to intentionally reduce the displays' quality to simulate a bad display is just ridiculous. That's what color profiles, LUTs, and tone mapping are for.
Design websites for correct display devices, and calibrate your display devices to correct for imperfections.
Asking for users with good displays to intentionally reduce the displays' quality to simulate a bad display is just ridiculous. That's what color profiles, LUTs, and tone mapping are for.
It's the 'font-family: Georgia,Times,serif;' that ends up being Nimbus Roman as a substitute for Times (on my Ubuntu system, at least), and that font looks just terrible in white on a black background. I remove Times, or the entire font-family rule, and it looks great (DejuVu Serif or DejaVu Sans).
I just updated to use sans-serif, so hopefully it looks nicer now.
White on black, perfectly readable, firefox on 8" android tablet. Even when switching to desktop site.
What's so bad about white-on-black? Light-gray-on-a-bit-darker-gray and similar are the evil choices.
What's so bad about white-on-black? Light-gray-on-a-bit-darker-gray and similar are the evil choices.
Some kind of weird browser configuration? I see black font on white background...
If "Settings->Theme->Dark" is a weird browser configuration, then yes. I see white font on a black background, which looks great on many other pages and doesn't hurt my eyes looking at sunspots while most of the page is basically staring at the sun.
There are dozens of us - dozens! - and Jeff's page looks uniquely bad. Something about the font weight, perhaps? The strokes are so thin as to disappear. Zooming to 150% makes it much more readable.
There are dozens of us - dozens! - and Jeff's page looks uniquely bad. Something about the font weight, perhaps? The strokes are so thin as to disappear. Zooming to 150% makes it much more readable.
Can you tell me more about your configuration? On my Mac, at least, the site is quite legible in both light and dark mode. The main thing I'm wondering is what font is being picked up. On my Mac, I see Georgia... maybe it's just when it switches to Times or 'serif'?
It's the 'serif', I'm on Ubuntu 22.04 with neither Georgia nor Times installed. Here's a screenshot at 100% zoom:
https://i.imgur.com/xdMq8SJ.png
and here's a screenshot at 150%:
https://i.imgur.com/hKcCBo7.png
I do see something funny going on with the ligature for 'ff' in "different vendors" and "official retailers, " especially at 100%.
Running `fc-match serif` says that the fault being picked up is DejaVu Serif [0]
[0] https://dejavu-fonts.github.io/Samples.html
https://i.imgur.com/xdMq8SJ.png
and here's a screenshot at 150%:
https://i.imgur.com/hKcCBo7.png
I do see something funny going on with the ligature for 'ff' in "different vendors" and "official retailers, " especially at 100%.
Running `fc-match serif` says that the fault being picked up is DejaVu Serif [0]
[0] https://dejavu-fonts.github.io/Samples.html
Oh wow, that's bad! I guess I haven't tested in FF on Linux recently, but I just updated to default to Helvetica/Arial/sans-serif, and in my quick peek from Ubuntu it seems to look a bit nicer now.
Text looks fine to me, Firefox on macOS. Perhaps you could make use of the "system font stack", which might fall back to a decent Serif font on other OSes.
https://systemfontstack.com/
https://systemfontstack.com/
Your system isn't set to prefer dark mode.
[deleted]
Shows up fine for me.
Raspberry Pi availability has been such a bottleneck for PrintNanny.ai (deployed to a Raspberry Pi 4).
Rather than wait around for stock to become available, I've decided to expand to Rock Pi and Orange Pi. I had to roll my own Linux distro and build tools to match the experience provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation (e.g. SD card imaging tool). ... but where there's a will, there's a way. https://twitter.com/grepLeigh/status/1572683931769778176
Rather than wait around for stock to become available, I've decided to expand to Rock Pi and Orange Pi. I had to roll my own Linux distro and build tools to match the experience provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation (e.g. SD card imaging tool). ... but where there's a will, there's a way. https://twitter.com/grepLeigh/status/1572683931769778176
Sometimes people write iot projects and target the pi because they are familiar with it (it's like a computer with gpio) when their use case could be better served by a less powerful microcontroller such as the esp32. Perhaps people in this group can use this as an opportunity to learn esp32 development. It's arduino ide compatible and has good support on platformio.
Even the ESP32 is a bit "like a computer" compared to most microcontrollers. It's usually used with its stock RTOS which has its own tasks for WiFi, HTTPS, etc. and has a filesystem. Your apps are separate modules inside the RTOS system which sticks around.
That's not a super unusual setup for a microcontroller system, though those types of systems were often larger industrial systems running WindRiver VxWorks, etc. not cheap chips for your IoT lightbulbs. Even when using an RTOS my perception is the most common setup is that the RTOS is just compiled and linked into your firmware image like any other library.
It was a bit of a culture shock when I started using ESP32s because I can't buy STM32s anymore. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to embedded systems and I didn't like the idea of having someone else's code control so much of the chip, but it's the pragmatic choice.
That's not a super unusual setup for a microcontroller system, though those types of systems were often larger industrial systems running WindRiver VxWorks, etc. not cheap chips for your IoT lightbulbs. Even when using an RTOS my perception is the most common setup is that the RTOS is just compiled and linked into your firmware image like any other library.
It was a bit of a culture shock when I started using ESP32s because I can't buy STM32s anymore. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to embedded systems and I didn't like the idea of having someone else's code control so much of the chip, but it's the pragmatic choice.
That's what the Pico is meant to be for. In my experience RP2040 equipped boards are cheaper than similar ESP32 boards, and they both run MicroPython.
The rp2040 as an Adafruit Feather works great for me. No floating point unit though.
I have an old Pi Zero W and I love it. I watch Adafruit for the new version constantly but no luck.
I have an old Pi Zero W and I love it. I watch Adafruit for the new version constantly but no luck.
I don't know, I tried to use micropython on some esp32 board and ran out of ram after the first few tests.
Maybe my board was just ram starved, but my impression is you want to go bare metal with the ESP.
Maybe my board was just ram starved, but my impression is you want to go bare metal with the ESP.
Depends what you're doing I guess. My most complex project is a network enabled display that shows all the stats from my PC, it queries my machine every second and displays graphs for temperature and GPU/CPU usage. No issues with micropython and an ESP32 board doing that.
Coincidentally I was browsing for Raspberry Pi 4 Model B yesterday. They are ranging anywhere from $100 to $350 in my country. That's a big nope.
The shortage seems to be over in the auto industry, GPU prices are back to normal... I still don't understand why there's a shortage on Pis after reading the article with that broader context in mind.
RPI Foundation raising the price does not mean that they can then just "make more". If they can't get the chips they need, they can't make more and the supply/demand price relationship concept falls apart. This does not justify the scalpers prices either. Former companies like Data General and Digital Equipment loved getting a lot of money for their computers but where are they now?
2 years to get a PiStorm amiga accelerator at a decent price (https://github.com/captain-amygdala/pistorm) due to chip shortage.
Finally managed to get 3 PiStorm boards (for a more decent price than the scams off ebay), but I have only one Pi 3B, and the 3A+ or Zero 2 are nowhere to be found
Only option is to buy 3B/B+ which are a little more common, at 3x+ the price, and unsolder the usb connector.
Sure feels like back in the amiga days when I was waiting for the Emplant to emulate a PC and whatnot... or waiting for Gateway, Escom, etc... to do something useful...
Come to think of it, it's a perfect retro experience WITH post-1994 frustrations of waiting with constant hopes and failures as a bonus :)
Finally managed to get 3 PiStorm boards (for a more decent price than the scams off ebay), but I have only one Pi 3B, and the 3A+ or Zero 2 are nowhere to be found
Only option is to buy 3B/B+ which are a little more common, at 3x+ the price, and unsolder the usb connector.
Sure feels like back in the amiga days when I was waiting for the Emplant to emulate a PC and whatnot... or waiting for Gateway, Escom, etc... to do something useful...
Come to think of it, it's a perfect retro experience WITH post-1994 frustrations of waiting with constant hopes and failures as a bonus :)
When I ordered a Pi 4 from CanaKit back in January, it took 54 days to get to my house. It felt like a long wait at the time, but looking back, it wasn't that bad, given the chip shortage. Took me another month to get around to setting it up anyway.
Several years ago, I got some raspberry pi’s and some arduinos. I taught myself how to make hardware stuff, so much so that I built a salad making robot during Covid lockdown. Anyways I pretty quickly went the arduino route back then and haven’t touched raspberry pi in years. What is the use case where people need raspberry pi? I can see if you were trying to run a cheap full OS computer for some reason. But many people are talking about wishing they had them for hardware projects and I remember the raspberry pi being overkill for my uses. The arduino was simpler for me to use so I never quite get why I’d use the raspberry pi for a hardware project.
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I got my 2x RPi Zero WH and 1x RPi 4 just before the crisis. Especially the Pi Zero WH is awesome in the current energy crisis in Europe, by only consuming 0.7 Watt on average (I tested this myself). Using it for a) Reading my Digital Elecricity Meter to InfluxDB 2.0 (I have Photovoltaik, so there's need for monitoring), and b) Snapcast Clients for my Stereo and other Room Soundboxes (connected to Iris/Mopidy for multiroom audio). Sad that there are such delivery problems.
One alternative (that isn't mentioned) could be Hardkernel/Odroid. I have a Odroid XU4/CS2 that works nicely as a NAS for remote backup.
For those who only need a few boards, rpilocator has been a great resource. Adafruit typically releases a handful every week on Wednesday I believe. (Check out rpilocator's Twitter feed as they typically give folks a heads up before the Adafruit drop: @rpilocator) They do limit 1 per customer per month though..
Also backordered a 4GB version on Digikey and it came through only a week later. (Good timing on my part I guess!)
It took a few months to get to this point so patience is the name of the game for sure until the market cools off a bit.
Also backordered a 4GB version on Digikey and it came through only a week later. (Good timing on my part I guess!)
It took a few months to get to this point so patience is the name of the game for sure until the market cools off a bit.
They’ve been supply constrained for years; regardless of current events.
They were annoyingly supply constrained the first 2 years iirc. And the last 1.5 years or so. But for a long stretch in the middle there (like 2014-2021), not so much.
From what I remember with the launch of the Pi, I think the demand far exceeded their expectations. Remember that the thing was launched as an educational computer for schools, with a model A and B variant. At least from this article [1] it sounds like they contracted the work to build the boards out to Premier Farnell/Element 14. They originally had to do a lot of the manufacturing in China to keep the board cost low.
Eventually Sony stepped in and offered production capacity at a place in Wales UK which I think improved availability a lot.
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/made-in-the-uk/
Eventually Sony stepped in and offered production capacity at a place in Wales UK which I think improved availability a lot.
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/made-in-the-uk/
Yeah, until mid-2021, I could reliably find the majority of Pi models in stock (usually with 10+ units) at my local Micro Center—and that was including CM4s, which quickly disappeared off the shelves and by September 2021 were unobtanium.
Yep, just look at ccc: https://i.imgur.com/2jzmhhA.png
I got mine last July before the spike: https://i.imgur.com/2jzmhhA.png
I got mine last July before the spike: https://i.imgur.com/2jzmhhA.png
A lot of folks have pointed to rpilocator, but my experience is that they made the situation far worse. Prior to the launch, I was able to buy a couple of pi’s per month without too much effort (registering for stock notifications). Since rpilocator, I’ve only managed to buy about 3 pi’s in total. Unless I’m able to drop everything on a notification, there’s no chance. And even if I can do this, I get the feeling that I’m competing against a crowd that’s automated the purchasing process.
What is the top app that ppl are using Rpis for these days, in qty?
I can’t speak for others, but I use the Pi for student projects in an undergrad networking course. I previously required students to supply their own, but I now have the option to rent from me at cost.
With the current situation, I am not certain that I will have enough supply for my next class.
With the current situation, I am not certain that I will have enough supply for my next class.
It wasnt until a few reads to the end of your comment that YOU are renting them to students...
Get a thread going on HN requesting old PIs... shoot ive given so many away... but in return, share your coursework/connect your students with other students...
Get a thread going on HN requesting old PIs... shoot ive given so many away... but in return, share your coursework/connect your students with other students...
I very recently did buy a pi 4 in Sweden without problem, but it was only in stock at a few retailers, but at the moment they are impossible to buy more or less, unless you are willing to pay THREE times over MSRP.
I actually bought it for saving money on retiring servers using expensive electricity, but it was already a sketchy proposition and would take months to earn back. At even more expensive it would not have been worth it.
I actually bought it for saving money on retiring servers using expensive electricity, but it was already a sketchy proposition and would take months to earn back. At even more expensive it would not have been worth it.
>They are currently producing 400,000 Raspberry Pis per month.
That is 4.8 million a year. So it's not like they're not trying. Where are they all going? OEMS, sure. But what do they end up being used as? What consumer tech? What tech? What field(s)?
Pre-post edit: This thread has a ton of answers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33072316
That is 4.8 million a year. So it's not like they're not trying. Where are they all going? OEMS, sure. But what do they end up being used as? What consumer tech? What tech? What field(s)?
Pre-post edit: This thread has a ton of answers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33072316
It seems that Pine64 has good boards that would be useful for many tasks performed by PIs, at a pretty good price. They say they have them all in stock, I'm probably going to pull the trigger as I don't need any raspberry-specific shields.
https://pine64.com/product-category/single-board-computers/
https://pine64.com/product-category/single-board-computers/
I recently purchased a Quartz64B, which turns out to be a very new model. If you're looking at a board from Pine64, I'd say go for the Rock64 if you want something more likely to work with your preferred OS.
I was subscribed to stock alerts for a Pi 4 on a local store. I was online when I received the mail that they now have stock.
By the time I logged in to order it was all gone :)
I did find another at a slightly inflated price and ordered that one. It was a kit with a decent power brick and a useless case. Guess 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
4 Gb model was $60 ish, kit was $110. Romania prices so 19% VAT, possible import taxes yadda yadda.
By the time I logged in to order it was all gone :)
I did find another at a slightly inflated price and ordered that one. It was a kit with a decent power brick and a useless case. Guess 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
4 Gb model was $60 ish, kit was $110. Romania prices so 19% VAT, possible import taxes yadda yadda.
Been unable to secure a pi for the last few years. Of the Pi’s I do have performance has been bad. With the outrageous prices for used Pi’s I have decided to leave the ecosystem. I’ve also improved my understanding of circuits. So I now use esp32. If I need more power I’ve found x86 systems cheap on eBay and I’ve made my own gpio over usb. So no need for a Pi ever again.
I wonder if Raspberry Pi isn't walking a thin line between a hobbyist tool and a commercial product. I mean, their support is so good that many commercial companies are using Pi's as the basis for their products, leading to shortages.
This leaves many hobbyists, students and tinkers, the original group the Pi was created for, wanting.
I have very mixed feelings about this.
This leaves many hobbyists, students and tinkers, the original group the Pi was created for, wanting.
I have very mixed feelings about this.
I must have been very lucky when 2GB pi4's showed up at the local Microcenter in August as I have been unable to find another since.
Micro Center is hit or miss—each location gets little batches here or there. But every time I've heard there's stock at my local store, they're gone by the time I can go check on it.
The longest stock lasted was about 24 hours a couple months ago. I think people have scrapers even for their local Micro Center website so they can find when they're in stock and go snag one immediately.
The Micro Center near me usually has a large bag full of Pico and Pico W, though, as well as practically every HAT and official Pi accessory.
The longest stock lasted was about 24 hours a couple months ago. I think people have scrapers even for their local Micro Center website so they can find when they're in stock and go snag one immediately.
The Micro Center near me usually has a large bag full of Pico and Pico W, though, as well as practically every HAT and official Pi accessory.
This was NYC Flushing and they limit to one per in-store customer. Believe it or not there were a little over 50 of them and the stock lasted about 5 or 6 days. I waited two days before going and there were still like 30 of them. Picos are all over.
My Microcenter hasn't even had a Pico in stock for months.
> They are currently producing 400,000 Raspberry Pis per month.
Wow, I had no idea. I wonder what all those OEMs are doing with all those Pis?
Wow, I had no idea. I wonder what all those OEMs are doing with all those Pis?
Bought a 8gb one two weeks ago. Had to accept a HAT combo but overall not a terrible deal on pricing.
Out of stock now, but I see they have refurb 4gb in stock.
https://www.okdo.com/p/refurbished-raspberry-pi-4-model-b-4g...
Out of stock now, but I see they have refurb 4gb in stock.
https://www.okdo.com/p/refurbished-raspberry-pi-4-model-b-4g...
I've been struggling with this so long. I've been following https://rpilocator.com -- but nothing is available. I've been spending so much on ebay trying to buy pi's for my personal projects in my home. It sucks :(
I find this very frustrating as well... I got a nice fridge/freezer alarm project working with the pi pico w - and while it also works with esp32 boards the pi pico is supposed to be like $5... but last I checked on amazon... it was $100... gonna stick with esp32 until it is actually $5...
The pico (w) had pretty good availability from most official resellers everytime I checked. Sellers on amazon often jack up the price which is why you shouldn't buy a pi on there.
See "Buy now" on https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/ for your country
See "Buy now" on https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico/ for your country
They have been consistently in stock at RRP here in UK for a long time, I bought half a dozen of them for various IoT projects around the house in the last 6 months, never had any trouble finding them
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico-w?varia...
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico-w?varia...
Haven't tried to buy it yet, but it looks like the Pico W is available now on Digikey and PiShop.us without a markup.
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One of the unfortunate side effects of the ongoing RPi shortage is the shrinkage of the accessories market. A lot of the coolest stuff still isn't available for the Model 4, like the SNES enclosure with working buttons and USB ports in the controller ports.
Get in-stock alerts from here: https://rpilocator.com/?instock
There's some stock in the US usually on Wednesday mornings if you are quick...
I just sold a used Pi for 3 times what I paid for it
There's some stock in the US usually on Wednesday mornings if you are quick...
I just sold a used Pi for 3 times what I paid for it
Hmm I was wondering what happened to them.
I'm debating getting a rockpi or orangepi, but just like the article suggests
I like raspberry pi for their support.
But has it ever been possible to buy a Raspberry Pi at retail price? Ever since they were introduced, I have not been able to buy them at MSRP.
Yes. Until the last year or so, I've never seen them selling above MSRP (in the US).
i wonder how many of the commenters own several iterations or current models of the RPi. i am still happily chugging along on the OG model B; only if it could route traffic a bit faster.
while the foundation became too successful to the point they are dependent upon by other companies, the enthusiast part of the consumer market is not helping either.
while the foundation became too successful to the point they are dependent upon by other companies, the enthusiast part of the consumer market is not helping either.
Speaking of clones. I’d be interested to hear how using BananaPi boards have worked out for people, from anyone who has used any of their boards.
Banana Pi variants from Aliexpress are still shipping for affordable prices if you are willing to wait a few weeks for shipping from China.
You can buy a Raspberry Pi – if you are an OEM and are using the board in a commercial product. It is simply not for hobbyists anymore.
I ordered from CanaKit back in July of 2021. Still no update on my order. Claims it doesn't exist when I contacted them about it.
I mentored a Google Summer of Code project that used a RPi3, I think it would have gone better if I had been able to get one myself.
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Don't think I'll get anymore raspberry PIs, until they move to 64bits risc-v.
Really needs to be a resale market imho. Loads in my drawer that are doing nothing and I'm not too fussed about putting them on eBay for what it's worth, but maybe if there looked like proper forum (however how long until those got bought for resale for a markup, I dunno)
I've been waiting 6 months!!
The official blog is just marketing fluff for the most part, almost never mentioning the fact you haven't been able to easily obtain one for over six months.
If what Eben told Jeff is the case, why not tell everyone on the blog, or some other public channel? "Ringing up Eben" is not an option for most of us.
I also think with prioritizing commercial customers, we should drop the ruse that this thing is an educational board. I honestly don't think education has been a majority of users for a long time, but perhaps i'm grossly mistaken here.
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/