Digging into it, it looks like the Arduino and friends trump the Pi versus sleep/idle modes in terms of power draw, and that's likely useful for easy battery op

Digging into it, it looks like the Arduino and friends trump the Pi versus sleep/idle modes in terms of power draw, and that's likely useful for easy battery operation. If you're tapping mains power, it's likely a rounding error. OTOH, all the folks saying the knockoffs are $2-10, that's cheaper than a Pi.