21 ms·

Please remember: 1. Raspberry Pi Trading use UK based manufacturing facilities, so yes, it costs a little extra to ship outside of the UK. 2. Raspberry Pi Tra

Please remember: 1. Raspberry Pi Trading use UK based manufacturing facilities, so yes, it costs a little extra to ship outside of the UK. 2. Raspberry Pi Trading do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront. So supply will always be limited for devices like the Zero, while demand is high. 3. The profits from the sales of all Raspberry Pi devices are used to fund the Raspberry Pi Foundation. We do charitable work to further Computer Science education around the world. The target audience is educators and children, and that will always be the focus. That it happens there are hackers out there that want to use the device is great, but not the priority. 4. The popularity of the Raspberry Pi range is mainly down to the amazing community we have and the huge support available from that community.

bhouston 10y ago
> 2. Raspberry Pi Trading do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront. So supply will always be limited for devices like the Zero, while demand is high. It is too bad that this can not be partially remedied in some fashion. Of course you need to ensure you do not over estimate demand, but if you can sell for sure X number of devices in the launch period, you should be able to find capital somehow to be able to pre-made them to ensure reach your potential.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  IMO this is an area where something like kickstarter might come in handy. Let some hackers who are willing to wait a bit pay the cost a while before anything ships so they have a somewhat guaranteed amount of purchases before they even start. Of course that introduces other problems (like making it harder for the "target audience" of people learning to get ahold of), and you still need to do a lot of work to make sure you don't over/under charge, but it's an option that seems like it could work well for them.
_red 10y ago
#2. Sadly this fact undermines the real utility of RPI for development. Its virtually impossible to find any of these "$5 computers" in quantities greater than 1. Why develop on a platform that you can never put into production? I don't even mean producing "x million units", I'm saying you won't even be able to buy 30 of them for an internal company project. I understand that RPI mission is education and thats admirable - however they should be completely upfront on their product pages about this....each should state "DON'T USE THIS IN A PRODUCT" across the top.
- ethbro 10y ago
  Also, why for the love of god can't they just license the name to some secondary source w/ quality control stipulations? Mandate a slightly higher cost-per-unit (5% or somesuch) and sell it as the Raspberry Pi Zero Commercial. With (critically) guaranteed compatibility with the consumer model. I can't imagine there wouldn't be Chinese factories lining up for the opportunity. Then use the licensing revenue to help fund Raspberry Pi's mission.
  - rkangel 10y ago
    You are dramatically underestimating the complexity and difficulty of "w/ quality control stipulations". I work in electronic device design. On a good project designing a complex device, 2/3 of the work will be iterations of design (software, electronic, mechanical, industrial). When you've finished designing it you've then got another 1/3 of getting it manufactured at a decent cost with a decent yield. And that's assuming that you have an existing relationship in China with a high end manufacturer. Weeks and weeks of trips out, production runs, implementation of QA. Given that, how would you go about ensuring that what's coming out of a factory in China is actually up to scratch? And even if you did, the processor on the Pi uses an unusual chip-on-chip technology that most board makers don't have the capability to build.
    - 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
      > I work in electronic device design. Why?
      - zild3d 10y ago
        Is it hard to guess why designing electronics could possibly be good/interesting work? It involves programming, design, physics, math, and making real things we use everyday - medical devices, cars, satellites, cameras, etc
        0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
Chris2048 10y ago
> The target audience is educators and children I have to say, somewhere industry must have dropped the ball if a small company whose focus isn't even consumers makes such an impact. Where are the commercial offerings? Maybe CHIP will take this space, but electronics industry has really neglected hobbyist electronics. Maybe there's a reason, e.g hostility to the idea of hobby electronics disrupting industry?
- digi_owl 10y ago
  I think it is the same problem that is facing the likes of mobile phones, economics of scale. The factories basically need a minimum number of units before it is worth setting up the production line.
- pjc50 10y ago
  It's exactly economies of scale and support. Pi is still pretty tiny as a business and benefits from community goodwill and input. Only now are they achieving the millions of units shipped which are needed to achieve good economy of scale. There is e.g. the Asus tinker board which is twice the price and out of stock. https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/ https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/
  - jerich 10y ago
    To be fair, the tinker board is only 50% more and does include additional features (some extra speed and GbE). The US release is happening right now, so that could affect availability worldwide as Asus tries to launch with sufficient quantities. I somehow was able to order one, sold by Amazon US no less, and get it last week; there's not even a listing anymore. Not too bad for a product that was announced late January.
  - candiodari 10y ago
    That doesn't explain the zero's price. They are making a loss on those, and a quite big one at that. It is not possible to make something like the Pi Zero for less than double it's retail price.
Retric 10y ago
Why not let people pre order in lots of 20 for a large markup. This gets your early capital and lets you see what demand will be like?
throwawayiii141 10y ago
>2. Raspberry Pi Trading do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront. So supply will always be limited for devices like the Zero, while demand is high. [emphasis added] This is not true. If it were true, they would welcome a mass payment up-front as this would solve their "do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront" issues which you cite. Instead, I was banned from their forum (forever) despite being a contributor in good standing, for wanting to arrange such an up-front payment with others who were interested, even though I already removed any Raspberry Pi branding from my bid (i.e. the bid would be in generic terms), meaning they would be free to consider the bid but do not have to accept, and even though I greatly limited discussion to just a few posts in their off-topic forum and was clear that they did not officially sanction such a bid from us. (My bid also would have been for lower specifications and a higher per-unit price than the official raspberry pi zero specifications and price, to further make fulfilling it easy.) Their official reason was that I was generating too much mod mail for them to deal with (even though throughout the site they encourage people to message the mods about anything and everything), since hundreds of people were extremely interested in ordering mass quantities. I feel I went out of my way to be extremely fair and transparent, did not make any sort of misrepresentations, or imply they supported me, etc. I went out of my way not to talk in terms of their competitors as well but to support Raspberry Pi in every way possible. So there is huge demand, but, no, capital constraints are not the reason that the Raspberry Pi Trading foundation does not wish to make x million raspberry pi zero type devices upfront - even if it would further their cause. I don't have additional visibility than the above and have shared what I know.
- goodcanadian 10y ago
  Capital is more than just cash. There is land, buildings, and equipment. I honestly don't know any details about the group's situation, but I am put in mind of a story: doubling the order cost four times the price for the simple reason that the supplier could handle the smaller order with the existing factory. In order to meet the larger order, however, he would need to build a new factory.
  - throwawayiii141 10y ago
lukas 10y ago
Marc - I've had so much fun with Raspberry Pis! Really appreciate the work you do. Have you considered setting up a kickstarter-style pre-order system? I think a lot of people would sign up and it might give you guys more predictability.
noonespecial 10y ago
That will be perfectly fine just as soon as I can buy more than one at a time. As long as the sales are one offs, its not a $10 device yet. I hope it will be. There was something decidedly fishy about the "$5" Zero that has never ever been available more than one at a time. I'm not saying that there was a secret conspiracy, but if you happen to be a distributer who makes his margin on each transaction, not each unit, and your source is chronically short, a de facto Zero situation emerges where you make far more on the limited supply available by forcing extra transactions. Sadly this largely negates the purpose of offering an ultra-cheap item in the first place.
- godelski 10y ago
  I would guess that they were one at a time because demand has been so high. By the time I was finally able to order a zero I lost interest in it and started using other boards. The question is if you want to get it into as many hands as possible or to people that are going to use a lot of them. But also people bulk order and sell at a markup. Stuff like this[1] still isn't uncommon ($23 for a pi zero on Amazon). At that markup I'd rather just buy a pi, arduino, or whatever. At $5 if it is a zero vs a msp430 I'm getting the zero for ease of use. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Raspberry-Zero-v1-3-Development-Board/dp/B01L3IU6XS/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1488299662&sr=1-4&keywords=raspberry+pi+zero https://smile.amazon.com/Raspberry-Zero-v1-3-Development-Boa...
- tacon 10y ago
  There was a brief period at my local Microcenter, after the supply started to catch up with demand and before the "limit 1 at $5" policy. I bought five of the hundred or so in the locked plastic box. I think I could have bought twenty, all at $5/each.
johansch 10y ago
Ah, the ultimate vaporware "foundation" rises again with another irresistible market offer that they can't deliver. You would think they'd actually start delivering the Raspberry Pi Zero in reasonable volumes before launching something else they won't be able to deliver. Seriously, why do we keep giving these incompetents so much awareness? Edit: too many partial brits here. That's the only way I can explain the -2 downvote score one hour later. Seriously, shame on you. Just go brexit yourself, please.
- dang 10y ago
  > too many partial brits here [...] Seriously, shame on you. Just go brexit yourself Surely you know that you can't comment like this here. This is a bannable offense. Even without this your comment broke the guidelines by name-calling, but this bit is beyond the pale. Please don't do it again.
  - johansch 10y ago
    Well, okay. I can agree that the "go brexit yourself" was too much. I'm sorry about that. Noone should be accused of that kind of stupidity. (To clarify: I really, really did not mean "exit yourself". I did mean go do something stupid and self-destructive - but not lethal - like Brexit.) But is it really too much to call a particular company/organization incompetent (in this particular issue it was implied that the incompetence was in terms of sales forecasting, marketing promises and logistics abilities)?
    - dang 10y ago
      Directing a pejorative at an entire entity (org or individual) is probably name-calling, which the HN guidelines ask you not to do, but I'd say it depends on the context. If it's embedded in a clearly thoughtful comment, it might be fine. If it's embedded in a ranty-indig comment, it's a problem. The first three bits of your comment are the latter, so even without the swipe at the end, it's still a bad HN comment. You clearly have a substantive point based on experience, which you could phrase thoughtfully if you wanted to. Then it would be a much better contribution—readers would learn more and you wouldn't be starting a fire. I realize that putting aside the pyrotechnics takes away some of the fun of the internet but (a) there are compensating rewards and (b) it's a tradeoff we all have to commit to in order to keep HN alive.

bhouston 10y ago

> 2. Raspberry Pi Trading do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront. So supply will always be limited for devices like the Zero, while demand is high. It is too bad that this can not be partially remedied in some fashion. Of course you need to ensure you do not over estimate demand, but if you can sell for sure X number of devices in the launch period, you should be able to find capital somehow to be able to pre-made them to ensure reach your potential.

Klathmon 10y ago
IMO this is an area where something like kickstarter might come in handy. Let some hackers who are willing to wait a bit pay the cost a while before anything ships so they have a somewhat guaranteed amount of purchases before they even start. Of course that introduces other problems (like making it harder for the "target audience" of people learning to get ahold of), and you still need to do a lot of work to make sure you don't over/under charge, but it's an option that seems like it could work well for them.

_red 10y ago

#2. Sadly this fact undermines the real utility of RPI for development. Its virtually impossible to find any of these "$5 computers" in quantities greater than 1. Why develop on a platform that you can never put into production? I don't even mean producing "x million units", I'm saying you won't even be able to buy 30 of them for an internal company project. I understand that RPI mission is education and thats admirable - however they should be completely upfront on their product pages about this....each should state "DON'T USE THIS IN A PRODUCT" across the top.

ethbro 10y ago
Also, why for the love of god can't they just license the name to some secondary source w/ quality control stipulations? Mandate a slightly higher cost-per-unit (5% or somesuch) and sell it as the Raspberry Pi Zero Commercial. With (critically) guaranteed compatibility with the consumer model. I can't imagine there wouldn't be Chinese factories lining up for the opportunity. Then use the licensing revenue to help fund Raspberry Pi's mission.
- rkangel 10y ago
  You are dramatically underestimating the complexity and difficulty of "w/ quality control stipulations". I work in electronic device design. On a good project designing a complex device, 2/3 of the work will be iterations of design (software, electronic, mechanical, industrial). When you've finished designing it you've then got another 1/3 of getting it manufactured at a decent cost with a decent yield. And that's assuming that you have an existing relationship in China with a high end manufacturer. Weeks and weeks of trips out, production runs, implementation of QA. Given that, how would you go about ensuring that what's coming out of a factory in China is actually up to scratch? And even if you did, the processor on the Pi uses an unusual chip-on-chip technology that most board makers don't have the capability to build.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
    > I work in electronic device design. Why?
    - zild3d 10y ago
      Is it hard to guess why designing electronics could possibly be good/interesting work? It involves programming, design, physics, math, and making real things we use everyday - medical devices, cars, satellites, cameras, etc
      - 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago

Chris2048 10y ago

> The target audience is educators and children I have to say, somewhere industry must have dropped the ball if a small company whose focus isn't even consumers makes such an impact. Where are the commercial offerings? Maybe CHIP will take this space, but electronics industry has really neglected hobbyist electronics. Maybe there's a reason, e.g hostility to the idea of hobby electronics disrupting industry?

digi_owl 10y ago
I think it is the same problem that is facing the likes of mobile phones, economics of scale. The factories basically need a minimum number of units before it is worth setting up the production line.
pjc50 10y ago
It's exactly economies of scale and support. Pi is still pretty tiny as a business and benefits from community goodwill and input. Only now are they achieving the millions of units shipped which are needed to achieve good economy of scale. There is e.g. the Asus tinker board which is twice the price and out of stock. https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/ https://www.asus.com/uk/Single-board-Computer/TINKER-BOARD/
- jerich 10y ago
  To be fair, the tinker board is only 50% more and does include additional features (some extra speed and GbE). The US release is happening right now, so that could affect availability worldwide as Asus tries to launch with sufficient quantities. I somehow was able to order one, sold by Amazon US no less, and get it last week; there's not even a listing anymore. Not too bad for a product that was announced late January.
- candiodari 10y ago
  That doesn't explain the zero's price. They are making a loss on those, and a quite big one at that. It is not possible to make something like the Pi Zero for less than double it's retail price.

Retric 10y ago

Why not let people pre order in lots of 20 for a large markup. This gets your early capital and lets you see what demand will be like?

throwawayiii141 10y ago

>2. Raspberry Pi Trading do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront. So supply will always be limited for devices like the Zero, while demand is high. [emphasis added] This is not true. If it were true, they would welcome a mass payment up-front as this would solve their "do not have the capital to make x million devices upfront" issues which you cite. Instead, I was banned from their forum (forever) despite being a contributor in good standing, for wanting to arrange such an up-front payment with others who were interested, even though I already removed any Raspberry Pi branding from my bid (i.e. the bid would be in generic terms), meaning they would be free to consider the bid but do not have to accept, and even though I greatly limited discussion to just a few posts in their off-topic forum and was clear that they did not officially sanction such a bid from us. (My bid also would have been for lower specifications and a higher per-unit price than the official raspberry pi zero specifications and price, to further make fulfilling it easy.) Their official reason was that I was generating too much mod mail for them to deal with (even though throughout the site they encourage people to message the mods about anything and everything), since hundreds of people were extremely interested in ordering mass quantities. I feel I went out of my way to be extremely fair and transparent, did not make any sort of misrepresentations, or imply they supported me, etc. I went out of my way not to talk in terms of their competitors as well but to support Raspberry Pi in every way possible. So there is huge demand, but, no, capital constraints are not the reason that the Raspberry Pi Trading foundation does not wish to make x million raspberry pi zero type devices upfront - even if it would further their cause. I don't have additional visibility than the above and have shared what I know.

goodcanadian 10y ago
Capital is more than just cash. There is land, buildings, and equipment. I honestly don't know any details about the group's situation, but I am put in mind of a story: doubling the order cost four times the price for the simple reason that the supplier could handle the smaller order with the existing factory. In order to meet the larger order, however, he would need to build a new factory.
- throwawayiii141 10y ago

lukas 10y ago

Marc - I've had so much fun with Raspberry Pis! Really appreciate the work you do. Have you considered setting up a kickstarter-style pre-order system? I think a lot of people would sign up and it might give you guys more predictability.

noonespecial 10y ago

That will be perfectly fine just as soon as I can buy more than one at a time. As long as the sales are one offs, its not a $10 device yet. I hope it will be. There was something decidedly fishy about the "$5" Zero that has never ever been available more than one at a time. I'm not saying that there was a secret conspiracy, but if you happen to be a distributer who makes his margin on each transaction, not each unit, and your source is chronically short, a de facto Zero situation emerges where you make far more on the limited supply available by forcing extra transactions. Sadly this largely negates the purpose of offering an ultra-cheap item in the first place.

godelski 10y ago
I would guess that they were one at a time because demand has been so high. By the time I was finally able to order a zero I lost interest in it and started using other boards. The question is if you want to get it into as many hands as possible or to people that are going to use a lot of them. But also people bulk order and sell at a markup. Stuff like this[1] still isn't uncommon ($23 for a pi zero on Amazon). At that markup I'd rather just buy a pi, arduino, or whatever. At $5 if it is a zero vs a msp430 I'm getting the zero for ease of use. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Raspberry-Zero-v1-3-Development-Board/dp/B01L3IU6XS/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1488299662&sr=1-4&keywords=raspberry+pi+zero https://smile.amazon.com/Raspberry-Zero-v1-3-Development-Boa...
tacon 10y ago
There was a brief period at my local Microcenter, after the supply started to catch up with demand and before the "limit 1 at $5" policy. I bought five of the hundred or so in the locked plastic box. I think I could have bought twenty, all at $5/each.

johansch 10y ago

Ah, the ultimate vaporware "foundation" rises again with another irresistible market offer that they can't deliver. You would think they'd actually start delivering the Raspberry Pi Zero in reasonable volumes before launching something else they won't be able to deliver. Seriously, why do we keep giving these incompetents so much awareness? Edit: too many partial brits here. That's the only way I can explain the -2 downvote score one hour later. Seriously, shame on you. Just go brexit yourself, please.

dang 10y ago
> too many partial brits here [...] Seriously, shame on you. Just go brexit yourself Surely you know that you can't comment like this here. This is a bannable offense. Even without this your comment broke the guidelines by name-calling, but this bit is beyond the pale. Please don't do it again.
- johansch 10y ago
  Well, okay. I can agree that the "go brexit yourself" was too much. I'm sorry about that. Noone should be accused of that kind of stupidity. (To clarify: I really, really did not mean "exit yourself". I did mean go do something stupid and self-destructive - but not lethal - like Brexit.) But is it really too much to call a particular company/organization incompetent (in this particular issue it was implied that the incompetence was in terms of sales forecasting, marketing promises and logistics abilities)?
  - dang 10y ago
    Directing a pejorative at an entire entity (org or individual) is probably name-calling, which the HN guidelines ask you not to do, but I'd say it depends on the context. If it's embedded in a clearly thoughtful comment, it might be fine. If it's embedded in a ranty-indig comment, it's a problem. The first three bits of your comment are the latter, so even without the swipe at the end, it's still a bad HN comment. You clearly have a substantive point based on experience, which you could phrase thoughtfully if you wanted to. Then it would be a much better contribution—readers would learn more and you wouldn't be starting a fire. I realize that putting aside the pyrotechnics takes away some of the fun of the internet but (a) there are compensating rewards and (b) it's a tradeoff we all have to commit to in order to keep HN alive.