6 ms·

Raspi really needs to come out with a 'pro' model. I guess they kind of did with the compute module but raspi's are used a lot professionally in industry, proba

by dokem 6y ago

Raspi really needs to come out with a 'pro' model. I guess they kind of did with the compute module but raspi's are used a lot professionally in industry, probably more than they are used as a tool to get kids and developing nations into computer science.

mdtusz 6y ago
The "pro" models exist - they're just not Pi's. Industrial IoT does use Pi's a fair bit, but this is IMO a misuse (I'm guilty of it too) and in the long term can be a disservice. The Pi is a great platform for a go-to-market product, but they have many shortcomings that for most use-cases in industry are showstoppers (most notably, Pi's will often fail without warning, or their "disk" will become corrupt). More expensive industrial products are out there and typically are more robust, and designed in a way that they can be more seamlessly integrated to a product - once the upfront costs are paid (both in development and dollars). What really needs to happen is other manufacturers making the development on their hardware more straightforwards. What the Pi foundation has done is shown that companies and developers want to just be able to run a widely available and minimal linux distribution and not have to muck about with proprietary and poorly documented SDK's behind closed doors.
- joezydeco 6y ago
  The "pro" models exist - they're just not Pi's. Ssssh. That's blasphemy here. Any other ARM platform mentioned here gets downvoted and shouted down with "But it's not $40!". Let them play with their toys and leave them alone.
  - dendrite9 6y ago
    I'm curious about this as someone who keeps eyeing the Pi's for a solution to a few problems customers have brought up. It looks like there is a pretty big cost jump to get something equivalent, but I may just not know where to look.
    - joezydeco 6y ago
      There are places outside HN where ARM-based product developers are happy to talk about this stuff and share their knowledge.
- deckard1 6y ago
  > Pi's will often fail without warning, or their "disk" will become corrupt You get what you pay for. But this is beating a tired horse that I'm skeptical was ever true to begin with. Are the people with SD card corruption just using crap cards to begin with? I've used a pi4 and rock64 and neither had any disk corruption. Plus you can boot on USB today. And fail without warning? Is that really a thing? No sensor saying there is a heat problem? You can definitely reach for an industrial product with similar specs. But just keep in mind that niche products may have even less market testing than a Pi. There is some truly crap hardware and software out there that people suffer with simply because it's the only player in the niche.
  - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    rock64 has eMMC ;-)
  - alyandon 6y ago
    Indeed - you do get what you pay for. I've personally had one 2nd gen rpi fail without warning and have also had several instances of SD card corruption. The SD card is probably crap like you say but it can be formatted and passed read/write verification testing when connected to a PC which is a bit weird.
- dokem 6y ago
  PIs are used in industry when possible because so easy because unofficial documentation and community is so large to the point where practically every use case has already been documented. It's much easier for Raspi foundation to release a more industrialized version than it is for another manufacturer to create this support and community. They could still operate on their non-profit mission with the profit. Industrial microcontroller and embedded companies do need to also make their software and docs better. There seems to be some modernization but it's slow.
barkingcat 6y ago
Raspi doesn't "need" to do this at all. The main goal of their foundation is to support education, not to satisfy a "pro" market. Just because people use them as tools doesn't mean they change the charter of their non-profit foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation I'd say the other way around: the "pro" people should go find another board to use, of which there are many.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  Just noting that according to the Pi Foundation/Pi Trading, they do sell 44% of their boards to industrial customers[1], so education is definitely a primary goal, but they do have a much broader audience, and I'm sure that influences some of the decisions about what hardware and price points to target. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/for-industry/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/for-industry/
  - justin66 6y ago
    That figure is amazing. I interviewed in person at a leading industrial automation company over five years ago. They were looking for someone to work on ARM stuff and I was (naively) proud of the work I'd done with the original Raspberry Pi in school. The hiring manager had never even heard of the Pi...
    - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
      Things have changed a lot since then. One of the well-known names in industrial automation, Opto-22, now has adapters to connect their hardware to raspberry pi. And they're not the only one. http://developer.opto22.com/pi/ http://developer.opto22.com/pi/
- varispeed 6y ago
  I don't understand this divide. Why people shouldn't have access to "pro" level tools for education? I had plenty of instances in my life when I tried to do something with consumer tools only to be disappointed and giving up, but later on re-discovering the topic with better tools that lead me to some great results. Cost of low end nvme drives is getting closer to more expensive SD cards now (which are not meant to be used as a hard drive). I see no reason why RPi shouldn't release an update with nvme slot and even dropping SDCard slot altogether.

by dokem 6y ago

mdtusz 6y ago

The "pro" models exist - they're just not Pi's. Industrial IoT does use Pi's a fair bit, but this is IMO a misuse (I'm guilty of it too) and in the long term can be a disservice. The Pi is a great platform for a go-to-market product, but they have many shortcomings that for most use-cases in industry are showstoppers (most notably, Pi's will often fail without warning, or their "disk" will become corrupt). More expensive industrial products are out there and typically are more robust, and designed in a way that they can be more seamlessly integrated to a product - once the upfront costs are paid (both in development and dollars). What really needs to happen is other manufacturers making the development on their hardware more straightforwards. What the Pi foundation has done is shown that companies and developers want to just be able to run a widely available and minimal linux distribution and not have to muck about with proprietary and poorly documented SDK's behind closed doors.

joezydeco 6y ago
The "pro" models exist - they're just not Pi's. Ssssh. That's blasphemy here. Any other ARM platform mentioned here gets downvoted and shouted down with "But it's not $40!". Let them play with their toys and leave them alone.
- dendrite9 6y ago
  I'm curious about this as someone who keeps eyeing the Pi's for a solution to a few problems customers have brought up. It looks like there is a pretty big cost jump to get something equivalent, but I may just not know where to look.
  - joezydeco 6y ago
    There are places outside HN where ARM-based product developers are happy to talk about this stuff and share their knowledge.
deckard1 6y ago
> Pi's will often fail without warning, or their "disk" will become corrupt You get what you pay for. But this is beating a tired horse that I'm skeptical was ever true to begin with. Are the people with SD card corruption just using crap cards to begin with? I've used a pi4 and rock64 and neither had any disk corruption. Plus you can boot on USB today. And fail without warning? Is that really a thing? No sensor saying there is a heat problem? You can definitely reach for an industrial product with similar specs. But just keep in mind that niche products may have even less market testing than a Pi. There is some truly crap hardware and software out there that people suffer with simply because it's the only player in the niche.
- sam_lowry_ 6y ago
  rock64 has eMMC ;-)
- alyandon 6y ago
  Indeed - you do get what you pay for. I've personally had one 2nd gen rpi fail without warning and have also had several instances of SD card corruption. The SD card is probably crap like you say but it can be formatted and passed read/write verification testing when connected to a PC which is a bit weird.
dokem 6y ago
PIs are used in industry when possible because so easy because unofficial documentation and community is so large to the point where practically every use case has already been documented. It's much easier for Raspi foundation to release a more industrialized version than it is for another manufacturer to create this support and community. They could still operate on their non-profit mission with the profit. Industrial microcontroller and embedded companies do need to also make their software and docs better. There seems to be some modernization but it's slow.

barkingcat 6y ago

Raspi doesn't "need" to do this at all. The main goal of their foundation is to support education, not to satisfy a "pro" market. Just because people use them as tools doesn't mean they change the charter of their non-profit foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_Foundation I'd say the other way around: the "pro" people should go find another board to use, of which there are many.

geerlingguy 6y ago
Just noting that according to the Pi Foundation/Pi Trading, they do sell 44% of their boards to industrial customers[1], so education is definitely a primary goal, but they do have a much broader audience, and I'm sure that influences some of the decisions about what hardware and price points to target. [1] https://www.raspberrypi.org/for-industry/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/for-industry/
- justin66 6y ago
  That figure is amazing. I interviewed in person at a leading industrial automation company over five years ago. They were looking for someone to work on ARM stuff and I was (naively) proud of the work I'd done with the original Raspberry Pi in school. The hiring manager had never even heard of the Pi...
  - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
    Things have changed a lot since then. One of the well-known names in industrial automation, Opto-22, now has adapters to connect their hardware to raspberry pi. And they're not the only one. http://developer.opto22.com/pi/ http://developer.opto22.com/pi/
varispeed 6y ago
I don't understand this divide. Why people shouldn't have access to "pro" level tools for education? I had plenty of instances in my life when I tried to do something with consumer tools only to be disappointed and giving up, but later on re-discovering the topic with better tools that lead me to some great results. Cost of low end nvme drives is getting closer to more expensive SD cards now (which are not meant to be used as a hard drive). I see no reason why RPi shouldn't release an update with nvme slot and even dropping SDCard slot altogether.