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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 c
by 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 agoThe "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 agoI'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 agoThere 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 agorock64 has eMMC ;-)
- alyandon 6y agoIndeed - 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 agoPIs 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.