10 ms·

Raspberry Pi: We’ve started manufacture

329 points by pauldino 15y ago

rch 15y ago
It is interesting that they at least explored the idea of building in the UK, and that tax policies factored in so negatively. Does the US have similarly structured import taxes?
- Permit 15y ago
  I was curious about the taxes as well. Does anyone know what the argument for having a tax system set up this way would be? I imagine there must be some reason, but I'm not sure what it would be.
  - yardie 15y ago
    Actually, and maybe I'm missing something, they are quite wrong. Yes you pay a VAT on components, but as a business you reclaim it and pass it down the line. Import components -> (pay VAT) build item (reclaim VAT) -> (pay VAT) wholeseller (reclaim VAT) -> (pay VAT) retailer (reclaim VAT) -> (pay VAT) buyer. As long as you are engaging in commerce you never pay VAT on the items you for your business. Also, there are electronic schemes to speed up the reclamation process. If you have a business ¿TaxID? number some resellers will drop the VAT for you knowing they'll reclaim it anyway.
- objclxt 15y ago
  I will have a go answering this - tax and import laws in the UK, like the US, are extremely complicated and often bizarre. It's therefore almost certain nobody except Raspberry Pi's accountant / legal advisors would be able to give the definitive reason, but I am pretty sure it is to do with how components vs full computers are classified for duty purposes. There are specific import laws designed to aid manufacturing industries, and it could be that these laws need to be extended to component assembly. For example, the UK does very well in car and aerospace manufacturer, and there are import laws regarding components designed to aid this.
- pash 15y ago
  In the United States, there are no import duties on computers or on computer components.[1] But there are no duties on assembled computers or on computer components entering the United Kingdom either, so far as I can tell. Assembled computers are listed under heading 8471 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which is used by all trading nations. (They are referred to as "automatic data-processing machines"; the terminology and categories are all quite archaic.) The UK imposes no import duty on computers of any type.[2] Parts and accessories "suitable for use solely or principally with" computers are listed under heading 8473.30 and likewise can enter the UK duty-free.[3] It's possible that some required components are listed elsewhere in the HTS and that those are not duty-free. But that seems unlikely; almost everything in Chapters 84 & 85, which cover all electronics, can enter the UK free of duties. I'm not familiar enough with the UK tariff regime to know whether there are other considerations beyond the base duty rate. (But it doesn't look like it; the relevant Acts of Parliament setting duties for each class of good are noted on the BusinessLink site linked below.) So I have no idea what import tariffs Raspberry Pi need (or think they need) to pay. It certainly doesn't look like the UK has some screwy import regime that penalizes firms wanting to assemble computers there. 1. So long as the goods' country of origin has "most favored nation" status. This means, essentially, that it has normal trade relations with the United States. That includes all members of the World Trade Organization. 2. http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.html?export=false&from=list&id=8471&simulationDate=10/01/12 http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.h... 3. http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.html?export=false&from=list&id=8473&simulationDate=10/01/12 http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.h...
- njharman 15y ago
  I don't know about import taxes. But, US does not have a VAT like UK. It has a sales tax which is only paid by the end user. Usually the consumer. Materials like cotton (and I guess electronic parts) used in manufacture aren't taxed (at least not with a sales/VAT).
  - IgorPartola 15y ago
    No? I was under the impression that if I wanted to buy a bunch of cotton or silicone or diodes that I'd have to pay taxes on that. Then once I manufacture my awesome device using only those materials, plus a Swiss army knife and a rubber band, I could sell it to you and you'd get to pay another round of sales tax. On the backend of this transaction of course is the machinery used to harvest/manufacture the raw materials, for which the farmer/manufacturer also paid a sales tax on. Unless there is some kind of subsidy at play here.
    - klodolph 15y ago
      This is per-state. For example, Oregon has no sales tax except for a couple things like tobacco and gasoline. Most states which have sales tax only have retail sales tax (plus a couple random ones). But no, wholesale is generally not taxed. (This is the difference between "sales tax", which happens when the end product goes to the consumer, and "value added tax", which happens multiple times. I don't think a single state will tax you on a box of diodes you order from your supplier, but if you go to Radio Shack they'll probably tax you.)
      - justincormack 15y ago
        Value added tax does not happen multiple times, as it is refundable. In effect it is just a retail sales tax. However the rates are high in Europe, often 20%.
      - IgorPartola 15y ago
        Thanks! Follow up question: what is wholesale? Can I buy a yaer's worth of potatoes tax free? How about a lifetime supply of socks?Or are we talking about huge quantities?
willyt 15y ago
I don't understand why Raspberry Pi doesn't have to pay VAT on the assembled imported items? Is it because they are a charity? EDIT: added 'assembled'. Does anyone have a link to the IR rules about this?
- roel_v 15y ago
  It doesn't say VAT, it's import duties.
  - willyt 15y ago
    All right then, why is there no import duty (which is charged at the same rate as VAT) on a Raspberry PI when there is on a stick of RAM? Genuine question: I'm curious to know how the rules define one item as separate from the other. Edit: OK sorry my comment was a load of crap, I was confused. They charge both VAT @%20 and duty @~3% but duty is only charged on a massive and seemingly random list of things.
    - objclxt 15y ago
      They are probably classifying their product as a 'palm-top computer', which attracts no import duty. But the component parts (the chips, etc) almost certainly will. For reasons I gave in my reply above, I couldn't tell you the exact duty amounts, but there is a link here that details the duty for palm-top computers: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD_009989&propertyType=document http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPort... I seem to remember this being the case when I imported some Beagleboards into the UK for R&D work, and didn't pay import duty on them.
      - justincormack 15y ago
        That is the most bizarre list of random tax rates. I always seem to get charged a lot so will appeal next time based on whether my player is mp3 or mp4 or whatever. And I might complain to my MP about the taxes on 35mm film cameras. Bizarre.
drtse4 15y ago
The first batch will be of 10k boards. Will be sold out in a few hours...
- jamesRaybould 15y ago
  It appears that you spelt minutes wrong. Just take a look at the massive fire sale that revolved around the HP Touchpad and I think thats the kind of interest this will receive.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    I don't think they'll receive nearly as much general interest as the touchpad, one is a device that consumers can see as "like an iPad, but amazingly cheap", the other as "a programmable system for geeks". Certainly I know friends who bought the fire sale touchpads, and many more who would have if they had the chance, none of which will be buying the raspberry pi - except the really techy ones. Also, to do with the press it will get. Articles of "huge fire sale, get one while you can!" will be replaced with "this could change education" and "look what you could create with these" pieces. Don't get me wrong, they will be hugely popular, and 10,000 is far less than the number of touchpads there were. It will also depend, obviously, on the per-customer limits they put in place. I certainly expect them to sell out fast (will it be minutes, hours or days, I have no idea), but to compare the level of interest to the touchpad fire sale is huge exaggeration.
    - ChuckMcM 15y ago
      I thought about putting an order in for 10K boards. I think if you look at the 'tv dongles' which is basically a small system running a flavor of Linux driving a TV [1] you'll find at $35 each they are a no-brainer. Here's a dead simple idea, TV dongle with Web cam for 'facetime' on your TV. If you've got a cable IP network, you use Skype or some variation (hell Google talk w/ Video) and you're done. Plastic molded case and poof. Using the camera and simple gestures (think Kincect 0.5) make an instant 'hangout' using G+ on your TV. Wave your hand, point at your circle, and blam start hanging out. I've got like a zillion ideas of ways to turn a $35 board with HDMI+Networking into serious bank. I'm not unique in this regard. [1] http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/hdmidongle.htm http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/hdmidongle.htm
dman 15y ago
The pricepoint is simply revoultionary. I intend to make a few amateur home automation gadgets with this.
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago
  It's a perfect complement to platforms like Arduino.
- stephengillie 15y ago
  The 'Pi itself is exciting, but more exciting will be seeing what everyone makes with them. I hope to read your posts about what you've built! Looking at the comments to their FAQ - http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs#comment-3239 http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs#comment-3239 - reselling devices based on the Raspberry Pi is OK.
  - dman 15y ago
    The first thing I am targetting is semi lame, but useful for me - a batman style lamp. Its for my parents and me to birectionally coordinate on when to come on skype. Right now I first have to call them and then ask them to come online and same the other way around. This way either party can speculatively just push the button and if the other one acknowledges the computers can be switched on.
    - slug 15y ago
      Wouldn't it be easier to build a standalone voip phone with a rasperry pi and avoid turning on a computer for skype altogether ? I'm not sure if you could do bidirectional video with the pi, but voice should be no problem.
      - peterderivaz 15y ago
        I believe a standalone video phone should be quite easy. My understanding is that the chip can support 1080P encode or decode (so 720P bi-directional video should be fine) and that it will have OpenMAX libraries to allow you to drive the hardware codecs. OpenMAX code is quite fragile in my experience (from trying to use such libraries on Android phones) so I was wondering about writing a Python wrapper (based on the ctypes module) for the video encode/decode to make it easier to use. (Unless someone has done this already?)
blhack 15y ago
The people behind raspi seem really, genuinely good. If this is all marketing, it doesn't feel like it. They're going to do what manufacturing they can in the UK, even though it would net them a lot more money to do it overseas. Awesome.
- brador 15y ago
  I love the speed they're working at and their no excuses, no BS approach. It's surprisingly refreshing. Are they funded?
  - lftl 15y ago
    I have no clue as to their financial status, but Liz (one of the team members) said this in the comments: Indeed – and I’m pretty sure that those psychic people would be a bit more cautious if it was their mortgage that this thing was secured on
    - andyking 15y ago
      It says in the blurb at the bottom of the page that Liz is a "full time volunteer." Why can't they pay someone to do their PR if they're funded?
      - agildehaus 15y ago
        There are varying degrees of 'funded'.
      - skrebbel 15y ago
        Not sure about UK, but in the Netherlands, volunteers often get a "costs reimbursement". If you're a full time volunteer, that reimbursment may roughly equal a crappy salary. Maybe that's what Liz is getting, too. It'd be nothing like what she could earn in industry, but enough to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. And a Raspberry Pi in every room.
  - ahel 15y ago
ck2 15y ago
if we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all Wow this sounds worse than job exporting in the USA
- marchdown 15y ago
  I wonder if these restrictions could be circumvented somehow by transporting components in a form which is technically a functioning assembly.
  - vyrotek 15y ago
    You may be on to something. What's inside the box? That's not a box, its a large paper weight. The random stuff inside is just to add weight.
  - gravitronic 15y ago
    Not in any means that would remain profitable as it would require post-processing from the component manufacturer and then modification before they could feed the components back into the pick and place robots.
  - kevinpet 15y ago
    Not exactly what you were getting at, but Ford does something similar with the Transit Connect. It's imported as a passenger wagon with back seats and windows, which are removed in the US.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- revorad 15y ago
  I'm not sure that's entirely correct. I thought there was some duty even on complete devices imported into the UK from outside the EU.
patrickod 15y ago
I don't see the first 10 thousand boards lasting very long on their shelves. I can't wait to get my hands on one.
yanksrock777 15y ago
I am waiting for the day I can buy one of these. Ok maybe I'll be like five. These will be so much fun to mess and hack around with. I can't believe that this is the price of an Arduino!
RexRollman 15y ago
I will order one once OpenBSD is running on it, which I am willing to bet won't be too long.
- justincormack 15y ago
  Buy one and make it run on it then.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    Not exactly a reasonable proposition for most mortals.
    - Jach 15y ago
      Any mortal who wants to run BSD is most likely also capable of installing BSD. (For that matter I'm sure the majority of people who have just heard of BSD are capable of installing it.) Furthermore it's no more difficult getting up and running than on a desktop since the Arm is supported by the kernel; you just load everything on the SD card and the pre-installed uboot (or whatever they have on there) will boot off of it.
      - simias 15y ago
        It's not that simple, an ARM board is not a PC, you don't have a BIOS for instance. Basically you have to write some glue to tell the kernel what and where are the devices and how to access them. See for instance in Linux http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/arm http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/arm for the various Board Support Packages available upstream. Not to mention that while OpenBSD supports the ARM architecture it might not have drivers for all the IPs integrated in the SoC. So basically, it won't be plug'n'play like installing a new OS on your new x86 computer, altho the amount of work required to get it to work might not be completely overwhelming if you know what you have to do (especially since the linux source code is available).
      - Ecio78 15y ago
        Actually it seems that RaspberryPI will have a slightly odd bootloader, not the usual uboot, so you must check how to install BSD on the board http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard#BootRom http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard#BootRom Also here http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoardDistributions http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoardDistributions the BSD os is not cited, but I think the biggest problem could be drivers (especially for the video part), as stated here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and-collaboration-general/freebsd-on-raspberry-pi http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and-collaboration-...
Nate75Sanders 15y ago
Hopefully some nice cases will come out. I'd like to see one with an integrated USB hub. Additionally, as it takes USB power for the computer itself, having a monitor with USB ports would enable you to power the entire computer with only a short USB cable. You could then mount the small case to the back of the monitor, perhaps to make everything neat.
lateral11 15y ago
Not buying one until it's made in UK.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Best way to get it made in the UK would seem to be to buy one and support the movement so that they can continue pressuring the government to allow them to make them in the UK. I mean really, who are you protesting against? The government, right? What does the government care if you don't buy a $25 gadget?
  - lateral11 15y ago
    I would pay more than 25 GBP were it made in the UK. And this isn't a movement -- it's not "occupy".
- perokreco 15y ago
  Why not? Are UK residents more deserving of a job than Chinese?
  - lateral11 15y ago
    if you have an ounce of patriotism as the inventor, yes.
mjwalshe 15y ago
Hmm - I will be contacting a few MP's about this nonsensical tax situation.
noonespecial 15y ago
I think they're dead wrong about the demand of the model B, vs the model A. I think most people are going to want to buy a model A for $10 less and stick a sub-$10 usb wifi onto it than run a wire. Most of the projects I think of and don't build are scrapped for want of $50 worth of ridiculous "zigbee" wireless hardware that can barely push 250kbits across the room. The internet of things is made of wifi.
- genbattle 15y ago
  But what about the extra 128MB of ram, and the extra USB port? Also, You'd be hard pressed to get a USB Wifi Stick for less than the cost of the whole Raspberry Pi board in my country. Plus as you add more devices Wifi can get very saturated. Installation and configuration of USB Wifi adapters under Linux is a bit of a challenge. Ethernet on the other hand is practically plug and play. There are also plenty of ideas which can use wired networking. Ideas from home automation to set-top boxes to microservers are all going to benefit from a more stable and high-bandwidth wired connection. For general tinkering I would rather pay the extra $10 or whatever and get more options in terms of the hardware.
  - someperson 15y ago
    See eBay, even with shipping sub-$10NZ is easily possible. "nano" dongles especially.
- Andys 15y ago
  An alternative might be the TP-link TL-WR703N: a wireless router available on ebay for about $30 delivered. It has a MIPS CPU, has built in 802.11b/g/n, 1 ethernet port, a USB port, and runs at low power off a USB jack (5V). It can be flashed with Linux but you have to navigate chinese menus to do so (not hard).
- njharman 15y ago
  For something that has to be tethered to monitor, power, keyboard, adding ethernet cable is no problem. I much prefer wired connections over wifi for non-mobile devices.
- 15y ago
donnawarellp 15y ago
I remember when they said the boards would be out in June, then August, then October, then November now January and "we are manufacturing". I have never seen vaporware hyped so sucessfully!
suhastech 15y ago
Well, outsourcing to China is probably "charity". Think about it. If people are working there accept such low wages, they probably don't have other options. The alternative is, lower wages?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
DrinkWater 15y ago
There are some discussions about the supported OS's in the Raspberry Pi Forums. And this is what is still holding me back from dancing and screaming about this project.
- dspillett 15y ago
  This is something I need to look into. I'll be buying one B when they are available anyway, but may get more depending on a few things including the OS question. The claimed "can play 1080p h264 video at 30fps" claim is most interesting to me, but if I slap Debian on there (which seems to be the suggested distro) will it be able to use that hardware video acceleration out of the box or will I need to jump through a few nasty hoops to get some proprietary chipset driver to cooperate?
  - DrinkWater 15y ago
    Exactly!
rmoriz 15y ago
There is also another interesting board project in the UK, but it's still in the design-phase: http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10 http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10
Maven911 15y ago
Am i missing something here, some versions of the andruino seems to be in a similar price range (at mouser.com), or is this board vastly superior to the cheap model andruinos ?
- adestefan 15y ago
  The Adruino is built around the 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller line. It also exposes numerous digital, PWM, and analog pins for easy hookup to external devices. It is in no way a general use computer. The Raspberry PI has a 32-bit ARM chip that can run Linux. It has a video output, USB for keyboard and mouse, and one version has an Ethernet port. It's aim is to make a cheap general purpose Linux system.

329 points by pauldino 15y ago

rch 15y ago

It is interesting that they at least explored the idea of building in the UK, and that tax policies factored in so negatively. Does the US have similarly structured import taxes?

Permit 15y ago
I was curious about the taxes as well. Does anyone know what the argument for having a tax system set up this way would be? I imagine there must be some reason, but I'm not sure what it would be.
- yardie 15y ago
  Actually, and maybe I'm missing something, they are quite wrong. Yes you pay a VAT on components, but as a business you reclaim it and pass it down the line. Import components -> (pay VAT) build item (reclaim VAT) -> (pay VAT) wholeseller (reclaim VAT) -> (pay VAT) retailer (reclaim VAT) -> (pay VAT) buyer. As long as you are engaging in commerce you never pay VAT on the items you for your business. Also, there are electronic schemes to speed up the reclamation process. If you have a business ¿TaxID? number some resellers will drop the VAT for you knowing they'll reclaim it anyway.
objclxt 15y ago
I will have a go answering this - tax and import laws in the UK, like the US, are extremely complicated and often bizarre. It's therefore almost certain nobody except Raspberry Pi's accountant / legal advisors would be able to give the definitive reason, but I am pretty sure it is to do with how components vs full computers are classified for duty purposes. There are specific import laws designed to aid manufacturing industries, and it could be that these laws need to be extended to component assembly. For example, the UK does very well in car and aerospace manufacturer, and there are import laws regarding components designed to aid this.
pash 15y ago
In the United States, there are no import duties on computers or on computer components.[1] But there are no duties on assembled computers or on computer components entering the United Kingdom either, so far as I can tell. Assembled computers are listed under heading 8471 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which is used by all trading nations. (They are referred to as "automatic data-processing machines"; the terminology and categories are all quite archaic.) The UK imposes no import duty on computers of any type.[2] Parts and accessories "suitable for use solely or principally with" computers are listed under heading 8473.30 and likewise can enter the UK duty-free.[3] It's possible that some required components are listed elsewhere in the HTS and that those are not duty-free. But that seems unlikely; almost everything in Chapters 84 & 85, which cover all electronics, can enter the UK free of duties. I'm not familiar enough with the UK tariff regime to know whether there are other considerations beyond the base duty rate. (But it doesn't look like it; the relevant Acts of Parliament setting duties for each class of good are noted on the BusinessLink site linked below.) So I have no idea what import tariffs Raspberry Pi need (or think they need) to pay. It certainly doesn't look like the UK has some screwy import regime that penalizes firms wanting to assemble computers there. 1. So long as the goods' country of origin has "most favored nation" status. This means, essentially, that it has normal trade relations with the United States. That includes all members of the World Trade Organization. 2. http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.html?export=false&from=list&id=8471&simulationDate=10/01/12 http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.h... 3. http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.html?export=false&from=list&id=8473&simulationDate=10/01/12 http://tariff.businesslink.gov.uk/tariff-bl/export/heading.h...
njharman 15y ago
I don't know about import taxes. But, US does not have a VAT like UK. It has a sales tax which is only paid by the end user. Usually the consumer. Materials like cotton (and I guess electronic parts) used in manufacture aren't taxed (at least not with a sales/VAT).
- IgorPartola 15y ago
  No? I was under the impression that if I wanted to buy a bunch of cotton or silicone or diodes that I'd have to pay taxes on that. Then once I manufacture my awesome device using only those materials, plus a Swiss army knife and a rubber band, I could sell it to you and you'd get to pay another round of sales tax. On the backend of this transaction of course is the machinery used to harvest/manufacture the raw materials, for which the farmer/manufacturer also paid a sales tax on. Unless there is some kind of subsidy at play here.
  - klodolph 15y ago
    This is per-state. For example, Oregon has no sales tax except for a couple things like tobacco and gasoline. Most states which have sales tax only have retail sales tax (plus a couple random ones). But no, wholesale is generally not taxed. (This is the difference between "sales tax", which happens when the end product goes to the consumer, and "value added tax", which happens multiple times. I don't think a single state will tax you on a box of diodes you order from your supplier, but if you go to Radio Shack they'll probably tax you.)
    - justincormack 15y ago
      Value added tax does not happen multiple times, as it is refundable. In effect it is just a retail sales tax. However the rates are high in Europe, often 20%.
    - IgorPartola 15y ago
      Thanks! Follow up question: what is wholesale? Can I buy a yaer's worth of potatoes tax free? How about a lifetime supply of socks?Or are we talking about huge quantities?

willyt 15y ago

I don't understand why Raspberry Pi doesn't have to pay VAT on the assembled imported items? Is it because they are a charity? EDIT: added 'assembled'. Does anyone have a link to the IR rules about this?

roel_v 15y ago
It doesn't say VAT, it's import duties.
- willyt 15y ago
  All right then, why is there no import duty (which is charged at the same rate as VAT) on a Raspberry PI when there is on a stick of RAM? Genuine question: I'm curious to know how the rules define one item as separate from the other. Edit: OK sorry my comment was a load of crap, I was confused. They charge both VAT @%20 and duty @~3% but duty is only charged on a massive and seemingly random list of things.
  - objclxt 15y ago
    They are probably classifying their product as a 'palm-top computer', which attracts no import duty. But the component parts (the chips, etc) almost certainly will. For reasons I gave in my reply above, I couldn't tell you the exact duty amounts, but there is a link here that details the duty for palm-top computers: http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageVAT_ShowContent&id=HMCE_PROD_009989&propertyType=document http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPort... I seem to remember this being the case when I imported some Beagleboards into the UK for R&D work, and didn't pay import duty on them.
    - justincormack 15y ago
      That is the most bizarre list of random tax rates. I always seem to get charged a lot so will appeal next time based on whether my player is mp3 or mp4 or whatever. And I might complain to my MP about the taxes on 35mm film cameras. Bizarre.

drtse4 15y ago

The first batch will be of 10k boards. Will be sold out in a few hours...

jamesRaybould 15y ago
It appears that you spelt minutes wrong. Just take a look at the massive fire sale that revolved around the HP Touchpad and I think thats the kind of interest this will receive.
- corin_ 15y ago
  I don't think they'll receive nearly as much general interest as the touchpad, one is a device that consumers can see as "like an iPad, but amazingly cheap", the other as "a programmable system for geeks". Certainly I know friends who bought the fire sale touchpads, and many more who would have if they had the chance, none of which will be buying the raspberry pi - except the really techy ones. Also, to do with the press it will get. Articles of "huge fire sale, get one while you can!" will be replaced with "this could change education" and "look what you could create with these" pieces. Don't get me wrong, they will be hugely popular, and 10,000 is far less than the number of touchpads there were. It will also depend, obviously, on the per-customer limits they put in place. I certainly expect them to sell out fast (will it be minutes, hours or days, I have no idea), but to compare the level of interest to the touchpad fire sale is huge exaggeration.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    I thought about putting an order in for 10K boards. I think if you look at the 'tv dongles' which is basically a small system running a flavor of Linux driving a TV [1] you'll find at $35 each they are a no-brainer. Here's a dead simple idea, TV dongle with Web cam for 'facetime' on your TV. If you've got a cable IP network, you use Skype or some variation (hell Google talk w/ Video) and you're done. Plastic molded case and poof. Using the camera and simple gestures (think Kincect 0.5) make an instant 'hangout' using G+ on your TV. Wave your hand, point at your circle, and blam start hanging out. I've got like a zillion ideas of ways to turn a $35 board with HDMI+Networking into serious bank. I'm not unique in this regard. [1] http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/hdmidongle.htm http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/products/hdmidongle.htm

dman 15y ago

The pricepoint is simply revoultionary. I intend to make a few amateur home automation gadgets with this.

Florin_Andrei 15y ago
It's a perfect complement to platforms like Arduino.
stephengillie 15y ago
The 'Pi itself is exciting, but more exciting will be seeing what everyone makes with them. I hope to read your posts about what you've built! Looking at the comments to their FAQ - http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs#comment-3239 http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs#comment-3239 - reselling devices based on the Raspberry Pi is OK.
- dman 15y ago
  The first thing I am targetting is semi lame, but useful for me - a batman style lamp. Its for my parents and me to birectionally coordinate on when to come on skype. Right now I first have to call them and then ask them to come online and same the other way around. This way either party can speculatively just push the button and if the other one acknowledges the computers can be switched on.
  - slug 15y ago
    Wouldn't it be easier to build a standalone voip phone with a rasperry pi and avoid turning on a computer for skype altogether ? I'm not sure if you could do bidirectional video with the pi, but voice should be no problem.
    - peterderivaz 15y ago
      I believe a standalone video phone should be quite easy. My understanding is that the chip can support 1080P encode or decode (so 720P bi-directional video should be fine) and that it will have OpenMAX libraries to allow you to drive the hardware codecs. OpenMAX code is quite fragile in my experience (from trying to use such libraries on Android phones) so I was wondering about writing a Python wrapper (based on the ctypes module) for the video encode/decode to make it easier to use. (Unless someone has done this already?)

blhack 15y ago

The people behind raspi seem really, genuinely good. If this is all marketing, it doesn't feel like it. They're going to do what manufacturing they can in the UK, even though it would net them a lot more money to do it overseas. Awesome.

brador 15y ago
I love the speed they're working at and their no excuses, no BS approach. It's surprisingly refreshing. Are they funded?
- lftl 15y ago
  I have no clue as to their financial status, but Liz (one of the team members) said this in the comments: Indeed – and I’m pretty sure that those psychic people would be a bit more cautious if it was their mortgage that this thing was secured on
  - andyking 15y ago
    It says in the blurb at the bottom of the page that Liz is a "full time volunteer." Why can't they pay someone to do their PR if they're funded?
    - agildehaus 15y ago
      There are varying degrees of 'funded'.
    - skrebbel 15y ago
      Not sure about UK, but in the Netherlands, volunteers often get a "costs reimbursement". If you're a full time volunteer, that reimbursment may roughly equal a crappy salary. Maybe that's what Liz is getting, too. It'd be nothing like what she could earn in industry, but enough to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. And a Raspberry Pi in every room.
- ahel 15y ago

ck2 15y ago

if we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all Wow this sounds worse than job exporting in the USA

marchdown 15y ago
I wonder if these restrictions could be circumvented somehow by transporting components in a form which is technically a functioning assembly.
- vyrotek 15y ago
  You may be on to something. What's inside the box? That's not a box, its a large paper weight. The random stuff inside is just to add weight.
- gravitronic 15y ago
  Not in any means that would remain profitable as it would require post-processing from the component manufacturer and then modification before they could feed the components back into the pick and place robots.
- kevinpet 15y ago
  Not exactly what you were getting at, but Ford does something similar with the Transit Connect. It's imported as a passenger wagon with back seats and windows, which are removed in the US.
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revorad 15y ago
I'm not sure that's entirely correct. I thought there was some duty even on complete devices imported into the UK from outside the EU.

patrickod 15y ago

I don't see the first 10 thousand boards lasting very long on their shelves. I can't wait to get my hands on one.

yanksrock777 15y ago

I am waiting for the day I can buy one of these. Ok maybe I'll be like five. These will be so much fun to mess and hack around with. I can't believe that this is the price of an Arduino!

RexRollman 15y ago

I will order one once OpenBSD is running on it, which I am willing to bet won't be too long.

justincormack 15y ago
Buy one and make it run on it then.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  Not exactly a reasonable proposition for most mortals.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Any mortal who wants to run BSD is most likely also capable of installing BSD. (For that matter I'm sure the majority of people who have just heard of BSD are capable of installing it.) Furthermore it's no more difficult getting up and running than on a desktop since the Arm is supported by the kernel; you just load everything on the SD card and the pre-installed uboot (or whatever they have on there) will boot off of it.
    - simias 15y ago
      It's not that simple, an ARM board is not a PC, you don't have a BIOS for instance. Basically you have to write some glue to tell the kernel what and where are the devices and how to access them. See for instance in Linux http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/arm http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/arch/arm for the various Board Support Packages available upstream. Not to mention that while OpenBSD supports the ARM architecture it might not have drivers for all the IPs integrated in the SoC. So basically, it won't be plug'n'play like installing a new OS on your new x86 computer, altho the amount of work required to get it to work might not be completely overwhelming if you know what you have to do (especially since the linux source code is available).
    - Ecio78 15y ago
      Actually it seems that RaspberryPI will have a slightly odd bootloader, not the usual uboot, so you must check how to install BSD on the board http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard#BootRom http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoard#BootRom Also here http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoardDistributions http://elinux.org/RaspberryPiBoardDistributions the BSD os is not cited, but I think the biggest problem could be drivers (especially for the video part), as stated here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and-collaboration-general/freebsd-on-raspberry-pi http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/projects-and-collaboration-...

Nate75Sanders 15y ago

Hopefully some nice cases will come out. I'd like to see one with an integrated USB hub. Additionally, as it takes USB power for the computer itself, having a monitor with USB ports would enable you to power the entire computer with only a short USB cable. You could then mount the small case to the back of the monitor, perhaps to make everything neat.

lateral11 15y ago

Not buying one until it's made in UK.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Best way to get it made in the UK would seem to be to buy one and support the movement so that they can continue pressuring the government to allow them to make them in the UK. I mean really, who are you protesting against? The government, right? What does the government care if you don't buy a $25 gadget?
- lateral11 15y ago
  I would pay more than 25 GBP were it made in the UK. And this isn't a movement -- it's not "occupy".
perokreco 15y ago
Why not? Are UK residents more deserving of a job than Chinese?
- lateral11 15y ago
  if you have an ounce of patriotism as the inventor, yes.

mjwalshe 15y ago

Hmm - I will be contacting a few MP's about this nonsensical tax situation.

noonespecial 15y ago

I think they're dead wrong about the demand of the model B, vs the model A. I think most people are going to want to buy a model A for $10 less and stick a sub-$10 usb wifi onto it than run a wire. Most of the projects I think of and don't build are scrapped for want of $50 worth of ridiculous "zigbee" wireless hardware that can barely push 250kbits across the room. The internet of things is made of wifi.

genbattle 15y ago
But what about the extra 128MB of ram, and the extra USB port? Also, You'd be hard pressed to get a USB Wifi Stick for less than the cost of the whole Raspberry Pi board in my country. Plus as you add more devices Wifi can get very saturated. Installation and configuration of USB Wifi adapters under Linux is a bit of a challenge. Ethernet on the other hand is practically plug and play. There are also plenty of ideas which can use wired networking. Ideas from home automation to set-top boxes to microservers are all going to benefit from a more stable and high-bandwidth wired connection. For general tinkering I would rather pay the extra $10 or whatever and get more options in terms of the hardware.
- someperson 15y ago
  See eBay, even with shipping sub-$10NZ is easily possible. "nano" dongles especially.
Andys 15y ago
An alternative might be the TP-link TL-WR703N: a wireless router available on ebay for about $30 delivered. It has a MIPS CPU, has built in 802.11b/g/n, 1 ethernet port, a USB port, and runs at low power off a USB jack (5V). It can be flashed with Linux but you have to navigate chinese menus to do so (not hard).
njharman 15y ago
For something that has to be tethered to monitor, power, keyboard, adding ethernet cable is no problem. I much prefer wired connections over wifi for non-mobile devices.
15y ago

donnawarellp 15y ago

I remember when they said the boards would be out in June, then August, then October, then November now January and "we are manufacturing". I have never seen vaporware hyped so sucessfully!

suhastech 15y ago

Well, outsourcing to China is probably "charity". Think about it. If people are working there accept such low wages, they probably don't have other options. The alternative is, lower wages?

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DrinkWater 15y ago

There are some discussions about the supported OS's in the Raspberry Pi Forums. And this is what is still holding me back from dancing and screaming about this project.

dspillett 15y ago
This is something I need to look into. I'll be buying one B when they are available anyway, but may get more depending on a few things including the OS question. The claimed "can play 1080p h264 video at 30fps" claim is most interesting to me, but if I slap Debian on there (which seems to be the suggested distro) will it be able to use that hardware video acceleration out of the box or will I need to jump through a few nasty hoops to get some proprietary chipset driver to cooperate?
- DrinkWater 15y ago
  Exactly!

rmoriz 15y ago

There is also another interesting board project in the UK, but it's still in the design-phase: http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10 http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10

Maven911 15y ago

Am i missing something here, some versions of the andruino seems to be in a similar price range (at mouser.com), or is this board vastly superior to the cheap model andruinos ?

adestefan 15y ago
The Adruino is built around the 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller line. It also exposes numerous digital, PWM, and analog pins for easy hookup to external devices. It is in no way a general use computer. The Raspberry PI has a 32-bit ARM chip that can run Linux. It has a video output, USB for keyboard and mouse, and one version has an Ethernet port. It's aim is to make a cheap general purpose Linux system.