49 ms·

Honestly I am surprised that the demand for Raspberry Pis is this high. Where are all these Pis going?

by dom96 3y ago

nekoashide 3y ago
Home projects, I need a couple for home automation.
Workaccount2 3y ago
I use them for test systems at my job. Where formally we needed a whole dedicated PC or laptop, we can now just throw a $20 rpi at it with ease.
blakesterz 3y ago
Projects like this too: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/tags/cluster https://www.jeffgeerling.com/tags/cluster
topikk 3y ago
They're amazingly powerful for the money. Prior to the shortages they were great for retro game emulation, little linux boxes for fun/kids/specific uses, home automation, whole-network ad filtering, etc etc.
- jasonladuke0311 3y ago
  That is incredibly niche usage. It doesn't come close to explaining why they have been basically absent from retailers for years(?).
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    All those niches add up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail
madspindel 3y ago
Home Assistant, Adguard Home etc. Nice little device to run containers on.
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
>Where are all these Pis going? Lots of commercial systems use them, for digital signage, and all kinds of automation in industrial, retail, basically they're in nearly every embedded device at this point. It's hard to find a small to medium sized hardware/IoT company that doesn't ship commercial products with PIs in them.
jaredandrews 3y ago
Not all of these are currently active but here are the distinct Pi's in my house. - PiHole - Home Automation controller - Camera / temp / humidity monitor for grow closet and at time 3d printer - A 3d printer I used to have had a raspberry pi as it's board (I think, maybe it was a clone). - I'm pretty sure my CNC machine uses a pi - As another commenter mentioned, I used to have a Pi built into a NES for emulator purposes.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Also mobile robots, various industrial controllers, home media centres I guess?
bigdict 3y ago
My drawer.
- jkestner 3y ago
  Imagining a drawer made out of PCBs, in which you store hobby wood. Maybe boards should all incorporate a standard slot-and-tab system to turn them into a building toy instead of ewaste.
giantg2 3y ago
I have a pi-hole, and old 1B that doesn't do anything currently but filled a bunch of projects over time, and a Pi Zero that I've played around with for a couple projects and might have a more permanent IoT project if I can get additional Pis. I have another project that sort of works on a Pi Zero, but really needs a Pi Zero 2 so it's not laggy. Right now I'm an illogical state of mind due to the shortage. I want to preserve my unused Pi Zero so I can prototype projects, yet if I can't get additional Pis then what's the point of prototyping? I've ended up looking at alternatives and had a hard time getting many things to work on them, but the lack of Pis forces me to struggle with those problems.
lmpdev 3y ago
We installed a three phase load shedding device for a school in January It was just a Pi and relays Tens of thousands of dollars
jerrysievert 3y ago
I have hardware out in the field deployed at breweries/pubs that have died over time and needed replacements. my own stock of pi3's is now depleted, and I've been looking for replacements daily.
- jkestner 3y ago
  What do you use them for, if you don’t mind me asking?
  - jerrysievert 3y ago
    lighting and displays - the pi's work well because they have decent GPIO support and were easy and cheap to acquire when the original hardware was built. they are overpowered for what they're doing, but usually rock solid for years at a time.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mattkevan 3y ago
Home projects. I've got a few that I use as Airplay receivers, Calibre OPDS book server, automatic updates and builds on my static sites, Twitter bots, HomeAssistant etc. Super handy for anything that needs to run in the background without much supervision. Hoping the stock increases soon as I've got a bunch of old displays I want to turn into digital picture frames.
- jkestner 3y ago
  What kind of case do you put these in? Or do people run naked boards?
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  I have one pretending to be a grandfather clock (it used drive a servo that rang a physical chime via a little motor driver controlled by GPIO, but the servos would burn out every year or so, now instead cron just plays some .ogg files of a clock striking). But for straight-up servers, wouldn't a bunch of docker containers (or even some shell scripts and cron) cover many of those other uses? I tend to think of the Pi as a sort of 'physical container' that gets me a full OS (with networking, package mgmt etc.) which can be great if you only need one thing in one place, but I also have a little fanless NUC-alike running a bunch of containers.
pwinwood 3y ago
SBitx ham radio transceiver. https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/sbitx-v2/ https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/sbitx-v2/
sliken 3y ago
My understanding is that the vast majority of them end up in products. Embedded in all kinds of systems. IoT, assembly lines, signs, lobby displays, interfacing with all kinds of dumb systems to get them an internet interface. $5 for a Pi-0/pi-0w is hard to beat on anything that ships less then many 10,000s of units. Only a very small percentage are sent to hobbiest/makers. Much like how the GPU manufactures (or their distributors) sold directly to crypto miners.

Honestly I am surprised that the demand for Raspberry Pis is this high. Where are all these Pis going?

by dom96 3y ago

Honestly I am surprised that the demand for Raspberry Pis is this high. Where are all these Pis going?

nekoashide 3y ago

Home projects, I need a couple for home automation.

Workaccount2 3y ago

I use them for test systems at my job. Where formally we needed a whole dedicated PC or laptop, we can now just throw a $20 rpi at it with ease.

blakesterz 3y ago

Projects like this too: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/tags/cluster https://www.jeffgeerling.com/tags/cluster

topikk 3y ago

They're amazingly powerful for the money. Prior to the shortages they were great for retro game emulation, little linux boxes for fun/kids/specific uses, home automation, whole-network ad filtering, etc etc.

jasonladuke0311 3y ago
That is incredibly niche usage. It doesn't come close to explaining why they have been basically absent from retailers for years(?).
- mejutoco 3y ago
  All those niches add up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail

madspindel 3y ago

Home Assistant, Adguard Home etc. Nice little device to run containers on.

ChuckNorris89 3y ago

>Where are all these Pis going? Lots of commercial systems use them, for digital signage, and all kinds of automation in industrial, retail, basically they're in nearly every embedded device at this point. It's hard to find a small to medium sized hardware/IoT company that doesn't ship commercial products with PIs in them.

jaredandrews 3y ago

Not all of these are currently active but here are the distinct Pi's in my house. - PiHole - Home Automation controller - Camera / temp / humidity monitor for grow closet and at time 3d printer - A 3d printer I used to have had a raspberry pi as it's board (I think, maybe it was a clone). - I'm pretty sure my CNC machine uses a pi - As another commenter mentioned, I used to have a Pi built into a NES for emulator purposes.

moffkalast 3y ago
Also mobile robots, various industrial controllers, home media centres I guess?

bigdict 3y ago

My drawer.

jkestner 3y ago
Imagining a drawer made out of PCBs, in which you store hobby wood. Maybe boards should all incorporate a standard slot-and-tab system to turn them into a building toy instead of ewaste.

giantg2 3y ago

I have a pi-hole, and old 1B that doesn't do anything currently but filled a bunch of projects over time, and a Pi Zero that I've played around with for a couple projects and might have a more permanent IoT project if I can get additional Pis. I have another project that sort of works on a Pi Zero, but really needs a Pi Zero 2 so it's not laggy. Right now I'm an illogical state of mind due to the shortage. I want to preserve my unused Pi Zero so I can prototype projects, yet if I can't get additional Pis then what's the point of prototyping? I've ended up looking at alternatives and had a hard time getting many things to work on them, but the lack of Pis forces me to struggle with those problems.

lmpdev 3y ago

We installed a three phase load shedding device for a school in January It was just a Pi and relays Tens of thousands of dollars

jerrysievert 3y ago

I have hardware out in the field deployed at breweries/pubs that have died over time and needed replacements. my own stock of pi3's is now depleted, and I've been looking for replacements daily.

jkestner 3y ago
What do you use them for, if you don’t mind me asking?
- jerrysievert 3y ago
  lighting and displays - the pi's work well because they have decent GPIO support and were easy and cheap to acquire when the original hardware was built. they are overpowered for what they're doing, but usually rock solid for years at a time.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mattkevan 3y ago

Home projects. I've got a few that I use as Airplay receivers, Calibre OPDS book server, automatic updates and builds on my static sites, Twitter bots, HomeAssistant etc. Super handy for anything that needs to run in the background without much supervision. Hoping the stock increases soon as I've got a bunch of old displays I want to turn into digital picture frames.

jkestner 3y ago
What kind of case do you put these in? Or do people run naked boards?
blacksmith_tb 3y ago
I have one pretending to be a grandfather clock (it used drive a servo that rang a physical chime via a little motor driver controlled by GPIO, but the servos would burn out every year or so, now instead cron just plays some .ogg files of a clock striking). But for straight-up servers, wouldn't a bunch of docker containers (or even some shell scripts and cron) cover many of those other uses? I tend to think of the Pi as a sort of 'physical container' that gets me a full OS (with networking, package mgmt etc.) which can be great if you only need one thing in one place, but I also have a little fanless NUC-alike running a bunch of containers.

pwinwood 3y ago

SBitx ham radio transceiver. https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/sbitx-v2/ https://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/sbitx-v2/

sliken 3y ago

My understanding is that the vast majority of them end up in products. Embedded in all kinds of systems. IoT, assembly lines, signs, lobby displays, interfacing with all kinds of dumb systems to get them an internet interface. $5 for a Pi-0/pi-0w is hard to beat on anything that ships less then many 10,000s of units. Only a very small percentage are sent to hobbiest/makers. Much like how the GPU manufactures (or their distributors) sold directly to crypto miners.