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I really wish they would stop making newer, faster, more expensive Pi's and just focus on making the existing Pi's cheaper and more available. Out of the dozen
by firebat45 3y ago
I really wish they would stop making newer, faster, more expensive Pi's and just focus on making the existing Pi's cheaper and more available. Out of the dozen or so RPi's I have, not a single one is even connected to a monitor. I don't need dual 4k HDMI ports. I'd love a widely available and in-stock $20 Pi. It's like they've forgotten what the RPi is all about.
- starik36 3y agoThat's what the RPi Zero 2 is all about. They are $15 and work great.
- CodeWriter23 3y agoCan’t speak for GP but I want a $20 device with a wired Ethernet port. I’m using pis where they need to reliably communicate in real time.
- carlos_rpn 3y agoCheck the Banana Pis if you haven't already. Most of them have it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pi
- Blackthorn 3y agoThis is accidentally a fantastic example of the issues with the original commenter's train of thought. Not everyone needs every single feature, but every single feature is needed individually by someone.
- paulmd 3y agoyeah, with how many "maker" things have emerged around RPi, it's a bit of a dickpunch to be removing features that a nontrivial portion of the user base are building projects/products around. Hopefully we have gotten past the "RPi is for education, not makers!" thing, there is really zero traction on big computer labs full of raspberry pis. even insofar as it's used in education it's still used for maker tasks, people building robots with computer vision or whatever, and some of those use-cases need the encoder too. RPi has always been a somewhat incoherent product that survived because it was a below-average solution to any problem, the jack-of-all-trades for $45 (plus another $100 of accessories). If it doesn't have video encode, why would I want this for plex instead of a NUC clone? why would I buy this instead of a big AVR32/STM32 microcontroller for building a robot? Why would I want this instead of a Bus Pirate for GPIO? Why would I want to use this as a mini-desktop if I can't even do a Teams call on it? Etc etc. It's barely an adequate product even with all the legacy feature set there, if you start pulling pieces off then competing products become even more compelling for many use-cases. Reality is they will probably be fine because of the name recognition and brand but it's not good management either. I'd love to see real numbers but just like with the RX 6500XT I just can't imagine the encoder is that big. We are talking about pennies more per die, and likely this will cost them more in total sales than the pennies represent in the total product cost - you are saving 0.1% of the MSRP and losing 5-10% of potential addressable market. Literally would just be better for them to eat the cost, almost certainly. And you are correct that while nobody uses all the features, everybody uses some of them. I frankly do not understand the decision to depart from mainstream SOC configurations here - which obviously would have an encoder.
- Blackthorn 3y ago> RPi has always been a somewhat incoherent product that survived because it was a below-average solution to any problem, the jack-of-all-trades for $45 (plus another $100 of accessories). In addition to what you wrote: it also has a really good software story. Everybody's got a build for raspberry pi. Something like an odroid or banana pi or whatever has a much more "gotta handle all the builds yourself" path. The power of being the standard, I suppose.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- justin66 3y ago> Why would I want to use this as a mini-desktop if I can't even do a Teams call on it? You can do a Teams call on it (with prerelease software). See two Pis conferencing that way here (call was slightly glitchy until one guy on the call figured out he needed to switch from his crappy wifi to a wired connection): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_5wRKi_TI&t=415s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_5wRKi_TI&t=415s I don't get why anyone who wants to use it as a mini-desktop views the encoder situation as a deal breaker (from the linked comments): it only takes around 1 processor to encode 1080p60 with our default settings (which is still better quality than the PI 4 hardware encoder)
- wkat4242 3y agoYou can add it over USB (even with hub) for a few $$. Which is exactly how it's wired on the pi anyway until the 4.
- starik36 3y agoI am using a Micro USB to Ethernet adapter on the original Zero that didn't have wireless. It's been working for years with no issues at all. That's "almost" wired.
- sleepybrett 3y agohere is a 6 dollar expansion w/ ethernet for the pi zero2
- alpaca128 3y agoIt's more than $20 for everything but you can buy extension PCBs that more or less turn the Pi Zero 2W into a full-size Raspberry Pi with USB-A and Ethernet ports, also making it compatible with some full-size Pi cases.
- ThatPlayer 3y agoThere's the Raspberry Pi 3A+ that's 25$. One of my favorites that's less popular
- Kikawala 3y agoLook at the Radxa Zero 3E, it may fit your needs.
- londons_explore 3y agoI have found that a good chunk of random opensource projects won't run on the zero 2. The ARM core is ARM7 and doesn't support modern instructions, so plenty of software just immediately dies with 'Illefal Instruction'. Also, it's 32 bit, and a lot of software is starting to depend on the massive address spaces offered by 64 bit. And there is no high ram model. Some stuff just gobbles so much ram that 512M isn't practical.
- weberer 3y agoHere you go. Its $10 at Microcenter https://www.microcenter.com/product/486575/Zero_W https://www.microcenter.com/product/486575/Zero_W
- lannisterstark 3y agoNot everyone lives near a microcenter though. The pi zero W/2W comes out to like , $15+ ship + taxes and is more like $24.
- bmurphy1976 3y agoI've been trying to get two Zero W 2s for almost two years now without getting ripped off by somebody on the second hand market. They are still nearly impossible to find for the advertised price. :(
- nmjohn 3y agoWhile that certainly has been true for the majority of the last two years - rpi's in pretty much all skus have been back in stock for a few months now - to the point that even digikey has many of the skus in bulk stock See: https://rpilocator.com/ https://rpilocator.com/ As for Zero W 2s: In stock right now: https://chicagodist.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2 https://chicagodist.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2
- bmurphy1976 3y agoOh, thanks! I've been watching that religiously and while you are correct the other Pi's have been available for a couple months now, the 2Ws have been absent. I haven't checked in a couple weeks now, I'm happy to see they are finally in stock! Edit: it's a bit premature. Only Chicago Distributors have them in stock at the moment and they are limiting the orders to 1, which is frustrating because I only need 2.
- dheera 3y agoLet's all keep reporting them for price gouging until they get put out of business. Things that could be put to use should not be sitting in a warehouse.
- bmurphy1976 3y agoI wish they took performance more seriously. I migrated a bunch of my stuff off of a Pi 4 to an Intel N100 NUC because the Pi 4 just didn't cut it. I have a bunch of other use cases as well that have struggled with the Pi 4s and competing RK3588 based systems look compelling. Point is, your use case doesn't match my use case. I hope they continue to make things more performant AND cost effective.
- wkat4242 3y agoAn intel N100 NUC is just a really good low power server platform and it will always be better for that than a pi. The pi was never meant to be a server.
- bmurphy1976 3y agoOf course, but if you are trying to do something which requires GPIO or want to build on top of Rapsberry Pi's other functionality (i.e. the cameras) your options are more limited.
- tambourine_man 3y agoI never understand why people compare the Pi with NUCs. The latter is an order of magnitude more expansive (new, it’s hard to consider used stuff for serious work), has no GPIO built in, consumes way more power… It’s in a whole other category.
- michaelt 3y agoSome people want to make a DIY equivalent of a Synology NAS - something to make backups to, and maybe some other light serving tasks. They don't need the GPIO, and they're not attentive enough to their power bill to appreciate the difference between a device drawing $3 a month and a device drawing $0.30 per month. They know many of Synology's products use Arm CPUs. Later they find themselves saying hmm, it sure would be nice to have real SATA ports. Maybe a shared power supply for the drives and the CPU. It'd be nice to have enough IO and CPU to be able to saturate a gigabit link with encryption turned on. Oh, and a nice case with an active cooling solution built in. Suddenly, a retired compact PC starts to look like strong competition.
- snvzz 3y agoFortunately, there is choice in RISC-V.
- 015a 3y agoTheir mass production of the Pi keyboard should clue you into at least one direction that they believe "the Pi is all about"; education, and increasing access to modern computing hardware. Enhancing the performance envelope and connecting to a monitor do, to me, seem like worthy steps toward that end. Everyone uses general purpose computers differently. I feel your statement "they've forgotten what the RPi is all about" isn't just ignorant; its hurtful. Maybe their direction isn't parallel with what you want out of the products they make, but you should at least have the empathy to recognize that you aren't the main character in this play.
- Teever 3y agoWhile I admit that I am a bit envious of the large 4k monitors that my coworkers use, I have managed to make it through life without buying anything larger than a 1440p monitor. What exactly is the educational advantage (for the demographic that the raspberry pi is supposed to be educating) of the inclusion of 2x 4k ports and does that advantage override the opportunity cost of including the ports? In other words '1080p ought to be enough for anybody learning how computers work from an SBC.
- dual_dingo 3y agoRaspberry Pi is many things today. The foundation is indeed focused on education, but the company behind it has a much broader focus and sells many (most?) of their devices to commercial customers, where 2x4k outputs might be beneficial, e.g. in digital signage applications.
- philistine 3y agoHonestly, I'm just spitballing here, but it's not like the Raspberry foundation is making its own silicon. They're using what exists. It's probably a simple case of the chipset they chose supporting it, so might as well include it.
- stefan_ 3y agoThey are making their own silicon (see the RP1 at [1]) and obviously have very significant input as to what Broadcom puts into the main SoC, a chip that is primarily now made for RPi needs. 1: https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/
- bilalq 3y agoDifferent people have different needs though. I have a smart mirror that runs a 4K display driven by a Pi 4. I'm sure there a lot of other kiosk-like use-cases for Pis.
- opan 3y agoTotally fair desire, though some people definitely do want these to be desktop or HTPC replacements. I'm usually more impressed with RockChip stuff anyway, though, so if the Raspberry Pi folks wanted to focus their efforts on affordable dev boards, I think there'd still be plenty of options for those who do want to play back 4k video on a monitor. They've done an excellent job with the Pi Pico, keeping it in stock and dirt cheap. I've gotten a dozen or more of those at like $4 each. So they're still catering to the "maker" types with those. I'm excited to get a better version of something like the Pinebook Pro someday, based on a newer SoC with more RAM and a bit more GPU power for video playback and some simpler games like Minetest and Xonotic.
- ahepp 3y agoI haven't bought any in a while, but looks like the Pi Zero W is in stock and available for $10 at Microcenter. Other sellers seem to have them in stock for $15. So isn't there already a widely available Pi in stock for under $20?
- OhNoNotAgain_99 3y ago[dead]
- jhatemyjob 3y agoThere are other flavors of Pi, like the Orange Pi or Banana Pi. Have you looked into those? The newest Orange Pi is really expensive but maybe there's others that are cheaper
- KaiserPro 3y agothe zero/zero2 should have you covered, I have a zero2 and its rather good. not bad for the price either.
- EwanToo 3y agoThe Pi Zero 2 W is $20 and reasonably consistently in stock now. https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2
- m463 3y agoit looks like the pi 4 is becoming available and (more) reasonably priced. not $35, but not what seemed to be $185 either
- p_b_d 3y agoI agree, they could make two models that cater both the markets they are gong for which are "mini servers" for lans and iot where no one needs to look at the monitor and you access it with ssh/vnc, and "mini desktops" for education where an active user sits in front of a monitor. So: - Pi Server: without all the stuff that not belong in it -- for a cheap price like you said - Pi Desktop: with all the stuff that belongs there -- for a premium price. Of course this means double design, double production line, double testing,. support, etc. And will most likely reduce revenue. This is probably why they go with the all in one approach.
- eternityforest 3y agoI want less powerful pis with more hardware features. Everyone else is getting onboard battery management and AI coprocessors and stuff, the Pi is busy trying to run on expensive SSDs because for some reason they don't just fix their software to run better on SDs(And lots of apps seem uninterested in fixing SD write issues).
- hypercube33 3y agoHopefully SD Express bridges the gap and nullifies SD card write wear issues and performance issues since they become mini m.2 cards at that point.