17 ms·
Not a completely invalid or uncommon take, but also not completely correct. People lament that it isn't the $25 like it used to be with the Pi 2/3, but ignore t
by pseudosavant 4mo ago
Not a completely invalid or uncommon take, but also not completely correct. People lament that it isn't the $25 like it used to be with the Pi 2/3, but ignore that you can get a Pi Zero 2 W (quad A53 cores like 3B, 512MB RAM) for <$20. I've used them for a bunch of projects: moonlight game streaming client, on-stage video player controlled by a foot pedal, Bluetooth controlled recorder for USB audio interfaces, Tailscale exit node, etc. They are tiny and great!
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w/
I wish a Pi 5 (and RAM in general) was cheaper, but Raspberry Pi can't control that.
- pibaker 4mo agoSome people seem to think raspberry pi is a consumer tech company and whenever a new model is released, the old one will be discontinued. They will complain about the product being changed and the company robbing them of a cheap SBC. I can only assume they don't actually work with the pi because if you spend just a minute looking at any reseller's inventory or even just the official website you will see they still make and sell and support boards from a decade ago.
- javchz 4mo agoAgree. It's clear since COVID that Pi it's barely a company for makers or DIYers anymore, but it's a supply company for small to medium industries to integrate cheap PCs in their manufacturing process and they are good at that role.
- hatthew 4mo agoHuh. I had a work project a decade ago where we were evaluating SBCs as drivers for kiosks. At that time, the prevailing wisdom was that the Pi was specifically not for industry, as its main advantage was the strong community to provide support for DIYers. Competitors like PINE64 and Orange Pi were the same/better specs at half the price.
- wtallis 4mo agoWhen people talk about whether something like a Pi is aimed at industrial customers, that is largely not a statement about the cost vs specs, nor about the level of engagement with the DIY community. It's usually about having a suitable supply chain and long-term support and stable BOM and a mature software platform for customers to start building on.
- hatthew 4mo agoOur logic at the time was that the relatively fixed cost of figuring out the hardware and developing device-specific software was less than the variable cost-per-board delta of like $20.
- milanove 4mo agoThe Raspberry Pi and Arduino platforms weren't meant to power commercial-grade products, nor be cost effective at scale compared to raw/custom ARM and AVR devices. However, they've become ubiquitous in education, which I imagine has impacted industry. Similar to how software companies give out free student licenses so that upcoming engineers become familiar with their software for when they start working, an entire generation of embedded systems engineers were taught on official (or compatible) Arduino and Raspberry Pi devices. While these platforms aren't meant for commercial products, I imagine engineers in industry might use these platforms to prototype or work with subcomponents, before they integrate it with a raw/custom AVR or ARM platform. After all, when prototyping, it's easier and faster to get up and running when you have a massive collection of libraries and tutorials online to use, which RPi and Arduino offer, versus doing it all yourself with raw AVR and ARM.
- voakbasda 4mo agoAs an example, I believe the tear-down of one of the now-defunct electric scooter rental company’s units revealed it contained a RPi. IIRC, the commentary lambasted them for using it, because it’s not really rated for that kind of job. But a significant portion of the peanut gallery understood and rationalized the decision. I expect fewer folks would question this choice these days.
- nubinetwork 4mo agoWhile you can still buy a pi 3, you'd be kicking yourself for not using something faster.
- hdbebdb 4mo agoWhy would you? It's completely fine for it's intended educational context
- KeplerBoy 4mo agoIt's not just intended exclusively or limited to education. Many products ship with compute modules inside.
- avhception 4mo agoWe have a lot of old pi3 stock at $work. We keep using them. The pi3 was the newest model when we imagined and built the applications we're using them for. It was perfectly capable back then. Why would that have changed? The application hasn't changed and it's still perfectly capable now.
- Uncle_Brumpus 4mo agoI don't know, I've got a ~10 year old 1B+ sitting there running Pihole just fine. My ass remains un-kicked.
- zarzavat 4mo agoI don't understand why it's so difficult for people to understand. If you're using the Pi as a microcontroller that you can run Python on, then just get the cheapest Pi that meets your needs. If you're using the Pi for computationally expensive tasks then pay more money and get the fast one. Personally I have a Pi 5 and it's perfect for me because I want small size but high performance. People say "just buy a real computer" but that would be higher energy and larger footprint. The whole point of these things is that you use them for whatever you can imagine. Since different people have different imaginations it only makes sense that there's a range of different devices to suit everyone.
- baq 4mo agoN100-class minipcs are better at everything the pi 5 is doing except perhaps a bit of idle power and gpio.
- wao0uuno 4mo agoCan a N100-class minipc” be installed inside of a wall with a touchscreen and serve as a PoE powered Home Assistant interface? Can it be used to build a portable battery powered smartphone like PC (Compute Module 5)? Raspberry Pi’s biggest strength is its form factor and low power draw.
- timschmidt 4mo ago> Can a N100-class minipc” be installed inside of a wall with a touchscreen and serve as a PoE powered Home Assistant interface? Yes. Generally only requiring a $10 PoE splitter like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/134500605396 https://www.ebay.com/itm/134500605396 Some N100 class machines draw more power, but many don't, and there are more capable PoE splitters for a few dollars extra. Use a USB touchscreen.
- wao0uuno 4mo agoBut that's way bigger and hotter than a RPi4 with an official Touch Display 2. It's technically possible but sounds silly and impractical.
- extraduder_ire 4mo agoEverything on their website has a date they promise to manufacture them until. They really want to assure people that they can get a near identical replacement for years to come if they want to build a product or deploy one somewhere.
- theowaway 4mo agoexcept you can't. They have been out of stock for weeks
- HankB99 4mo agoI just checked my closest Microcenters (in Illinois.) 12 in Westmont and 25+ in Chicago (for $18) Zero W were 13 and 25+ respectively at $15. Long gone are the days when they would sell a Pi Zero for $3.14 on Pi day.
- LastTrain 4mo agoPi Zero 2 W is what people are saying is out of stock. MC doesn’t have any of them either.
- ssl-3 4mo agoThere's more than one Pi Zero 2 W -- one with headers, and one without. Are you looking at both? Headerless version is out-of-stock for my nearest Microcenter (Columbus, Ohio): https://www.microcenter.com/product/643085/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w https://www.microcenter.com/product/643085/raspberry-pi-zero... But they say they have 25+ of the version that comes with headers: https://www.microcenter.com/product/683270/raspberry-pi-raspberry-pi-zero-w-2-with-headers https://www.microcenter.com/product/683270/raspberry-pi-rasp...
- LastTrain 4mo agoSecond link says sold out.
- ssl-3 4mo agoStill 25+ available for me, in Columbus, Ohio. In-store only, limit 1 per household. I'd pick one up when I'm in the area this weekend...but I'm not into the scalping/arbitrage game, and I've already got a few Pi Zero Ws kicking around without a purpose that are still overkill for lots of things. (I may have bought too many of those back when Microcenter was selling them for half of MSRP at $5.)
- mathis 4mo agoTry getting your hands on a Pi Zero 2 W. Here in Germany you cannot get them at all any more and the quoted price has gone up 3x.
- NavinF 4mo agoIt's $37 new incl shipping on US eBay. Initial retail price was $23 incl shipping, see launch thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29025579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29025579 So a 61% price hike over 5 years, of which 24% was just inflation. If the total price really went up 200% in your country, that's exceptional and probably caused by policies unique to your country. btw you can't compare prices without shipping because there was never an option to buy 100 at $15 each and amortize shipping. Retailers treated it as a loss leader with a limit of one per purchase, often forcing you to buy some extra junk to meet the order minimum.
- justin66 4mo agoWeird. I can get one at the local Microcenter - with headers, the only one they're selling right now - for $18. They have a bunch in stock.
- geerlingguy 4mo agoYeah, for those with a Micro Center, the Pi pricing is in line with MSRPs. A lot of people buy from vendors on Amazon or eBay, which do not have to stick to MSRPs, and they use those prices as "gospel". Sadly, for some people, those prices are the best they can find for a shipped product in their location, so I don't blame them.
- NavinF 4mo agoCan you buy out their inventory, sell them for $36 online, and help everyone save a dollar, or is this the same old "Retailers treated it as a loss leader"? Amazon/eBay prices are indeed gospel. You can ship something like this across the country for <$5 so location doesn't matter unless you're talking tariffs
- humanperhaps 4mo agoThe Pi Zero 2W is great, but data I/O (WiFi, USB, and micro SD) do limit use cases slightly. For most use cases, I doubt this is an issue, but it is something to keep in mind if you want to run bandwidth-constrained services on it. For $15, I don't think that's an issue, but it is unfortunate.
- abdullahkhalids 4mo agoIs it at all possible to run 1080p video using Pi Zero 2 W smoothly with no jittering? What about launching a browser and playing a 1080p video from a streaming site? I am looking for a computer to connect to my internet-disconnected TV.
- nine_k 4mo agoAn old thin client machine, like a Thinkcentre M73, would do the job, and would cost less than an RPi. Look at EBay.
- justin66 4mo agoHe's talking about a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. It's a $15 part.
- N1ckFG 4mo agoIn my experience, yes to hardware-accelerated video from CLI--running in EGL mode, with no window manager, that RPi model works very well. (A C++ app that uses video as a texture can be surprisingly performant, too.) But no to playing video in a full desktop environment and browser, not smoothly--it's just too much overhead.
- pseudosavant 4mo agoI've easily played 1080p video, but not using a full Linux GUI. The more effective way is to use a command-line video player like mpv that can leverage the hardware decoder and render to the frame buffer. I made a project for a band to use on-stage where it would switch between videos by tapping a bluetooth foot pedal. The stompbox-style foot pedal buttons were just wired into an ESP32 acting like a bluetooth keyboard sending 1, 2, or 3. The key bindings for mpv were setup to instantly switch to specific videos for each number. It worked perfectly. I have also used it to real-time 1080p stream my gaming PC from another room using Moonlight so that I could play in more than one location in my home. That was also running directly from the command-line. But trying to use something like X/Wayland and proper GUI apps usually performs poorly. 512MB of RAM and the 1GHz CPU clock struggle with that.
- 4mo ago
- unholiness 4mo agoZeros are just sold out everywhere through, no?
- cromka 4mo ago> you can get a Pi Zero 2 W (quad A53 cores like 3B, 512MB RAM) for <$20 Except... You can't. They're sold out almost entirely and none of the distributors can tell when the new batch gets in. At least in EU.
- sharperguy 4mo agoI can't find a Pi Zero 2 W for sale anywhere that will deliver to me