Been looking for RPI4 CMs for ages now and they’ve been sold out for as long as I can remember. Same with full size RPI4s and some Odroids. Is this just the new normal or are SBCs and CMs going to show up on the market again at some point?
RPi’s and RPi compatibles got co-opted by a huge number of commercial and industrial control systems companies being used for cheap full-fat embedded systems that needed more than a simple microcontroller, but where industrial PLC’s were overkill or not sourcable. Everything they produce, which is not a lot given covid supply chain whiplash, has now been going towards those customer’s contracts and fuck the little guy consumer they were meant for.
If you want to get into the SBC ecosystem leave rpi in the dust, they’re dead to the enthusiasts and won’t be coming back. There are much better options. See Linus tech tips video on them.
They aren’t even great platforms anymore in comparison.
Other SBCs are cheaper, more smartly designed, and have more features (emmc, pcie, etc)
The big thing RPI have going for them is that they are the standard and all the OS/software/etc end up being super turnkey
In their defence, the pi was never intended to be a powerhouse. Their focus was on getting good software support for a low cost system. This provided a stable foundation that built that turnkey reliability.
A lot of the other board providers have a habit of just creating a powerful little board, and throwing it out there to fend for itself. This is great for competent geeks, but less good for those still learning.
Meh, I don’t know if they need defense. It’s just kind of how it is.
They got big and popular and that means momentum. Momentum is good for adoption and momentum is good for support, but it’s not great for huge jumps in technological sophistication.
I still LOVE the 2040, pico, etc, but there are just better options when you go bigger than that.
The Potato, Rock Pis.
This creator is great for when you want to SBC shop
Look at the Libre Computer boards. I got a Le Potato for 35usd last year and it’s been rock solid. Seems to be about the same performance as a RBP 3B.
See Linus tech tips video on them.
See Jeff Geerling’s fab tour video on them instead.
Gotcha. I figured I’d try the RPI this time around since I had such a terrible time with Odroid’s C1 (or C2? It’s been 6+ years).
I’m not tied to the RPI at all, but ameridroid seems to be out of stock of everything low cost and low power with a decent amount of RAM (eg 4GB+).
Have you ever checked out OrangePi? I was considering them before picking up a jetson nano. It’s crazy to think that a rpi4b is going for the same price from resellers as a jetson with cuda and tenserflow support.
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Supply and demand, pandemic, chip shortage, scalpers. That pretty much covers it.
These days you can find some kinda NUCS which are way more powerful and customisable for not a lot more than a fully fledged RPI4 with SD card and PSU
There’s a lot of used mini PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo that go for cheap on ebay. Those are a good alternative.
That’s why I added the “kinda”. There are a lot of small AMD boxes that can do a lot with those Ryzen.
I don’t get why people want these for self-hosting. They’re meant for GPIO and automation control. They’re massively underpowered.
Just use an actual SBC and leave these for electronics.
Underpowered is probably the reason, they’re small and really low powered. A pi could be a 1/10th the power consumption of an x86 computer, and thus less noise and heat.
Back in 2016 or so you could get a RaspberryPi 3 for $35. Add a $5 power supply, $5 SD card and $10 case (or 3d print your own) and you’ve got a nice little piece of hardware for running a tiny project at home for ~$50. More than enough for hosting some simple web services, backup software or something like Home Assistant.
Plus it was popular (which makes it even more popular). It’s always been very easy to find guides written specifically for the hardware, despite it’s limitations.
I think the value proposition has been dropping steadily though. They cost more, are hard to find and there are now a lot more competing SBCs on the market. RaspberryPi still has name recognition though, for now.
They’re great for low strength, dedicated platforms instead of using something with more muscle like a NUC, also where a VM or container can’t be used.
Out of curiosity, what are some use cases that would fit this criteria? VMs and containers are very capable and it’s much easier to debug a failed VM than a failed piece of hardware.
My pending or existing projects.
A software defined radio server. Lives up top of an antenna mast running off PoE with an RTL tuner connected.
ADSB receiver, similar to above, but on a fixed frequency.
The above 2 could be virtualised in theory, but there is an advantage in having the cable to the antenna short and thus the sbcs live up antenna masts in an enclosure.
MMDVM hotspot for ham radio (this might not count as it HAS TO use the gpio pins on the pi, this can’t be visualised even with a USB port passed through.
As an audio server that would bitstream 24bit/96kHz to an amp.
I have one behind my TV that controls LED lights, although that may count as electronics. I’ve used PIs many times for when I just need a cheap computer doing computery things such as playing audio from spotify out of a speaker. They’re small enough to fit pretty much anywhere with the help of some velcro.
Raspberry Pi is based on smart phone chips, very specific chips from one manufacturer. Raspberry Pi Foundation is not the main customer for this manufacturer and chips used for Raspberry Pi are not their only product – and now, during the big ‘chip shortages’ and supply chain problems other customers and other chips are given priority. There are no (or not enough) new chips for Raspberry Pis so there are no new Raspberries, so availability is dropping and prices are soaring.
I guess the same is true for most other SBCs.
For my hobby projects I switched to Raspberry Pi Pico. It is not a SBC, you won’t run Linux on that, but it is a very capable microcontroller board which is enough for my needs. It is way cheaper much more available. And I won’t look back – it occurred to me that things are much simpler when there is no whole OS on my devices and everything the device does is in my own code.
There are no problems with Pico availability, as it is based on a simpler, custom chip, designed by Raspberry Pi Foundation and manufactured for Raspberry Pi Foundation – they are no longer dependent on a single supplier.
