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Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

raspberrypi.org

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Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#441

Post by makomk »

jedahan wrote: post #379
SarahofGaia wrote: post #377

> Today, I’m pleased to be able to announce the immediate availability of Raspberry Pi Zero, made in Wales and priced at just $5. I'm confused: they say it's $5 but at Adafruit (one of the places where USAians can buy it), the cheapest are the Raspberry Pi Zero Starter Pack and the Raspberry Pi Zero Budget Pack, priced at $59.95 and $29.95, respectively.

It's $5 at Adafruit. The starter pack has a whole bunch of stuff you might want for your first Pi, but probably can scrounge around for free or cheaper.

It's not $5 at Adafruit because the stand-alone Pi Zero is out of stock and cannot be backordered. They'll quite happily sell you a $30 or $50 pack with it in though.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#442

Post by Fuzzwah »

superuser2 wrote: post #437
Spooks wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not build a htpc or an arcade box? very straight forward and you'll have more to talk about when your friends come over!

Can you actually build an HTPC? My understanding is they can't really handle video, except from the purpose-built camera module.

I've been running R-Pi based HTPC since the original R-Pi release. I current run a distro called OSMC (debian based, with Kodi on top) on my R-Pi 2 and it plays everything I throw at it with out an issue.

http://osmc.tv

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#443

Post by betandr »

dheera wrote: post #402
maheart wrote: post #26

This is seriously impressive. While the Raspberry Pi is not the perfect hacker-friendly computer, it has done a lot of good. Some reasons off the top of my head: 1. Providing a low cost computer has given many people access to computers. Giving more people access to the web, email, an office suit, a programming environment AND giving people the ability of safely tinker without the fear of bricking an expensive device…

Definitely an impressive feat. I really, really, really wish it had on-board Wi-Fi though. At least that would make it a useful web server. The way it's designed now, it's kind of unusable for anything useful without making it a 3X larger package. Add a Wi-Fi dongle and the converter from regular to micro-USB is about the size of the board itself. And since it only has 1 USB port, you'll need a full-blown hub to conn…

I totally agree. One of the reasons I've started using an Onion Omega is because of this reason. IoT is pointless if you can't connect to the I easily, IMHO.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#444

Post by xanderstrike »

superuser2 wrote: post #437
Spooks wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not build a htpc or an arcade box? very straight forward and you'll have more to talk about when your friends come over!

Can you actually build an HTPC? My understanding is they can't really handle video, except from the purpose-built camera module.

That's exactly wrong. They have the same processors as used in phones, which means they have hardware level decoding for video. My B+ can stream massive 1080p blu-ray rips over ethernet with zero problems. They make fantastic HTPCs.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#445

Post by privacy101 »

girishso wrote: post #178
cconcepts wrote: post #158

Amazing. If only I'd get my act together and do all the amazing stuff I planned when I bought my first pi - then I could justify buying this

Two years after buying mine, I put the pi to a good use only last week! Now I am using it as ad-blocker thanks to http://pi-hole.net/ , works like a charm. I ported the web interface for pi-hole to Go single executable ( https://github.com/girishso/pi-hole-web ) Now looking for something interesting to do on my second pi! Edit: Added pi-hole-web link.

looks like a great idea but doesn't it significantly slow down your network? I think I would rather install an ad-blocker on a tomato/dd-wrt/open-wrt router...

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#446

Post by ant6n »

xanderstrike wrote: post #444
superuser2 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you actually build an HTPC? My understanding is they can't really handle video, except from the purpose-built camera module.

That's exactly wrong. They have the same processors as used in phones, which means they have hardware level decoding for video. My B+ can stream massive 1080p blu-ray rips over ethernet with zero problems. They make fantastic HTPCs.

My phone doesn't ever play 12GB blu-ray rips; and the rpi hardware is older than current phones (which use armv7 and armv8). Given the speed of the cpu, it's surprising it can decode a full H264 stream.

But It's good to know. The down-vote seems unnecessary.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#447

Post by jacquesm »

timc3 wrote: post #200
pavlov wrote: post #172

A single transistor cost several dollars in 1950. A full-blown 1GHz computer is now the same price (cheaper even, accounting for inflation). What will $5 buy in 2080? It's going to be a billion times faster than this, but it's hard to imagine the form factor.

It will buy you hours of virtual computing power somewhere...

Yes, but how will you interface that virtual computing power to an led, a switch, a relay or a ntc?

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#448

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

Jemaclus wrote: post #417

I've got three Raspberry Pis. I don't know why. I don't know what to do with them. None of the projects that I've seen have been particularly compelling to me, and I'm not creative enough to come up with a good idea. So they sit on my desk, gathering dust, and act as a conversation piece when friends come over. "That? Yeah, I can build X, Y, or Z." and they say, "oooh, cool" and then I never actually follow through.…

Mmmm.

I had a conversation the other day about side projects. People would ask me what I did for side projects, since I have experience in software, electrical engineering, control systems, mechanical assemblies, etc.

My answer was generally that at my day job I got to write software to control electromechanical systems with a budget in the millions. What am I going to do on the side to compete with that?

Sound familiar? I'm guessing that a lot of your "I don't know what to do with it" is because even a cheap laptop, desktop, or tablet is so much easier to work with and has pretty much greater capability than the RPi that the latter just sits and gathers dust.

Oh, and if it helps, in addition to my RPi gathering dust, I also have a BeagleBone and about a dozen flavors of Arduino :-) At least I do some consulting work with Arduino code, so they get used a bit.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#449

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

TheCapn wrote: post #427
Jemaclus wrote: post #417

I've got three Raspberry Pis. I don't know why. I don't know what to do with them. None of the projects that I've seen have been particularly compelling to me, and I'm not creative enough to come up with a good idea. So they sit on my desk, gathering dust, and act as a conversation piece when friends come over. "That? Yeah, I can build X, Y, or Z." and they say, "oooh, cool" and then I never actually follow through.…

Build them out as dummy media boxes and sell them for a markup. I've had people knocking my door down after they saw my Kodi setup but I simply pointed them to the how-to guides and told them to learn for themselves. I'm sure there's a few people out there who'd take one for $50 or so.

Probably. But at $50 each you're not really making a profit.

Re: Raspberry Pi Zero: the $5 computer

#450

Post by SarahofGaia »

jedahan wrote: post #379
SarahofGaia wrote: post #377

> Today, I’m pleased to be able to announce the immediate availability of Raspberry Pi Zero, made in Wales and priced at just $5. I'm confused: they say it's $5 but at Adafruit (one of the places where USAians can buy it), the cheapest are the Raspberry Pi Zero Starter Pack and the Raspberry Pi Zero Budget Pack, priced at $59.95 and $29.95, respectively.

It's $5 at Adafruit. The starter pack has a whole bunch of stuff you might want for your first Pi, but probably can scrounge around for free or cheaper.

If it's $5 at Adafruit, then how come it doesn't show it? Most of the time a store will list something even if it's out of stock, but will just put a sticker on the entry that says "Out of stock".
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