Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#21

Post by chrisshroba » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #14

black_puppydog wrote: post #4

From the interviews I've heard with the founder, rPi set a price point first, then developed the best hackable computer they could to match it. If they keep up with that (as they have so far) then expect something more powerful and possibly smaller at the same price. Although I think the rPi zero is probably at the lower end of how small you can go without making tinkering cumbersome with all those gpio pins and such…

The PiZeroW is hits such an amazing triple point of price/functionality/size that although I love the Tinker Pro for coming close in size/price and the ease of Arduino programming for simple things the PiZeroW just gives you SO MUCH functionality.

Slightly off topic - The one-per-customer policy on the PiZero and PiZeroW seems very limiting to me for someone who would like to develop more than one pi-based hobbyist project (or multi-pi projects like a cheap kubernetes cluster to play around with that stack). Does anyone know if there are plans to drop this restriction anytime soon, or do hobbyists just need to accept that to do multiple projects they need to buy the more expensive models? (Not that I can complain that $25-$35 is expensive!)

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#22

Post by mangecoeur » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

Most of the comments so far seem to have missed the point of the RPi specifically, which is that it was always intended more as an educational tool than commercial solution. The idea of the RPi foundation is to promote experimenting and hacking by selling a board cheap enough that you don't care too much if you ruin it.

This was explicitly a response to the rise of smartphones(/smart-whatevers) which turned computing into magic by sealing off all the components and preventing any hands-on work - students were enrolling in to computer science degrees with nearly no understanding of how a computer is fundamentally put together.

There is no reason for RPi to change from their very successful mission - they will keep putting out the best hardware they can squeeze into their fixed price point.

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#23

Post by planteen » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

l1k wrote: post #9

Their competitor, Libre Computer, has mused that given their investment in the graphics stack, they might be headed in the GPGPU / AI direction. Think Raspberry Pis that you can cluster together for deep learning, or individual boards that kids can tinker with to learn about AI. The blog post also predicted the 3B+ fairly exactly: https://libre.computer/2017/12/06/raspberry-pi-3x-raspberry-... Money quote: > We expec…

I'd love to see more focus on embedded boards with decent GPUs. About a month ago, I was looking for a hobbyist embedded Linux board with Vulkan support. I couldn't find a single one. There's one in development, but it can't be purchased yet: https://www.96rocks.com

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#24

Post by elfchief » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

paraplegic wrote: post #6

If the availability of the pi zero W is any indication I expect trouble ahead. Trying to buy the zero W in bulk through channels is practically impossible, and the vendors sell them only in kit bundles at many times MSRP at 10$.

Instead of the pi zero, check out the CHIP Pro (https://getchip.com/pages/chippro) ... a little more expensive, but available in quantity and designed to be pick & placed (or hand-soldered!), runs linux, and does most of the things a pi can do (sans video)

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#25

Post by fhood » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

douglaswlance wrote: post #8

Raspberry Pi is for hacking. It's not really a commercial platform. You can technically use it as such, but it's more cost-effective to design your own boards at that point.

Meh. That is true if you are selling thousands or more of an item, but for small companies, custom boards can be a nightmare. I worked for a company once that put literally two full weeks of debugging into a problem caused by a flaky diode batch.

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#26

Post by fhood » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #20

"MAX PER CUSTOMER: 1" It really doesn't matter where else they "go" until they fix that right there. (Why? Because on my workbench right now is the pi, instead of a pi; and that makes all the difference.)

Do they still enforce that? When I was working with Pi's a few years back I never had any trouble getting 5 or 6 at a time.

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#27

Post by feocco » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #20

"MAX PER CUSTOMER: 1" It really doesn't matter where else they "go" until they fix that right there. (Why? Because on my workbench right now is the pi, instead of a pi; and that makes all the difference.)

I've got 3 pi's in my desk drawer not in use. There's multiple outlet's that sell more than 1 per customer.

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#28

Post by tmm » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

chrisshroba wrote: post #21

VectorLock wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PiZeroW is hits such an amazing triple point of price/functionality/size that although I love the Tinker Pro for coming close in size/price and the ease of Arduino programming for simple things the PiZeroW just gives you SO MUCH functionality.

Slightly off topic - The one-per-customer policy on the PiZero and PiZeroW seems very limiting to me for someone who would like to develop more than one pi-based hobbyist project (or multi-pi projects like a cheap kubernetes cluster to play around with that stack). Does anyone know if there are plans to drop this restriction anytime soon, or do hobbyists just need to accept that to do multiple projects they need to b…

I don't think it's one per customer. More like one per transaction. I buy mine from Microcenter and probably have 10 by now.

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#29

Post by bnycum » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #19

These things are a god-send for the auto industry in my opinion...specifically professional drivers. as a lead automotive mechanic for a semi truck shop, I bought about 5 pi's for our techs. We use them for reading OBD diagnostics and doing resets or long-term vehicle observation for certain problems. Theyre cheaper than most of the commercial rent-seeking computer tools we use and if a tech accidentally crushes one,…

Just curious what software are you using for the ODB diagnostics? I'm currently using a cheap ELM327 reader hooked up to an Android tablet with Torque. I have wanted to switch to using a Pi with software I could modify myself, but I guess my previous search was a little short.

It's a dream, but I would love to see some open-source software that would be equivalent to the diagnostic tablets from some of the tool trucks.

Re: Ask HN: How will it go for Raspberry Pi in the coming years?

#30

Post by nottorp » Tue, Jun 12, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

fhood wrote: post #25

douglaswlance wrote: post #8

Raspberry Pi is for hacking. It's not really a commercial platform. You can technically use it as such, but it's more cost-effective to design your own boards at that point.

Meh. That is true if you are selling thousands or more of an item, but for small companies, custom boards can be a nightmare. I worked for a company once that put literally two full weeks of debugging into a problem caused by a flaky diode batch.

I'll raise you two full weeks of debugging and then the project got canceled because redesigning the board was needed and it was too expensive ;)

I'm doing quite a few of low volume (mostly bussiness/industrial helpers) arm linux projects on Pis now. Some of them stay on Pis, if rebooting the board every 2 hours is feasible, some move to custom boards after the prototyping is done. Still, it's very nice to have an off the shelf documented board to start stuff on.