Is anyone aware of a way to cheaply purchase multiple Raspberry Pi Zero W's? They are sold at $10 but are limited to 1 per person. If you want to buy more, the price is around $20 each. That's a big price difference if you are buying 30 out of pocket to teach a class.
Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
131–140 of 153 posts
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...
> Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Agreed, the other key component though is actually making their machine and software/hardware approachable, smooth, performant and reliable. Which they haven't really put any effort in to since they started. I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget t…
If they fixed power (stop using USB micro B, add a power switch header) and SD card stuff (let me boot from USB), I would be so much happier with my pis. But as it stands they are really messy to work with.
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#133Interesting move, but why? Are they really planning to or currently selling to the general retail public?
Given that it's a university town with strong tech links, the general retail public in Cambridge is going to be quite different to the general retail public in most of the rest of the UK. I'm not convinced the idea makes sense financially, unless they're selling all of the extras and kit parts needed to make the Pi do something useful. If they are, then fine. If not this might look a little like a vanity move - not b…
Yes, they're selling a variety of extras and kit parts. And soldering irons.
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#134Is anyone aware of a way to cheaply purchase multiple Raspberry Pi Zero W's? They are sold at $10 but are limited to 1 per person. If you want to buy more, the price is around $20 each. That's a big price difference if you are buying 30 out of pocket to teach a class.
I can't help you but a workaround might be to ask each student in the class (or their parents) to purchase one individually.
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#135Is anyone aware of a way to cheaply purchase multiple Raspberry Pi Zero W's? They are sold at $10 but are limited to 1 per person. If you want to buy more, the price is around $20 each. That's a big price difference if you are buying 30 out of pocket to teach a class.
I suspect if you contact them directly as an educator they would be able to arrange something.
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#136Is anyone aware of a way to cheaply purchase multiple Raspberry Pi Zero W's? They are sold at $10 but are limited to 1 per person. If you want to buy more, the price is around $20 each. That's a big price difference if you are buying 30 out of pocket to teach a class.
If you're going to teach a class, I'd recommend going out of your way to give each student a Pi 3 Model B+. The additional ports means that the device can be useful as a general-purpose computer outside of class (just hook up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor/TV).
I realize the difference between $300 and $1050 is a lot, but you get way more hardware at the $35 price point. Building the institutional muscle to figure out how to get the additional $650 in funding is a good skill set as a teacher. (If you're at a school, there might be special funds set aside for buying STEM equipment you can tap into. You might also be able to get some money through the charity arms of local companies, or out of a local bank's petty cash fund. If you're teaching students at the middle-school or high-school age, you can ask them to help with the fundraising process. If you're teaching adults, just charge each adult a fee to cover the hardware cost.)
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose they quite like the fact that if you build something on Rpi you have to buy from Rpi and can't go on to design your own board and buy the SoC from Broadcom.
Is this true? It seems there are plenty of SBCs out there that share an identical form factor and are pin-compatible with the Pi's GPIO.
None has the broadcom chip. So if you want to make a custom hardware project based on the broadcom chip that's in Rpi you can't. So if that's on your radar as an eventuality, you can just as well ignore the whole rpi thing, and start with more easily available chinese SoCs. That's why there's much more hacker friendly innovation around Allwinner SoCs for example, than the SoCs that are used in rpi.
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...
Isn't the primary users of RPi essentially nerds though? The average person isn't the type to hack one into a garage door to open via app or rig up a pi-hole to filter their smart TV, that's the domain of the stereotypical hacker nerd. I can see the appeal of widening the net to turn more potential nerds to the dark side, but if you just don't have any interest into this stuff to begin with than a shiny store isn't g…
If I recall correctly, the folks who made RPi have serious nostalgia for the BBC Micro. So even if the target demo is nerdy kids, they need to interface with less-than-nerdy parents and teachers who make buying decisions for those kids.
Element14 isn't exactly the most friendly website for a lay person...
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did they sell the Pi at the $35 price (+VAT I guess) ? Because it seems that the brick-and-mortar stores I've been to strugle with this very-thin margin pricing. If you had a physical place where you could source sticker-price raspberry pis it would already be quit good.
This is why I feel the high street is failing. It is assumed that a single store’s value is in the products it directly sells. And if it’s making a loss... shut it down! A store itself should be an “experience”. You go in, play with products, be inspired and get an appetite for them. Sure you may leave the store empty handed — just like 99% of people that walk into an Apple store. But if the store convinces you that…
The problem is, for every hour that a customer is being convinced, a staff member is being payed. This works for Apple, as they have ridiculous profit margins, and huge numbers of prospective customers.
This doesn't work for RPi if they want to sell at the online rate, unless they have huge positive conversion on add-ons and up-sells.
I presume the people running the store have calculated these prospective rates and have determined them to be likely enough to open the store, but time will tell.
I wish them all the luck in the world!
Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Agreed, the other key component though is actually making their machine and software/hardware approachable, smooth, performant and reliable. Which they haven't really put any effort in to since they started. I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget t…
If they fixed power (stop using USB micro B, add a power switch header) and SD card stuff (let me boot from USB), I would be so much happier with my pis. But as it stands they are really messy to work with.
Using USB micro B lowers the BOM while making the device accessible in international markets (regardless of what your local power is, everyone has USB power adapters). Personally, I'd like to USB-C, but USB-C headers are still hella expensive.
That being said, you can power a Pi by attaching the right cables to the GPIO headers:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/954 https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-5-u...
Booting from USB required a hardware change, and appears to be available in the latest versions of the Pi:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry...
(Admittedly, it looks like you need a microSD card to boot the Pi so you can reconfigure it this way.)