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AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

raspberrypi.org

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Re: AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

#11

Post by AdamTReineke »

pdmccormick wrote: post #7
alexbell wrote: post #5

Playing around developing for a Rasberry Pi (or 4) is going to be one of the coolest/most satisfying things I do coding wise in 2012 I think.

On the theme of a very rewarding change of perspective and exciting new possibilities, I'd heartily recommend everyone try their hand at developing for a small, embedded microcontroller platform. I don't know why sequencing and flashing LEDs is so satisfying. That being said, I am excited about the possibilities of Raspberry Pi's, and hope they can meet their ambitious price point and stay well stocked. The design is…

I'm slowly working on my first electronics project. I decided to go big though and I now have 200 RGB LED modules (from 5 strings of GE15 Christmas lights) hot glued into a 20x10 matrix. I'm still nervous about blowing something out though, so I'm hesitant to wire up the power. Eventually it will be a connected to a Arduino Uno with an Ethernet shield. :-) Fun hands-on project for this software guy.

Re: AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

#12

Post by monological »

54mf wrote: post #9
monological wrote: post #8

I don't understand why the rpi is so special. Any half-decent hardware engineer could have built this. They just optimized the BOM to get it to $25 bucks? Someone explain this to me.

If anyone could have built it, why didn't anyone build it until now?

You have projects like http://beagleboard.org/ (beagle xm $150 and $89 beagle bone), and http://leaflabs.com/devices/ ($45 maple), which are all ARM based devices, that have been around for a while. I just don't understand how these guys got it so cheap, which is why it seems like they just optimized the bom to get it to where it is. I'll hand it to them though, that is an impressive feat.

Re: AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

#13

Post by joshu »

monological wrote: post #12
54mf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone could have built it, why didn't anyone build it until now?

You have projects like http://beagleboard.org/ (beagle xm $150 and $89 beagle bone), and http://leaflabs.com/devices/ ($45 maple), which are all ARM based devices, that have been around for a while. I just don't understand how these guys got it so cheap, which is why it seems like they just optimized the bom to get it to where it is. I'll hand it to them though, that is an impressive feat.

Maple has no network or USB and is thus not really comparable.

Re: AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

#18

Post by av500 »

monological wrote: post #12
54mf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone could have built it, why didn't anyone build it until now?

You have projects like http://beagleboard.org/ (beagle xm $150 and $89 beagle bone), and http://leaflabs.com/devices/ ($45 maple), which are all ARM based devices, that have been around for a while. I just don't understand how these guys got it so cheap, which is why it seems like they just optimized the bom to get it to where it is. I'll hand it to them though, that is an impressive feat.

Part of being so cheap might be that the main SoC is subsidized by Broadcom. I have no problem with that, TI is doing the same for the Pandaboard (http://www.pandaboard.org)

Re: AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

#19

Post by thelibrarian »

monological wrote: post #12
54mf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone could have built it, why didn't anyone build it until now?

You have projects like http://beagleboard.org/ (beagle xm $150 and $89 beagle bone), and http://leaflabs.com/devices/ ($45 maple), which are all ARM based devices, that have been around for a while. I just don't understand how these guys got it so cheap, which is why it seems like they just optimized the bom to get it to where it is. I'll hand it to them though, that is an impressive feat.

The big thing going for them price-wise is that due to them being a charity, Broadcom is selling them the SoC at prices you would normally only get when buying millions of them, rather than the thousands that they will actually end up buying. Plus I think a lot of the engineers etc donated their time, again because it is an educational charity, thus their R&D was probably very cheap.

Thus we end up getting a device that is smaller and more capable than the Beagleboard XM (CPU- and graphics-wise) at one sixth of the price.

Re: AirPlay running on Raspberry Pi

#20

Post by easp »

monological wrote: post #12
54mf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone could have built it, why didn't anyone build it until now?

You have projects like http://beagleboard.org/ (beagle xm $150 and $89 beagle bone), and http://leaflabs.com/devices/ ($45 maple), which are all ARM based devices, that have been around for a while. I just don't understand how these guys got it so cheap, which is why it seems like they just optimized the bom to get it to where it is. I'll hand it to them though, that is an impressive feat.

Well, for one thing, they have the advantage of launching their product later.

For another, they have access to good pricing on a capable SoC that isn't usually available in small volumes at any price. In other words, they knew the right people.

And yeah, they've been very aggressive about other costs too. For example, the alignment of the various connectors on the board are all funkey, because it was cheaper that way.

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