News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development • Hacker News Board

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#51

Post by peteforde » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #33

peteforde wrote: post #11

Pi's refusal to drop a USB-C on Pico due to cost increases is a terrible call IMO. I seriously cannot fathom being someone doing development who wouldn't pay $0.50 extra to purge the last micro USB from their desktop.

There are broadly available third party RP2350 boards with subc and a variety of additional capabilities if that is important for you. https://shop.pimoroni.com/en-us/collections/rp2350 https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-pro-micro-rp2350.html https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2913.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/Seeed-XIAO-RP2350-p-5944.html

Not the point, though I appreciate folks listing links in an attempt to help.

What I am saying is that we're well into 2026 and there's no good reason for RPi not to offer a USB-C version of the reference board for this MCU.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#52

Post by wmf » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:26 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #2

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

Ideally each RPi generation should keep the same price (or lower now that it's gotten so high) but with better performance. If they can't do that they just shouldn't create a new generation.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#53

Post by teaearlgraycold » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

Neywiny wrote: post #3

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #2

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

^^^ when I tell people tangential to the field that the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions and a beefy power supply (no more just any old micro usb cable into any old usb port), they're astonished. It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it

Something can't be a microcontroller if it runs Linux.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#54

Post by flyinghamster » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #44

margalabargala wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. What's the point of doing so though? If you're doing this, you're obviously using the wrong device. If all you need is to run some python scripts in a Linux environment, you should use a Pi 3 or Pi 0w2. Agree with your other points.

Having the burst performance is helpful. Most light workloads are very bursty. When you type a command or click on something you want latency to be low. Having the overhead to get it done quickly at the full clockspeed is good if you are latency sensitive. Throttling has become a bad word. Some feel compelled to avoid it at all costs, doing things like buying big coolers and running synthetic benchmarks to avoid it.…

I've been doing some heavy SDR lifting with a couple of my Pi 5s, and my own experience is that the active cooler works extremely well, and more often than not the fan can be shut off and it will work well as a passive cooler.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#55

Post by swiftcoder » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

Onavo wrote: post #45

The raspberry pi CEO said that some of the boards will be delayed because of RAM prices. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Raspberry-Pi-discusses-Zero-3-...

As someone who has just had to migrate a project off of radxa due to ongoing supply issues... good luck getting your hands on more than one or two samples of those :/

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#56

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

giobox wrote: post #24

Neywiny wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ when I tell people tangential to the field that the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions and a beefy power supply (no more just any old micro usb cable into any old usb port), they're astonished. It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it

> It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it The Pi project was never originally a microcontroller - it was always a full-blown SBC you could program any way you want with some GPIO pins attached. People literally used them as (slow) home computers. The company didn't sell its fir…

At one point, the raspberry pi was a decent option if you wanted something hobbyist friendly that could toggle GPIOs and connect to the Internet (and later Bluetooth).

I suspect Espressif has mostly taken over that market now

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#57

Post by MisterTea » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #28

Neywiny wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ when I tell people tangential to the field that the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions and a beefy power supply (no more just any old micro usb cable into any old usb port), they're astonished. It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python with a friendly Linux environment and is now an expensive, power hungry, hot computer with a microcontroller hanging off of it

I agree that Raspberry Pi is not a good general purpose computer, but some of these criticisms are starting to feel like a pile-on with partially incorrect information. > the latest pi needs considerations of cooling solutions FYI you can run the Raspberry Pi 5 without a fan or even a heatsink. It will safely throttle itself if it gets too hot. If you're trying to get maximum performance out of it all the time, you w…

> > It was a "microcontroller" you could program in Python

> It was never a microcontroller by any definition of the word.

I think the poster means people treat the R-Pi like an MCU that runs Python. The Arduino was popular at the time the Pi came out but limited. Once the Pi landed, it quickly filled the gap and the Arduino's popularity diminished to the point where it's now a corporate Pi clone.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#58

Post by hedora » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:43 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #2

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

Is there some serious astroturfing going on with the N100/N150, or am I just jaded?

I have a bunch of old intel atom boards laying around. The Intel Compute Stick (TM) burnt out its flash root drive in a few months. The C2000 board I had burnt out the clock pin to drive the bios. I have a Clover Trail with a PowerVR GPU (I thought I was getting an intel GPU because it was branded Intel Graphics or similar, but nope!) that lost Windows support very quickly after launch, and has no GPU drivers for any other OS.

Instead of being fooled 4 times in a row, I looked into using an N150 for a NAS, but this time I held off a bit until after launch so I could research it first.

Lo-and-behold, they all have crazy PCIe / memory subsystem data corruption issues. I guess there are some chicken bits for the OS developers to set if the kernel can stay up long enough after boot without a panic.

Why would anyone buy this for a NAS / embedded use case?

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#59

Post by tredre3 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:50 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #58

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #2

> " ...: It sounds like the key feature will be 'more': a faster CPU and faster IO, rather than new features. " Raspberry Pi Holdings is a embedded systems manufacturer for pity's sake; we don't need more from them, we need less. [EDIT] A faster Raspberry Pi 6 is encroaching on the territory of the Intel N150 and its successors and mainstream Linux distributions and that is a battle they would lose in terms of price…

Is there some serious astroturfing going on with the N100/N150, or am I just jaded? I have a bunch of old intel atom boards laying around. The Intel Compute Stick (TM) burnt out its flash root drive in a few months. The C2000 board I had burnt out the clock pin to drive the bios. I have a Clover Trail with a PowerVR GPU (I thought I was getting an intel GPU because it was branded Intel Graphics or similar, but nope!)…

> I looked into using an N150 for a NAS [...] Lo-and-behold, they all have crazy PCIe / memory subsystem data corruption issues.

Source? I've never had a single problem with PCIE on N100/N150/N200.

I have had a ton of issues with drive corruption on the pi, both via USB3 and PCIE.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#60

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:52 PM UTC

dirtikiti wrote: post #17

I have bought an rpi at every generation. And I still have yet to find an actual use for them. Everything they do from a compute perspective is just better with a mini pc or old laptop with a mobile spec chip. Everything they do from a programmability perspective is just better with a microcontroller specific to the task. I just don't see the actual market position for these things. They were supposed to be a cheap b…

Here are a few places that I've found pi's:

Rapid prototyping: I created a PoC to take a webcam snapshot every half hour and upload it to a server in an afternoon. Freelance project. Could it have been done with a microcontroller? Yes, but not in 4 hours.

Local digital displays in a gym: we built a system with a number of overhead 60" TVs, each with a pi on a VESA mount to show scheduling and workout information in a gym for a client.

HVAC controller: bid on a project where the customer's original concept was a Pi managing a rooftop HVAC system for large buildings. They outgrew the pi and wanted a new solution.

Data aggregator: collecting sensor information via BLE (bluetooth) and uploading to an internet server over Ethernet.

Remember that "cheap" to a consumer doesn't have the same definition for a business. To most profitable businesses, a $100 computer that fits on the back of a TV and consumes a fraction of its power is cheap. In fact, one of the reasons that Pi's were so hard to find for a while is that the Raspberry Pi foundation was prioritizing industrial/commercial customers over hobbyists.