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News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#121

Post by ianburrell »

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…

Raspberry Pi uses USB-C and USB-C is more generous with power. Almost everything except computers provides 15W. With USB-C, devices request want they and there is no reason has to work with minimum possible.

The problem with the Pi5 is that they use weird profile, 5A/5V, that requires special charger. Most 5V chargers are 100W and beefy. If they hadn't cheaped out on power circuits, they could have used normal 30W charger. They should come out with new version that fixes that.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#122

Post by monocasa »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #53
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

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

I wouldn't quite go that far. Linux runs on nommu systems. With some psram you should be able to get a version to run on at least the rp2350 using the riscv cores with relatively minimal fuss.

Is that a good idea? Well, not really.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#123

Post by peteforde »

teamonkey wrote: post #92
peteforde wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The good reason is that there are plenty of third party boards that already offer what you want. There’s very little to be gained by an ‘official’ one. The next one probably should have C, if just because it is the Euro standard, but no urgent need to backport.

The point is just blowing past you, friend.

I don't need a Pico or any other 3rd party board. I drop SC-1511/12s packages on my PCBs as needed.

What I am saying is that the reference board for an RP2350 should have a USB-C port in 2026. It's not aesthetics or even convenience (and it's definitely not price) so much as establishing best practices for how a part should be used.

A big part of that is to acknowledge the context in which a part exists, and in this case, it's both a fact and a very good thing that the world has embraced USB-C. It's even being regulated in many cases.

I'm not saying that you can't smoke, just that maybe you shouldn't do it when you're volunteering as a Big Brother.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#125

Post by peteforde »

qiqitori wrote: post #94
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.

I cannot fathom why USB-C would make any difference. It's not like USB-C is intrinsically better for this use case? If you're doing hardware development, your desk is likely full of in-development crap anyway and a micro USB cable more or less won't make any difference whatsoever, nor is the Pico likely to the only thing needing a micro USB cable. Edit: one thing I can think of where micro USB connectors are better:…

Micro USB is relatively brittle and can only be inserted in one direction. It means you have to make sure you have the old cable for this one thing. There's no USB-PD and you can't do USB host mode.

USB-C is the opposite of all those cons: much more durable, not directionally opinionated, you can use one cable for everything, you can do USB host and USB-PD.

It's also clearly the future everything is standardizing on. There's value in embracing that, since it is a Reference Board.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#126

Post by monocasa »

leidenfrost wrote: post #78
wolpoli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raspberry Pi isn't in direct competition with N150's. Their niche is the industrial/embedded space. For that market, power consumption doesn't matter. What matters is that each model is guaranteed to be available till a specific date.

IMHO people expected a Pi that offered similar performance as a Mac M1 but with Linux as first class citizen

I mean, they're still on some ancient node like 28nm last time I checked.

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#127

Post by dreamworld »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #61
sq_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at this point the brand reputation and software quality are a big selling point. If you're trying to build a couple of units of some embedded thing where you need to toggle some GPIOs or serial devices in response to requests over the network, but don't have the expertise or resources to do it with a microcontroller, a Pi is a great option - you know you'll have software support, and you know that the vendor…

Development speed is also one of the forgotten axes. I mentioned upthread a system I built that was done in less than a day. There's no microcontroller solution I know of that would have let me deliver it that fast.

I've been playing with Circuit Python (variant of Micro Python, etc.), and it seems quite great actually. For small projects it's far simpler to use than C/C++, although if you're using some peripheral that isn't just toggling pins or simple serial commands you need a library (module). But then in that case you'd probably want a library in C as well. Definitely recommend it :) (it works on ESP32 boards as well as similar recent microcontrollers)

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#128

Post by daemin »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #53
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

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

Bare metal or bare bootloader only right?

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#129

Post by stdatomic »

It used to be that raspberry pi was a cheap pc. Well it's not longer cheap.

And at their price point, you could just get a mini PC and have better performance, or if you want to use it as a microcontroller, you can just use an arduino, esp32, or an actual microcontroller for a fraction of the price and power consumption.

So, what do people actually do with these pies?

Re: News about Raspberry Pi 6 and Microcontroller Development

#130

Post by cmovq »

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.

That and a reset button.
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