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E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

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Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#51

Post by superdisk »

notatoad wrote: post #45
xeckr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>RPIs are out of stock because they're useful - this company found a use for them. While I sympathize with this sentiment, it should be noted that their use case could have been most likely accomplished with something like an ESP32, which is only slightly more difficult to work with but boasts a bulk price of $1-3 a pop. Using a Raspberry Pi 4 for this is a bit like flying a private jet to get to the grocery store.

developing for esp32 is way more difficult than developing for raspi. raspi lets you basically treat it like a normal computer, you can use standard python and sqlite and install whatever nonsense you want from pip and basically assume it will run whatever your laptop can. it means you can hire kids straight out of school, or outsource to india, and whoever you get can work on it without really any concern - it'll ru…

Problem: We need to outsource the software to India.

Solution: Put a way overpowered computer in the product so they can program it.

Ridiculous problem with a ridiculous solution. Are they allergic to any level of correctness? Sometimes I'm ashamed to be in this industry.

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#52

Post by fellowmartian »

samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

There’s nothing wrong with this, RPi is a great platform for hardware startups because it’s one of the very few platforms with a good, well-documented Linux distro, a million HATs for easy prototyping, and a community to help you out.

It was never meant just for education and hobbyists, Raspberry Pi Foundation absolutely supports the commercial use case, and their newer products like CM4 even more so.

I’d wager you never tried to launch an embedded Linux-powered product, because if you did you’d quickly realize that building custom images from obscure Linux and U-Boot forks is just not fun. Raspberry Pi solved that for everybody, this is why it’s popular among startups even though it’s not the best hardware around spec- and cost-wise.

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#53

Post by seizethecheese »

samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

> After pulling out of the market they leave their trash, that were assets a few days previous, scattered amongst the city as technological blight strewn across the landscape, left to rust.

Nothing in the source suggests these are “strewn across the landscape”. Your comment is basically made up outrage bait. I live in Seattle and walk a few miles a day and haven’t seen any abandoned Spin scooters.

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#55

Post by bodhi_mind »

mschuster91 wrote: post #15
samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

> After the presumably thousands of hours of labor that went into designing this, they went with a consumer grade, off the shelf product for an application that would have required a fraction of the power it was capable of? Driving the 3-phase motor yes, that can (and is usually) done with a dedicated real-time MCU/ASIC. But the interface with the backend, the actual brains? You need to deal with GPS, authentication…

For the record, I don’t care what tech they decided to use, but I don’t see why the features you listed couldn’t be implemented with ESP32. Sounds like a fun project actually.

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#56

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

That was my first reaction.. if that's true, what a waste..

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#57

Post by ravenstine »

samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

Is there so much of a shortage of hardware engineering talent that these startups really need to be using hobby hardware?

I am not formally trained in electronics, but I managed to learn enough in the last year to design and manufacture my own PCBs for respiratory breath analysis with Atmel microprocessors. Essentially, they're like Arduinos but I also attached an off-the-shelf SD card reader and a bluetooth module. After that experience, I learned enough that I can simply build virtually everything into the board itself if I were to try again (which I'm still sort of in the process of doing).

Point is, the fact they're just using Raspberry Pis tells me that they barely know what they're doing. No reason why they can't design their own hardware to do the same thing but consume way less energy. What else do they truly need other than a basic microcontroller and a GSM module? GPS maybe?

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#58

Post by calgarymicro »

paulgb wrote: post #34
post-it wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be shocked if there's a company in the world who would prioritize Joe Shmoe wanting to buy 1 widget over BigCorp wanting to buy 10 000. It's economics of scale.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a registered charity to promote computer science education, so if any company were to prioritize Joe Shmoe it would be them.

The Foundation's charitable activities involve funding educational programs for children.[0] Those educational programs are funded via the profits made from selling Raspberry Pis[1], so their charitable goals are aided by selling as many Pis as possible; that's helped by ensuring that reliable corporate customers that place orders in the thousands are never left high and dry.

[0]https://www.raspberrypi.com/about/

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#59

Post by nomel »

Palomides wrote: post #19
samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

if the RPi foundation didn't want commercial customers they wouldn't have them, it's not like these are being stolen from the hands of starving children using a very cheap off the shelf linux board with great software support is a completely reasonable choice for corporations, too

Every company I’ve worked for used these types of boards to some extent, for R&D.

Re: E-scooter startup Spin apparently uses RasPi 4s inside their scooters

#60

Post by barbazoo »

ravenstine wrote: post #57
samtho wrote: post #12

This would be hilariously satirical if it were not true and it highlights much of what is wrong with tech. A benture capital subsidized micro mobility startup pulls out of a major city ostensibly because threshold for potential profit has been crossed and they’ve determined they cannot adjust their pricing to get the right numbers on their spreadsheet (note: this likely part of the reason why so many of these compani…

Is there so much of a shortage of hardware engineering talent that these startups really need to be using hobby hardware? I am not formally trained in electronics, but I managed to learn enough in the last year to design and manufacture my own PCBs for respiratory breath analysis with Atmel microprocessors. Essentially, they're like Arduinos but I also attached an off-the-shelf SD card reader and a bluetooth module.…

What makes the RPi "hobby hardware"?
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