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It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#81

Post by beebmam »

cjcampbell wrote: post #34

I do appreciate the effort here; however, I suspect this is going to make it even harder to find affordable units due to how fast the scalpers scoop up any readily discoverable inventory. I’ve been struggling to come up with 35 for a class I teach in the March. I would typically have my students buy their own devices, but pivoted when I saw the writing on the wall. Until this tracker was published yesterday, the Pi H…

My biggest problem with scalpers is that they often send damaged or refurbished gear (while claiming the gear is new) and then rug pull. The graphics card market is such a god damned mess right now, and it makes me tremendously sad that the Raspberry Pi market is headed towards this hell.

Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#82

Post by tasha0663 »

alar44 wrote: post #70
cjcampbell wrote: post #34

I do appreciate the effort here; however, I suspect this is going to make it even harder to find affordable units due to how fast the scalpers scoop up any readily discoverable inventory. I’ve been struggling to come up with 35 for a class I teach in the March. I would typically have my students buy their own devices, but pivoted when I saw the writing on the wall. Until this tracker was published yesterday, the Pi H…

No one is scalping Pis. They simply aren't valuable enough to scalp. There is a massive electronics shortage, in case you haven't heard.

TFA had a quote about them being overpriced on Amazon. Translation: people are indeed scalping them.

Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#83

Post by Spooky23 »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #27
Spooky23 wrote: post #19

The Target near me has them in stock from time to time. For projects, try HP thin clients on eBay.

An HP Thin Client might be nicer in some ways (x86 instead of ARM, say) but the lack of GPIO wouldn't make them a replacement for some RPi projects (and I haven't ever tried to install Debian or Ubuntu on one, not sure how unusual the hardware is).

The HPs are usually AMD SoCs. They ship with a Debian derivative thin client OS or Windows. I have a few running Debian. They are great for home servers; fanless, can support a lot of memory and usually two M2 modules.

Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#84

Post by kevml »

xanaxagoras wrote: post #12
geerlingguy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one near me (St. Louis, MO) has been out of Pi 4 model B and CM4 since September. A couple CM3+ popped in stock for a few days but were gone shortly after. Checking right now, they only have some Pi 400s and Pi 3 A+ in stock. Plus a boatload of accessories, power supplies, and cases. At some point it might be worth figuring out a way to mash a Pi 400 into a Pi 4-size footprint.

A lot of times they get them and don't update the inventory on the website. I had the most success by just popping in once a week during a week day for a few weeks, eventually got almost what I was looking for (had to get 8gb instead of 4gb, oh well).

That’s exactly how I wound up with a Nvidia 3080 and AMD 5950 in December 2020. Microcenter is great if you’re near one.

Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#85

Post by tasha0663 »

ReactiveJelly wrote: post #38
jrockway wrote: post #18

I'm impressed with how fast people buy them out after stock availability is announced. A few months ago, I got a notification that the Pi 0 2 was back in stock, and I have my eye on a couple units for 3D printer projects. An hour after the email was sent, all 700 had been sold. (Adafruit's emails helpfully say how many they had when the email was sent, which is how I know how quickly they burned through the stock.)

The market must be trying to tell us that they're under-priced. People want cheap computers badly, and "cheap" might be as much as $200. I had a lot of trouble finding an x86_64 box for under $400 a couple years ago, and ended up settling for a no-name with a shitty firmware that wouldn't boot GRUB for half the distros I tried to install.

> The market must be trying to tell us that they're under-priced.

This is verbatim what scalpers say to explain themselves.

Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#86

Post by ppaagi »

cjcampbell wrote: post #34

I do appreciate the effort here; however, I suspect this is going to make it even harder to find affordable units due to how fast the scalpers scoop up any readily discoverable inventory. I’ve been struggling to come up with 35 for a class I teach in the March. I would typically have my students buy their own devices, but pivoted when I saw the writing on the wall. Until this tracker was published yesterday, the Pi H…

Someone at work sent this into the devops channel a few mins ago, saying if more than one of our pis break we would get a shortage also. Should we buy more now? Yeah let's worsen the shortage for others that actually need them now, why not... Thankfully the manager agreed wiht me the risk is low enough. It was not us that got them from Pi Hut at least!

Feels similar to the toilet paper situation, my wife did not get them for weeks because we always keep two closed packages to avoid getting short on something like that and we did not want to be a part of the problem so we waited. Because there was no shortage on the production site, we thought stores would ramp up shipping and it would be OK. But the panic buyers just kept getting the stores empty. Then we finally were down to the last rolls and she only found two small rolls in the fourth store she tried at... annoying when you want to stay home (no vaccines yet) and not go out three days later for another ration of paper. It is stories like this that make me think if I should buy like normal and then give without profit to those who actually need them now.

Re: It's dire: Raspberry Pi availability tracker

#87

Post by djbusby »

tasha0663 wrote: post #82
alar44 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is scalping Pis. They simply aren't valuable enough to scalp. There is a massive electronics shortage, in case you haven't heard.

TFA had a quote about them being overpriced on Amazon. Translation: people are indeed scalping them.

I just observed this too, before this post even hit HN, where a Pi4B-4GB was...shit you not...$250.

So I opted for one of the alt boards...just deciding which one (so this thread is perfect timing for me)

Edit: the Amazon link

https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-Computer-Suitable-Workst...

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