Raspberry Pi is now manufacturing 70,000 Pi 5s per week, will surge to 90,000 in February
Raspberry Pi is now manufacturing 70,000 Pi 5s per week, will surge to 90,000 in February
There era of Pi shortages is quickly coming to an end.
While it's good that they have been ramping up production, their attitude towards consumers during the shortage is something that some users won't forget, as well as them seemingly ignoring that they are an education charity.
At least the Pi CEO acknowledges this in the CES interview with Jeff Geerling, where he mentions that the company has been "burnt" from a customer perspective. While they do contribute a lot to mobile linux development (indirectly), I think most people here would probably prefer the company just focus on their original mission of getting an affordable, credit card sized computer into users' hands... not scalpers and hardware developers' warehouses.
Also, I personally don't really want to support Broadcom seeing the horrible decisions they've been making recently - why would they buy VMWare, then proceed to drop ALL of their partners, and put a ton of their staff out of work??
VMware, because they are bringing sales in house to make more money. Cutting out the middle man.
The idea is to squeeze as much revenue from the largest 600 clients while they desperately attempt to move to a different virtualization platform: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/30/broadcom_strategy_vmware_customer_impact/
Stop reposting this corporate press release. Fuck the Pi foundation, and frankly, fuck the tech "journalists" and YouTubers who shill and cover for their anti consumer backstabbing.
Not familiar with their anti consumer backstabbing, could you share share some links please?
There were 40,000 PI4s a week produced during Covid, the shortage on the consumer websites was because the entire production was sent to industry users, and there was the barest dribble left over for the hobbyists that made them popular.
Every time there was an increase in production, it all went to shore up backlogs in industrial orders. Why an industry player would use an rPi instead of purpose-built PLCs is beyond me, but that's what was happening.
The rPi foundation will drop hobbyists like a hot potato when the 5s start being specced for industry and we'll be back to the same shit. Pretty sure that's why they didn't bother with H265 hardware licensing, because no industry player will need that.
TL;dr - They're going to fuck you, find another source.
Here's a link to the last comment I made when this press release masquerading as an article was posted a few of days ago:
It’s not about how many they can manufacture, it’s about how many they actually sell to consumers. I have given up trying to buy them. It’s just not worth the hassle.
I always open these threads to find out from the experts what they recommend to replace RPi as established, novice-level mini computers, but sadly I don't see any here yet
From what I've gathered from various sources:
- Orange Pi: Good documentation, but prices of newer models are not as affordable as previously
- Radxa/Rock: Poor hardware support apparently
- Pine64: Amazing hardware variety (phone, smartwatch, IP camera, soldering iron), but documentation can be hit or miss. Check the Pine64 wiki and search around for other documentation by community members
- Khadas: Good documentation, and support directly from the hardware developers, but this comes at a cost
- MilkV: Poor documentation - Ideal if you want to tinker
- Libre Le Potato: Generally hear positive things about their hardware. Hundreds of these were used on a recent YT project in lieu of a Pi with great success, so may be worth a look.
Another thing to check would be Armbian's site - if something is supported by that distro, it might be worth taking a closer look at
A lot of the companies producing these "Pi killers" made them to survive the shortage, because their Pi accessories weren't selling. This means that generally they'll work great with the accessory, but support may be hit or miss outside of that.
I would lean towards Orange Pi personally, mainly due to cost and how long they've been around. Avoid the very early models as there were some overheating issues on a minority of the Allwinner chips - iirc their recent boards are using Rockchip instead.
Edit: add Libre Le Potato
Orangepi, rockchip, Arduino.
There's nothing novice about wanting to learn.
I'm really liking my orange pi 5 Plus. Wasn't able to get the 32GB version, but 16GB is realistically more than I need anyway.
Main bonus for me over RPi is the RAM and storage --- SD, eMMC, and NVME. The dual NICs and extra efficiency cores are a nice perk, too.
My top recommendation is going to be an old desktop PC. Something with an Intel processor that ends with t.
X86 just opens up so many more options over ARM.
However if you want something new, the Zima Blade seems like a good alternative at a similar price point. And even includes 2x SATA ports and a PCIe slot.
If you want to learn embedded systems, the RPi is vastly superior to an old PC because of the variety of hats and the community support around it.
It's not a perfect replacement because of increased cost, but there are plenty of sub $200 mini pc options these days. It's all included unlike the Pi which is still going to need a case, storage, and power supply. I bought one recently that blows away the Pi5 ,and it should because it cost more.
Raxma, Orange, Pine, take your pick.
Orange Pi+Armbian it's my personal recommendation.
At publishing time, Raspberry Pi 4 boards were widely in stock at all the U.S. and UK outlets we checked. However, given that the Pi 5 models with 4GB and 8GB of RAM cost only $5 more than their Pi 4 equivalents, most individual makers would be right to prefer the new model.
However, companies that are using Pi 4 either within products or for enterprise use cases may want to buy more of the older board, because the Pi 5 isn't a drop-in replacement. It requires new chassis, a higher-wattage power supply and (in most use cases) an active cooler.
I've been hearing about this on a regular basis but between scalpers and damn things going to industry users we are left with exactly nothing, pumping up the price to unreasonable levels. Just get one of the compatible boards which have better hardware and plentiful supply.
The problem with alternatives are:
- RPi HATS don't work;
- RPi cases don't work;
- RPi hardware like screens don't work;
- RPi software doesn't always work;
- Existing RPi tutorials and guides are not compatible;
- User made 3D printed stuff for RPi is also not compatible.
Raspberry Pi has a huge and diverse ecosystem. We're stuck with it.
Understandable, but considering I can get RPi software compatible board with 4 gigabit ethernet ports and fiber optics + expansion slot and is available whenever I want to purchase it, then in some cases it's a no-brainer. Really depends on use case. Some hardware will work, other might not, it depends. Screens will work if they go through HDMI or S-Video. Hardware should work if it uses USB. GPIO pins are a different matter.
Even if it doesn't work for majority of cases, I'd be willing to play with it and try to make it work with board I can purchase than a board that's never in stock. And to be honest I even hate Chinese sites like AliExpress but some options are better than none and some manufacturers from China are offering a lot of options.
Just get one of the compatible boards
The main selling point of a Raspberry Pi is that the "compatible" boards often... aren't. Instead of the well-supported, plug-and-play experience you get with a Raspberry Pi, with other boards even people like Jeff Geerling often struggle to get them to work. Also, the Raspberry Pi has excellent documentation, a large community for support, etc., whereas with alternative boards you end up having to hunt around for documentation and download firmware off obscure Chinese websites and whatnot.
I'll have to dig deeper as I don't use RPi anymore or its clones. Like I said in my other comment, some hardware might work, other might not but I know for sure I gave up on original RPi because if I have to hunt one down for more than a year with constant promises in increased production, then it's no longer a product and we simply have to move on to something else.
Edit: Also many things that were stated in that video are simply not true but they are coming from not understanding Linux as a platform and by their own admission they are not a developer towards whom these boards are usually targeted. Understandable frustration, but I wonder if it's really that difficult as claimed to make these work. Randomly flashing images from internet is rarely going to result in a successful boot if you don't understand how things work.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
even people like Jeff Geerling often struggle to get them to work
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Just looked and they're sold out
Try again next week.
Adafruit had pi 5's in stock a couple weeks ago and they didn't sell out instantly. I could have ordered but decided I didn't have an immediate use for it, so it could wait.
Pi Zero 2's as of the same time were fairly easy to find. I don't know about now. Those had been extremely scarce for a while.
Pi 4's are now plentiful. But, Pi 400's (4 with a keyboard more or less) have been fairly easy to get all along.
Unless they drop the price significantly I'll stick with used x86 minis until risc-v is more viable.
Using Orange Pi for years now and I'm doing pretty fine tbh..