this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024

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Raspberry Pi is now manufacturing 70,000 Pi 5s per week, will surge to 90,000 in February (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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??

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

VMware, because they are bringing sales in house to make more money. Cutting out the middle man.

[–] ikidd 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

They're leaving anyone under F100 to twist in the wind, as the sysadmin forums are attesting. If you were going to continue to service SMB or larger, you'd have an inhouse division ready to go before you shut down the channel. That is precisely the opposite of what's happened.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Everyone I know who has any say in my personal professional network is steering their companies away from VMware, hard.

[–] noobface 5 points 9 months ago

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/

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] THE_STORM_BLADE 24 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not familiar with their anti consumer backstabbing, could you share share some links please?

[–] ikidd 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 18 points 9 months ago (10 children)

I deal with both PIs and PLCs for a living. I don't have much faith in the future of PLCs to be honest. They just don't seem to be willing to move forward in any sense of the word. The price for the same hardware tracks inflation, the lead times are getting worse, no version control, no higher level code development, still struggling over basic driver stuff, almost no interoperability, basic things that are wrong aren't getting fixed, almost no code sharing, everything locked down....

Basically they fit 1994 and decided to just stay there. The only good stuff they offer is greater reliability and more I/O. Right now I can buy an HMI-PI-PLC that can do everything my old systems can do and more for lower cost.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just checked for my country, and 4 out of 5 places had them in stock. Might be a local problem?

[–] LazaroFilm 23 points 9 months ago (4 children)

The issue isn’t the stock, it’s the price gouging.

[–] tyrant 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The registered retailers are selling them at normal cost I think? Or I got ripped off and didn't notice 🤔

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Thought so too, but I'm not sure

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

So what is the price supposed to be? I'm seeing ~90€ for the 8gb variant

[–] LazaroFilm 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That’s decent. They sell for over $130 on Amazon. And that’s the issue. You can check decent stock and prices here: https://raspistock.com/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah okay, that is way out of line, are there really scalpers, that buy raspis? 50 bucks for shipping one of those sounds like a decent business model ... But scalpers suck nonetheless

[–] LazaroFilm 2 points 9 months ago

Yes plenty of scalpers were mass buying boards to increase the shortage. Now adafruit requires an authentified account to buy them with a quantity limit.

[–] Aux 2 points 9 months ago

£79 is official RPi5 8GB price in the UK. So €90 sounds correct.

[–] ripcord 2 points 9 months ago

There's plenty available for sale at non-gouged prices since production ramped back up again. Last 6 months have been fine.

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[–] DontRedditMyLemmy 30 points 9 months ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Orangepi, rockchip, Arduino.

There's nothing novice about wanting to learn.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] ikidd 4 points 9 months ago

Raxma, Orange, Pine, take your pick.

[–] jimmydoreisalefty 11 points 9 months ago

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.

[–] MeanEYE 10 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Aux 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] MeanEYE 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Aux 1 points 9 months ago

Fair enough

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[–] BigTrout75 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just looked and they're sold out

[–] NickwithaC 2 points 9 months ago

Try again next week.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Unless they drop the price significantly I'll stick with used x86 minis until risc-v is more viable.

[–] solrize 5 points 9 months ago

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.

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