The Raspberry Pi 5's base model does start at $60 but its specs are too different for a comparison to be meaningful.
[EDIT] Oops, I hadn't realized the 4B with 1 GB was discontinued. So the starting price of the 4B would be $45 for the 2 GB version.
The pi is fun but honestly for pi hole or similar you might as well buy the all in one x86. For media streaming definitely buy the all in one x86. For gpio stuff ok the pi is reasonable but even then if you want to make a product rather than a home automation once off you’d go a different route completely.
Options with mainline linux kernel drivers:
- MCP2221A (i2c + 4x GPIO)
- CP2112 (i2c + GPIO)
Options without kernel support:
- FT232H
- Arduino nano and clones
- Raspberry Pi Pico running some interesting firmware
- ESP32 running something like ESPHome (completely separate from host)
I've chosen the Pico for now and forked the u2if project for firmware and host support[1]. I also put together a generic ESPHome-compatible protocol server in python to tie my widgets to Home Assistant[2].
You can roll your own "RGB temperature sensing modem" and get/set values with `bash` and `expect` over ttyUSB, no one PWM controls RGB LEDs on a gaming keyboard straight from a task tray app. Trying to wrestle GPIO problems that way is going to be unnecessarily hard.
Currently it's running in "one light string per PIO" mode but there's an inaccessible mode where one PIO can do up to 8 strings simultaneously. The pins have to be physically adjacent, though, so it's a bit more difficult to set up in a generalized way.
Clarification please. I thought inaccessible meant cannot do :)
Of course, the Pi is also facing competition from higher end microcontroller based solutions. People seem to forget that there was a time when hobbyists bought the Pi for "Internet of Things" like projects, both due to its cost and size. Then came the ESP8266 and ESP32 and development boards that packaged both a microcontroller and network interface.
Most makers I know have pivoted to ESP32 during this time as it was good enough and actually available. Probably would have happened sooner or later though.
When the first raspberry was introduced, it was really really hard to interface an electronics project with the internet. Arduinos were really dumb at the time. That's why the raspberry was so ideal. But most electronics projects didn't really need a whole linux distro running on it. It was just that there was no other option.
The ESPs introduced a totally new class that can cover most of the usecases of electronics projects that the raspberry originally aimed at. They support wifi, bluetooth, pretty serious processing, enough for most connected projects. They totally ate the raspberry's lunch in the embedded market. Of course the RP2040 aims for this too but IMO it's kinda too little too late, the ESP32 is already so well established and has the biggest community.
At the other end of course the PC pricing came down and the intel N100's and the like eat its lunchon the other side.
In terms of driver support these intel systems are the easiest to work with in Linux. Very mainstream and well established drivers.
Requirements may vary.
And I've got no regrets about using a Pi 4 a router. It's sitting on the shelf next to me, and has been trouble-free for over four years now.
You may not care but I do.
I suppose a Pi 4 is fast enough to route 1 Gbps even through a usb network card?
[I do have one "sitting on a shelf" as a home Minecraft server btw. I hate the usb ssd hanging off it.]
I upgraded my home LAN to 10gb/2.5gb early last year, and the RPi can't really keep up with it anymore. I'm using an N305 based mini-pc with 4 ethernet ports for my router now... exceeds my needs and runs great. My home server is an AMD 5900HX based mini-pc with also works very well (ProxMox, Docker, etc).
I mean: There's not much to it. LAN port, WAN port, MicroSD storage, and a (completely optional and of dubious merit) hardware RTC that sits on the GPIO header. I'm using the bog-standard Pi Foundation plastic case.
It runs OpenWRT, which itself is very light-weight -- it's more-or-less just enough Linux to set up routing functions using a GUI, and it's meant to be able to fit in the tiny little bit of flash that consumer router hardware comes with.
IIRC, the status at the time when I put it together was that it could route packets and perform traffic shaping at ~1Gbps even with a USB NIC. It certainly did just fine when I had a 400Mbps pipe.
I'm willing to pay a little more for a respected brand with a little more QA involved (and less hassle to me as a developer).
It bugs me to no end how much a small (4-drive) nas can cost, compared to much more capable mini-pc prices.
The power brick got more expensive due to the increased power use. Also if you want to make use of the full power, you need a cooler. But you can also do without cooler, because it just gracefully slows down when overheated.
I think the Pi drove the price of lower end computers down so far that people completely lost their sense of perspective.
Hey now. Proud owner of a 256MB 1B here. Although they upgraded the baseline spec right after that first production run.
Is it? I can buy one for $35 at my local Microcenter, and I can see that Adafruit is selling them for $35 as well. [0] It's still listed as a $35 part on the official Raspberry Pi product page. [1]
[0] https://www.adafruit.com/product/4295
[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
For those unfamiliar with them, Digi-Key is a electronic components supplier to manufacturers but they also sell to individuals. Their stock count should be accurate.
Are you talking about the Pi5 4GB which is $60? We are talking about the Pi4 2GB which is $45. For many things, the cheaper, older version is fine.