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I’ve always said that. If you want basic GPIO you can always shove a smaller MCU on the end of a USB cable and talk to that. Most of the embedded stuff I’ve done in the last decade has worked like that.

They are also terrible in education. Unreliable, huge set up time, no education software runs on them properly.

On the unreliable thing I got booted off their forums for writing a technical evaluation of the RPi 1 brown out issues with USB. That really put a bad taste in my mouth. Refuse to use any of their products since.

Raspberry Pi's are essential for a certain class of robots, they're small, light and mobile enough while still being computers, and they have all the pins you might need, most people who don't understand them are usually actually looking for a stationary mini pc or an mcu and are wondering why an RPi isn't those.

What kind of class you are talking, most of the time, we use MCU for real time stuff and a generic computer for Heavy computing stuff, they can communicate through whatever bus they want (Serial, USB or even wireless like bluetooth). E

Something that needs to be light and runs on a traditional navigation stack (no AI) would be served well by an RPI.

There are a plethora of devices that outperform RPI in every single aspect. This has always been the case, AI proliferation or not. See the top comments in this thread for examples.

Story: I spent roughly 140 USD and a 20 hours or so integrating RPI 5 2g into my vehicle ODB2/12v system. Programming the PID data from ODB2 into something readable on the RPI is something I never want to do again, and the power issues on RPI (and, lack of support) have made it largely not worth it. Further, I thought I would come up with some use case to use the GPIO pins, (IE a hat for "mechanical" GPS, G force, etc.) but the headaches with power, programming and even the touchscreens I procured have made it not worth it.

I am now working on a basic NUC to replace that and it's a dream in comparison and cost next to nothing. GPIO access on RPI is negated as a "feature" by simply using USB on a NUC or similar mini pc for the same.

There are a million small embedded systems that are designed for that application and aren’t made to the lowest possible standard that they could muster. And those have RTOS on bare metal. The Pi is a fat and slow computer.

They're generally aren't as accessible.

At this point this has to be just raspberry propaganda. Or total ignorance.

You can take upstream kernel and u-boot and tf-a, just build it, flash it and have a working system for 10s of different boards from various manufacturers.

Small anecdote on the mobile/robotics part, two years ago I was tasked with a small research sensor/timelapse platform. I reached out for the Pi Zero 2 W, the new Pi camera, and the largest USB battery I could buy. Perhaps I had unrealistic expectations, but I was surprised how much power it draws, even at idle. The napkin math said about 6 days (0.5 W idle, 2 W loaded), in reality it was only 1-2 days.

In comparison, my older laptop idles at around 5 W, even with multiple applications open. Similar experience more recently when looking at setting up a small home lab, the new Pi 5 seems to idle at around 5 W. A friend told me he has an Intel-based mini PC that draws less power. I'm tempted to try re-purposing an old phone, that should in theory do better.

This is AC wall power as measured by a kill-a-watt, I have an Intel N150 mini PC here with 12GB of RAM, 512GB cheap NVME SSD, with wifi active, it's 8.2W idle at an xfce4 desktop with a lighted keyboard and mouse attached to it. It came with a 110-240 to 19VDC 3A power supply.

I'd say the cheap ac to dc power supply it came with is no more than 80% efficient so 6.56W DC would be what I might expect to see if I peeled apart its DC feed side power cable and put a precise clamp ammeter around it.

Absolutely maxed out with stress-ng it's 24.6W at the wall.

Lenovo M600 here. Never measured it but it runs cold and doesn't have any active cooling.

> no education software runs on them properly.

Anyone ever forced to use education software knows that’s a bonus.

I don't disagree. But that's not something you can fight.

Exactly.

For example, various kinds of STM Nucleo boards with MCUs having far more useful peripherals for an embedded computer than Raspberry Pi can be found for less than $20, and you can connect them to any PC with USB, to load programs on them and to debug them, or if you pay a little more, you can also connect them wirelessly.

The smallest such boards have the size of the through-hole dual-in-line integrated circuits from the past (0.6" width, like the UVPROMs from ancient PCs), and they can be inserted in standard solderless breadboards.

> You can get a far more capable small form factor or ultra small form factor used Intel Core i5/i7 something corporate desktop with 16GB of RAM and a real SSD for like 150 bucks on eBay (USD). It'll be significantly faster.

Highly agree with this option. But it's actually far worse than this because the total cost of a Raspberry Pi 5 is also higher than a brand new mini PC that comes with everything (including SSD). You can get an Intel N150 with 16GB RAM and an SSD for $250+ CAD while a Raspberry Pi 5 16GB with required accessories is $400 CAD. More if you want to use an SSD instead of an SD card.

I think RAM cost inflation has made this worse, I just checked amazon.ca and basic Intel N150 mini PC with 16GB are pushing $469+ CAD before tax. The one I got a year and a half ago with 12GB seems like a real bargain now.

It is a lot worse now. They're a bit lower on AliExpress but you need to shop around a bit and check similar SoCs. Here's an Intel N95 with 16GB RAM on Amazon for $297 right now: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0FZSKJP8T

Still cheaper than an equivalent Raspberry Pi.

8GB is a bit overkill though, of course depending on what you use it for but it is an unfair baseline.

2 GB costs a fraction (but maybe get 4 if you want/need margin) and is more than enough for most projects. And I say this as someone whose opinion is that 32 GB is the absolute bare minimum for a general purpose computer (including laptops).

I have an old 3B+ for which I bought a 802.3af-to-microusb power thing on amazon for $9, attached an old USB webcam to it (let's consider this to be free, it's certainly fully depreciated) and it sits in a utility room watching an analog needle gauge on a furnace. The 1GB of RAM on it is totally adequate to snap photos, encode them into my choice of formats and send them somewhere on a periodic schedule. It's just PNG files now, but the schedule interval is low enough that I could even use its weak CPU to do something like encode the snaps into AVIF in a 5-minute job.

I did something similar with a raspberry pi 2 which also by itself is way overkill, it also had a usb-wifi dongle because when I realized that it didn't have wifi natively and running Ethernet was a bit cumbersome for a temporary project. But for these simple projects there is no point in buying the latest and greatest version.

When people remember the $35 pricepoint and lament the price increase of today they forget that they don't serve the same purpose anymore. Hell, the Zero 2 is cheaper than that and plenty powerful for a ton of projects.

I have the aforementioned 3B+ and one Pi 4 (I forget if it's 1GB or 2GB). For me they still serve the same purpose as the original for weird headless tasks like eyeballing a furnace needle gauge. One of the reasons I mentioned in my original post that thankfully the model 4 1GB is still about the same price at $49 Canadian.

If I needed another one I'd probably buy one at that price, but right now I don't have anything that needs a temperature sensor (DS18B20? Or similar) that can't have the same need better solved by a discrete piece of zigbee or zwave hardware like combo temperature/humidity sensor, or water leak detection sensor, tiny ammeter, tiny relay controller, something that integrates with home assistant.

> If a person doesn't need GPIO pins or other direct access to hardware

One commonly used feature might be HDMI-CEC integration for media centers, but otherwise I agree with you.

It's more like for web people that wants to do embedded stuff and don't bother learning.

I've seen someone used the entire raspberry pi zero(dual core 1Ghz cpu with hundreds of MB ram) just to do some http request and display on a simple LCD, with python no less. All can be done with a simple esp32.

But hey, as long as it works, right ?

That seems a little unfair.

1. It’s so much easier using RPis for that work. It can be done with no soldering at all and there are tons of easy to use libraries. Not having to solder is a huge plus IMO and I have a workstation with iron, hot plate, air gun, etc. ready and waiting.

2. Why hate on doing it Python? Even ESP32 embedded development ecosystem treats Python well with CircuitPython and MicroPython.

3. At least they are making something!

4. Even a simple ESP32 is overkill for what you described, so why are you hating on people using an RPi when your suggestion is just as laughable when taking your hardcore embedded stance?

As someone who has been working on embedded work since RadioShack was a good source of components - let’s not gatekeep makers.

1: Not sure what your point here, if you dont want soldering, just use jumper wire, it is not exclusive on rpi.

2: What i mean is the main reason they use Rpi because it can run Python(at least easy, this was before CP/MP mature). If they had spent some effort in C, they can get away with not using rpi.

3: I agree with that, but i really do wish they step out of their comfort zone a little more discovering what is possible.

4: I dont think esp32 is overkill, it's the cheapest and easy to acquire wifi MCU, if you have better suggestion i would like to learn, there is esp8266, but the cost different is not that much.

Dude, just be nice and let people have fun. Raspberry Pi’s have made it possible for people to do things they never otherwise would have done! It is pretty amazing!