I think the RPi has done it's job (cheap, relatively open hardware), and kickstarted the market.
Maybe they were struggling with "what do we do next?", and selling up to let the founders do new things is not the most terrible option.
Am getting a feeling they are going to implode soon so better ride the thunder and sell for as much money as possible. They were great for what they set to achieve, but then started to favor industry and big buyers instead of their original customers. These days fan base is slowly crumbling as they still struggle to keep shelves stocked and production going. Scalpers are not helping this situation either and people are deciding to go with competitors more and more.
More to the point, some of the more powerful options of RPi are not even that cheaper than Intel's Nuc or other mini computers.
I would hope IPO money means they can finally invest in the infrastructure to solve their supply problems.
Am not as optimistic.
Have we really got a replacement though? A £200 N100 mini PC is not in the same ballpark of disposability as a £40 board.
The thing is, they're not £40 any more (at least, the 5 isn't). A brief check here, puts the 4GB at £59, and the 8GB at £79.
Hopefully, they'll continue to make the previous models at a reasonable price.
I mean it was never that anyway, once you'd bought a power supply for it and a case.
I think they're at least powered by USB-C now, so people probably have that already, while the Pi3 wasn't quite within spec for regular micro USB so needed a custom power supply.
It's funny, I remember hitting issues with my pi3 running homeassistant with lots of dongles.
Eventually I worked out that the random reboots were down to power draw.
Power fickleness varies across every pi we’ve looked that. They need clean and steady or you can have some wild results.
They need proprietary 25w 5V5A chargers. It does not work with all USB C.
There are now plenty of companies making single-board computers. There are even ones based on Rockchip that run almost entirely on free software. The only things RPi had going for it were brand recognition and software support.
I think the RPi has done it's job (cheap, relatively open hardware), and kickstarted the market.
Maybe they were struggling with "what do we do next?", and selling up to let the founders do new things is not the most terrible option.
Am getting a feeling they are going to implode soon so better ride the thunder and sell for as much money as possible. They were great for what they set to achieve, but then started to favor industry and big buyers instead of their original customers. These days fan base is slowly crumbling as they still struggle to keep shelves stocked and production going. Scalpers are not helping this situation either and people are deciding to go with competitors more and more.
More to the point, some of the more powerful options of RPi are not even that cheaper than Intel's Nuc or other mini computers.
I would hope IPO money means they can finally invest in the infrastructure to solve their supply problems.
Am not as optimistic.
Have we really got a replacement though? A £200 N100 mini PC is not in the same ballpark of disposability as a £40 board.
The thing is, they're not £40 any more (at least, the 5 isn't). A brief check here, puts the 4GB at £59, and the 8GB at £79.
Hopefully, they'll continue to make the previous models at a reasonable price.
I mean it was never that anyway, once you'd bought a power supply for it and a case.
I think they're at least powered by USB-C now, so people probably have that already, while the Pi3 wasn't quite within spec for regular micro USB so needed a custom power supply.
It's funny, I remember hitting issues with my pi3 running homeassistant with lots of dongles.
Eventually I worked out that the random reboots were down to power draw.
Power fickleness varies across every pi we’ve looked that. They need clean and steady or you can have some wild results.
They need proprietary 25w 5V5A chargers. It does not work with all USB C.
There are now plenty of companies making single-board computers. There are even ones based on Rockchip that run almost entirely on free software. The only things RPi had going for it were brand recognition and software support.