mini rant Raspberry Pi Foundation and its weird pricing/availability - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 06:01:06 pm
content: I like the Raspberry Pi as a platform when I need embedded Linux, particularly in a personal project. The FF isn't what I would have designed, and there are better / faster / cheaper devices out there, but the RPi is stable with good OS support for the peripherals, etc.Recently, I like the Pi Zero W, which is very compact and does what I need and it is "$10USD". I scare-quoted that for a reason.You see, RPi foundation has three US distributors. One is Adafruit, which will sell you one for $10, but they will ONLY sell you ONE, supposedly because of limited supply, but..The other two are Micro Center (a why-isn't-it-defunct-already computer store) and CanaKit which bundles Pi stuff into kits (with presumably higher margins). The thing is, MicroCenter and CanaKit will sell you as many Pi Zero W's as you want, as long as you buy them in their dumb kits with connectors, power supply, case, but they absolutely will not sell you a naked Pi Zero W. The kits are on the order of $22 - 50.The whole setup sounds scammy, like you can't really profitably sell Pi Zero W's for $10. Which sucks, because, honestly, I'd happily pay $12, $13 to get 10-20 of them. But I don't want to pay >$20 so that I can get an utterly useless case and YACUPSU (Yet Another Cheap USB Power Supply)IIRC, they played a similar game pricing the other Pi's, where you could not get them at the promised price.Would love to see these and other cheap SBC at Mouser and Digikey. I guess that's not gonna happen.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 09:00:00 pm
content: From the pricing at MicroCenter, it looks like they are trying to prevent high volume buyers from buying out all of the stock for bitcoin mining. This will actually help the small user actually get a device.http://www.microcenter.com/product/486575/zero_wNote thatQty 1 - $10/eaQty 2-5 - $15/eaQty 6+ - $20/eaI like the idea!

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 09:26:28 pm
content: I haven't found any cryptocurrency that can be profitably mined on a Pi. I managed to get a Pi 3 to mine earnhoney well enough to more than pay for the little bit of power it uses, but does not run stable enough to be worth running.

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 09:36:16 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on February 04, 2018, 09:00:00 pmI hadn't even seen the bare board at MicroCenter. But I notice this bit:"AVAILABLE FOR IN-STORE PICKUP ONLY"Um, wut?This is one of their three US "distributors" allowing only in-store pickup??? The closest store to me is a mere 408 miles according to The Google. I'll be right over..

author: djacobow
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 09:38:47 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 04, 2018, 09:26:28 pmWell, I do not use them for mining. I use them for various data collection / sensor network projects.As far as I understand, one simply cannot profitably mine Bitcoin at retail electric power rates in the western world at this point -- that is, if you are the person paying for the power. If you're in a dorm room, mine away!But generally, if you want bitcoin, you are simply better off buying it than trying to mine it. It may be different for other currencies.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 05, 2018, 02:08:07 am
content: My school required one for a class, and it was over $90 as a Canakit from the school store (through Barnes and Noble)! Luckily, my federal aid covered it.Sent from the Raspberry Pi