Where Are the Raspberry Pi Zeros? (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: The Pi Zero was supposed to be available from November 26, 2015. It is now the start of February and all of the stockists, including the Pi Swag Shop, are still showing out of stock. That's two whole months, and counting, of restricted supply which is more than an initial hiccup. Of course you would expect enough to be made available initially to meet the expected demand. The Pi sells something in the region of 200,000 per month so what do you think the initial run of the Pi Zero actually was? The answer is 20,000 units. Of which 10,000 were stuck to the cover of MagPi and "given away" leaving just 10,000 in the usual distribution channels. And yet Eben Upton, founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, commented: "You'd think we'd be used to it by now, but we're always amazed by the level of interest in new Raspberry Pi products," Well yes, you really would think that they might be used to it by now and perhaps even prepared for it. At the time of writing the Pi Zero is still out of stock and when it is briefly in stock customers are limited to one unit.
A victim of its own success, yes, but the real victims are the Raspberry Pi's competitors.

Comments

the Schedules

[Dave Whiteside]

https://www.raspberrypi.org/fo...
basically there are 2 re sellers in the UK and 2 in the US
they get alternative deliveries

Re:the Schedules

[bangular]

I've noticed Adafruit runs out of the zero within minutes of stock, but the more expensive "kits" may last several hours. I think it really comes down to the 5 dollar price point not being profitable and thus not being a priority. I'm sure at 35 dollars the B+ has at least _some_ wiggle room.

Re:the Schedules

[Racemaniac]

And even without the schedules, the sellers will tell you when they arrive.
I wanted one, so i kept an eye on pihut, and they announced on their twitter when they'd have new stock, so i made sure i was ready to buy one then, and got one of the second batch they sold. And i'm by no means someone who uses twitter (literally the first time i've ever had use for it, found the post by googling). But if you really want one, how hard is it really to just keep up to date a bit with the shop you know sells it... they know it's important for their customers, so they'll warn them via the channels they have of when they will be available :).

If you don't have one right now, you just don't want it that hard, if you would have, you'd have taken the bit of time it takes to be up to date with when new batches arrive, and order one when it became available.

I can understand small first batches

[pijokela]

For me, the Pi Zero is pretty much useless, because it has no networking. No wireless, no wired. Nothing.

So, if someone says they were not sure if people would buy them, I believe that. Looks like there are a lot of people that have completely different uses for their Pies than mine. Go figure.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[Midnight Thunder]

The use case is much closer to that of an Arduino, than that of the Rasberry B. So, unless you are looking to do embedded type stuff, then you are probably not the right market.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[serviscope_minor]

No wireless

Less space than a Nomad too.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[bangular]

The zero is definitely in an awkward spot. It's so-so as a microcontroller replacement (no low power modes, limited number of analog inputs, inputs not 5v tolerant), but the price point makes it otherwise competitive. The ESP8266 is getting high level languages like Lua, micro python, and Basic and priced well. The "low power mode" sucks because it basically just resets the unit and doesn't have interrupt driven wake modes.

I bought a zero and it will probably be my only purchase. It just doesn't seem to do anything special.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[bangular]

The ESP8266 seems to be the current competitor for "arduino with effortless network connectivity." They are about 5 dollars and actually available. Just as the pi, it has many limitations that dedicated microcontrollers solved years ago. I've been using a combination of ESP8266 and AVR lately instead of ESP8266 standalone.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[nojayuk]

Looks like there are a lot of people that have completely different uses for their Pies than mine

I'm waiting to get my hands on a Pi Zero. I don't need networking, wired or wireless, I don't need external storage or lots of RAM, it's for a single purpose task using a USB port and its video output to sit between a microscope webcam and a junkbox TFT display. Five dollars is a bargain, a regular Pi with all the extra bells and whistles is a waste of money for this project (basic image processing for automated inspection purposes).

The Pi Zero has use cases. They're really not suitable for folks with connectivity requirements, external storage or elaborate interfacing but as a blobject for glueing some bits together they can't be beaten at that price.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[MightyYar]

They are down under $2 shipped now and they come in varieties with more IO. Arduino code now runs on them directly.

But you are right, they are finicky.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[Rei]

Since you have experience... I've often had interest in physical computing, but have never gotten around to learning / messing around with it. What would you find to be a good "introductory" system (for someone with lots of programming experience but only grade-school/100-in-1-electronics-kit/basic soldering/etc level electronics experience) for the purposes of, say, controlling steppers, variable-RPM drive motors, taking voltage readings, etc?

Re:I can understand small first batches

[thinkwaitfast]

The arduino fits this role perfectly. I have a few years experience building remote data collection sensors and very little computation ability is required You don't even need to do calibration, just record raw data. I was doing this on a TRS-80 100 in the 1980's with no problem collecting data (about 2 dozen sensors) over a few months time. Where the rpi would come in handy is its ease of use of large storage space. I think you can do that with the arduino also, but have not tried.

One of the things I have planed to do with my rpi is to set up a remote station on a tall mountain about 12km from my house. I could set up a camera and talk to the whole thing over an xbee rs-232 tcp link (ppp) at 28.8kbaud. With a small solar panel this would run indefinitely and provide me with weather data and a view of the whole area.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[dbc]

Currently, I am totally in love with the PyBoard, available form AdaFruit in the US. The PyBoard is the reference implementaiton of MicroPython, which is Python 3.x ported to microcontrollers. Very nice implementation of Python -- a (very) few differences from CPython because you are running on a limited amount of physical memory on bare metal, but a very, very nice version of Python. I am telling all my robot-building friends about it every chance I get.

That said, the Arduino has a huge community by virtue of having been around a long, long time. You can get a RedBoard (my favorite Arduino clone) from SparkFun for lunch money, so if you toast one, who cares? I recently did a real, live, paying contract using an Arduino Micro, which uses a Mega 324, which a much more capable processor than the Mega328 that is on the basic Arduino boards. SparkFun has a "SparkFun Inventor's Kit" around the RedBoard that gives you a selection of sensors and actuators to plug in, and a project guide. You might like that as a way to get started.

Also... about blowing things up.... don't fear the magic smoke. As a youth I was deathly afraid of toasting my components. That probably had to do with my limited allowance :/ I would have accomplished more had I simply forged ahead, seeing the occasional dead component for what it is: the cost of tuition. The great thing about being able to buy a whole computer for the cost of a burrito and beer is that fear of magic smoke is no longer a thing.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[LWATCDR]

I see the Zero a bit different. It is a full linux machine which the ESP8266 is not. It has HDMI out which the ESP8266 does not.
Put a USB wifi adaptor on it and you have a linux box that you can put on the back of a monitor have it work well for signage or other displays.
Very different devices for different uses. the ESP8266 is great for say a weather station, maybe a simple robot. The Zero is for projects that need full Linux and maybe a display.
Even combining an ESP8266 with a zero is an option as well using the ESP for IO and Wifi and the Zero for processing.

Re:I can understand small first batches

[bangular]

Unfortunately the pi draws a fair amount of current doing nothing. I've used the pi in a solar based project and the pi ended up using more energy than my solenoid. I ended up using an Arduino and a relay to turn the pi off to conserve energy. It also made the project somewhat complicated because you can't just power off the pi, you have to do a proper linux shutdown. You have to coordinate with the AVR to say "OK to kill power now." You're typically looking at about 100mA to 300mA depending the model. The AVR uses less than 1mA in sleep mode.

Re:The are available, but not for $5

[Archangel Michael]

unavailable

Inconceivable!

Nice non-sequiteur at the end

[Anonymous Coward]

A victim of its own success, yes, but the real victims are the Raspberry Pi's competitors.

One might argue that if RPi are unable to deliver what's actually wanted, people will go to their competitors instead.

So what the hell does this last sentence mean? RPi's competitors are "victims" because RPi has done well? Sorry, that's not how competition works. This isn't even a zero-sum game. RPi has created markets that its competitors failed to create, but are now selling into anyway. RPi's competitors have by-and-large received a massive boost from the existence of RPi. 12-year-olds are now playing with SBCs who would never have even heard of them if not for RPi, and they're not only playing with RPi SBCs.

Re:Nice non-sequiteur at the end

[queazocotal]

The victims are the competitors that get damaged by the perception that $5 is a price that people should be paying. This is extremely hard for nearly all vendors to manage.
This means less diversity in the market, especially if people buy a couple of Pis now, in the anticipation of a Zero being available real soon now.

local Radio Shack store has one

[Anonymous Coward]

My local Radio Shack store has Adafruit's Raspberry Pi Zero Starter kit in stock. It comes with the following:

Raspberry Pi Zero
8GB class 10 SD card
Wifi Dongle
Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter
USB OTG cable
USB console cable
Micro USB cable
Power supply
Male and Female headers
T-Cobbler Plus (breakout board and ribbon cable)

https://www.adafruit.com/products/2816

Re:local Radio Shack store has one

[supremebob]

Yep, and the kit probably costs $60. So much for the promise of the $5 computer.

Thankfully, the Raspberry Pi people are starting to get competition from other organizations like CHIP and PINE who are also releasing sub $20 barebones PC's. That should help to improve availability and keep prices low.

Nobody wanted it!

[burni2]

It's funny that many people now are trying so hard to get one - and lucky for those that have one and can sell that little thingy for 6 times the initial price on ebay.

And for those who haven't heard that's called capitalism -
supply low, demand high = prices high and the ebay sellers get theirs sold!

The first reviews and comments on the PiZero were like: "unusable" "only one USB-Port". And then the complaints about the missing ethernet or wlan.

And some even judged that the Zero would not sell at all, because of its short commings despite the price.

After the "tinkerers" started to get interested and played around with this "fail" and then the demand took off straight.

And no, the Raspberry PI Zero demand doesn't hurt other competitors, because I don't see similar priced clones of that size.

If you need you can get an A+ that will work for your project, you then also only have one usable USB-Port,
to make it smaller you need to desolder the GPIO-pins.

Where are the Raspberry Pi Zeros?

[sconeu]

I don't know... Getting shot down by the Arduino P-51 Mustangs?

Hindsight is grand

[thegarbz]

Well yes, you really would think that they might be used to it by now and perhaps even prepared for it.

Thanks for your opinion Mike. I wonder if you were in position where you sold 200000 of something, and then proceeded to develop a hugely cut down baby version of it, completely missing some of the most used features (USB ports) of the previous products, what do you think the initial run should be? Oh enlighten us?

Quite frankly I'm surprised they sold out, it's quite telling that one of the most popular projects on Hackaday is to add a USB hub back in to make it more useful.

Same for all new Dev Boards at release

[aaarrrgggh]

BeagleBone Black was similarly sold out for several months, it is the nature of the beast.

Re:What Competitors?

[ledow]

I work IT in schools, state and private, primary and secondary. I was one of first-batchers for the original RPi.

Few resources are actually advertised and available to teachers. The only educational-focused content offered is some random tutorials on websites, or third-party stuff from people that have nothing to do with the RPi. Most RPi's are bought, used a couple of times, then sit in a cupboard. Like a lot of other cool technology, I'd like to point out, but there it is.

The BETT exhibition is the UK's educational IT expo. For a few years it was "all about the RPi". People selling the units. Few resources. No teaching resources for those places that need it most (chances are that if the kids need teaching how to code, so do the teaching staff!), no training, nothing. I haven't see the foundation at the BETT ever (despite being run by a UK guy who claims the purpose is education?).

This year it was "all about"... well, not much. Some of those BBC Bit things were on a display board but you couldn't buy them. And, same thing, no resources or information about how to teach with them or the educational value.

I work in a prep school at the moment. We were beta-testers for the .NET Gadgeteer kit. We have kids working at secondary-school levels and beyond. We build and fly home-built drones with the boarding kids. We STOP teaching crap like Scratch in Year 3 but we go up to Year 8.

The RPis I found in a drawer when I started there. I wasn't surprised, as mine was in the attic by then too. We never bought the Model B's. We won't be touching the BBC things either.

To be honest, it's easier just to let the kids (rich kids!) buy their own gadgets and then integrate them into the lesson. All the kids have iPads (not my choice, but I have to make the best I can of them), if they program they do it on those or on the PC's in the school. The geeks turn up every Friday evening for "the geek club" where we do things like C programming, machine code, building drones and kitting up Arduino kits.

I've yet to see what the actual educational value is in the Pi - I'm sure a REALLY good teacher can use them, as ours did, but that's to do with the teacher, not the device. They do just as good a lesson with pen-and-paper, an iPad, a lego-kit, or some $5 Arduinos and a soldering iron.

And with almost zero teaching resources sold with them, most teachers who aren't up to speed (which is sold as being half the point of pushing IT in schools, that the teachers are behind the pupils themselves) won't touch them as they see them as "just a gadget" with no educational value or help in their teaching.

15 years in IT in schools, story has been the same in all the schools I work in. It used to be QX3 microscopes, then visualisers, then Raspberry Pi's (and Scratch at the same time), next week it'll be something else.

You just missed this year's BETT. The only RPi's I saw were running Lego kits and things that ANY device could be running. And nobody was really selling the RPi or associated resources... I think I saw one stall selling RPi cases that were twice the price of the same thing on Amazon.

Will have many zeros in Canada

[EmperorOfCanada]

The theoretical price of the zero is $5, or about $7 Canadian. I am willing to bet that the walk in price for a zero will be $29 and the total delivered price will be about $40. Then we have the fees that some of the major shippers will ladle onto anything where they smell internet-order. These fees typically start at $40.

So I am not exaggerating that a zero will potentially cost $80.00 (60usd) in Canada. That is a lot of zeros.