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Raspberry Pi 3 Brings Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes: Details of the next in the family of the successful Raspberry Pi family have become available as part of FCC testing documents. The Pi 3 finally includes WiFi and Bluetooth/LE. Comparing the board with the Pi 2 it is clear that most of the electronics has stayed the same. A Raspberry Pi with built in WiFi and Bluetooth puts it directly in competition with the new Linux based Arduinos, Intel's Edison and its derivatives, and with the ESP8266 — a very low cost (about $2) but not well known WiFi board. And of course, it will be in competition with its own stablemates. If the Pi 3 is only a few dollars more than the Pi 2 then it will be the obvious first choice. This would effectively make the Pi Zero, at $5 with no networking, king of the low end and the Pi 3 the choice at the other end of the spectrum. Let's hope they make more than one or two before the launch because the $5 Pi Zero is still out of stock most places three months after being announced and it is annoying a lot of potential users.
I'd rather see faster IO than built-in wireless. I can easily add a dongle for wifi or bluetooth if I want it, but the current architectural constraints mean the Pi's not a great board for a low-end, low-power file server.
Can they instead get direct communication to the ethernet port, not that shitty solution over USB?
It's not just the ethernet-port that is over USB, but it and all four of the USB-ports are all connected to a single, internal hub, meaning they all share the 480Mbps bandwidth. That's kind of crappy, would be nice to have it more like e.g. my Orange Pi PC is, ie. it has 3 USB-ports that are all fully capable of the 480Mbps -- no internal hub, whatsoever, and no sharing of bandwidth -- and the ethernet-interface is actually connected directly to the SoC, too. Though, unlike you, I would definitely want built-in WiFi and I heartily welcome that in RPi3.
As an aside, I wonder if RPi3 will finally bring HEVC-support with it. It's one of those things I care a lot about.
Well, the only thing I miss in the Pi2 is an audio in connector, not the end of the world though since I can use an USB sound card instead.
What I have used it for so far is to set up an APRS digipeater/igate and as a controller for a radio repeater with subtone control.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Because they're cheap and have decent performance for their cheapness. I don't actually give a flying crap about I/O speed. About the only thing I wish it had was a variant with two of those USB-Ethernet dongles built in, wifi built in, and retaining at least a couple USB ports. If I need multiple Ethernet ports, I've been attaching dongles anyhow, so why not build them in? The benefit is the device is that it is dirt cheap. I have a number of them in service in manufacturing acting as web servers for performing specific tasks (mostly for flashing microcontrollers and loading configurations on boards that cost 3-50 times as much). Sure, I could put a cheap desktop in there, but we're talking a massive increase in cost and physical size (I do use one of these where I/O would be a problem with a RasPi). It's all about using the right tool for the job...
This argument always breaks down when the person making it is asked to provide actual alternatives.
It also breaks down when you look at actual use cases. For many people, compatibility and ecosystem are far more important than performance. My use case: A classroom full of 4-6 graders, and a bunch of SD-Cards, electronic components, and prototype boards. The RPi "just works". It boots Linux, there are lots and lots of online tutorials, sample code, and projects that kids can do. The only other board that comes close is Arduino, and we use those too, but it can't do the same high level stuff as a RPi, such as running a webserver.
Actually, Orange Pis were heavily overclocked and overvolted by Steven and whoever are behind the designs, bringing the clocks and volts down to within the range designed by Allwinner fixes stability - issues and thermals -- no need to underclock or undervolt. That said, they are selling Orange Pis and advertising with the heavily - overclocked and overvolted specs, which is kind of dishonest.
And NONE of them have the community RPi does. Technical superiority is never a guarantee of success. The Rpis bigest fault is the internal busses are pretty weak, other than that its a solid SoC for the money. Nothing can touch the Pi Zero in performance per dollar, its fantastic. I have one with a 128 GB micro SD card capturing himawari-8 data every 10 minutes and displaying it on my living room TV.
Good-bye
For many people, compatibility and ecosystem are far more important than performance.
Exactly. There are many alternatives to the Raspberry Pi (though I'm still not sure any can match it on cost). But none of them ship with something like NOOBS, a simple installation script that will magic on any number of very specific purpose built Linux distributions like super slim RISC, media centres like OpenELEC, just general Rasbian, (equips demonic shield with +10 fire resistance) Windows 10 IoT edition.
I didn't want to add "ease of getting started" to my wish list, because I'm still keen to know if the GP is actually capable of naming a better performing device for the same price.
You aren't overclocking it then, I guess. I use my Pi2 as a Kodi-based media center, usually watching Blu-Ray rips, and I have had no problems whatsoever with stuttering or slowness. The overclocking I've done (values recommended by OSMC) is very gentle, not the kind that puts the board at risk .