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Raspberry Pi Zero Gains Camera Support, Keeps $5 Price (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Raspberry Pi Zero has received its first major hardware upgrade today: a camera connector. The new addition of a camera connector works well with the two new Sony imaging modules announced last month. The board will retain its $5 price, too. Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi founder, said in a blog post that "through dumb luck, the same fine-pitch FPC connector that we use on the Compute Module Development Kit just fits onto the right hand side of the board." The team was able to close the feature gap between the Zero and larger Pi boards by moving the surface components towards the left, and rotating the activity LEDs. The CSI connector on the Zero is 3.5mm smaller than the adapter on the Pi 3, so you will need to invest in a new cable if you've already invested in a camera module for an existing project.
Right! I hate how the brag about the price $5 but are unwilling to produce it in enough volume to get anywhere near demand. I would like to see proof too that it's not a loss leader. Until I can actually buy it, who cares about the price.
Sorry, my friends and I had no trouble getting ZEROs for $5 at the local MicroCenter. Just keep a neteye on availability and drop in that day or next. The MCs get them in every month now.
Sorry, my friends and I had no trouble getting ZEROs for $5 at the local MicroCenter.
Sorry, only a minority of Americans (let alone humans) have a local MicroCenter.
Wake me up when you can get them from Radio Shack. For all their closures, I drive past one of those regularly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This "toy" is at least as powerful as your desktop computer, circa Y2k, and a whole lot smaller and cheaper. It's being used for network monitor and control systems, process controllers, multimedia kiosks, home automation systems and a whole lot more. The Pi is a fully functional computer that's cheap enough to hand out in quantity as party favors.
While I agree that the Pi *was* a good platform, it has caused us nothing but headaches lately. The foundation is a not-for-profit, and they do not make money on their devices. In fact, they can only offer the price points they do because of massive subsidies by chip makers. Without those subsidies, you can add $15+ to every Raspberry Pi.
That is ultimately a problem because every time the foundation releases a new Pi, they stop making older versions. This is critical because it means that any design you have based around a pi will only have a useful lifespan of less than 4 years. You then have to adapt the design to a new Pi model. While that may not sound like a big deal, it is a huge burden even if all you have to do is recompile, because everything has to be retested, and god help you if you paid for CE or UL, because now you have to refile, and that costs a damn fortune.
The biggest kick in the balls is that the Pis are closed source, so there is no way to simply pick up and have your own manufactured, you're stuck. We have been so bitten, and our new designs are Beaglebone based because the retail version is just as widely available, and we have the manufacturing files tucked away, so they cant be end-of-lifed on us. To Raspberry Pi and Broadcom, I say a heartfelt Fuck You.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
I just bought a bunch on eBay for $60 each...
Son, are you stupid or something?
You can get a much more functional Raspberry Pi3, Odroid, BBB, or just about any other damn thing for less than that. The only thing that made the zero worth getting was the low pricetag...
I can't believe people are actually in bidding wars on ebay over these things...
Morons
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
This is why they produce the compute module; you get the 40 pin header, usb etc in a SO-DIMM and commercial users have a standard unit they can design around for several years. The BBB is a superior device though, I agree.
moox. for a new generation.
In other news, the RAM on the Raspberry Pi A+ has been increased from 256 MB to 512 MB.