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Raspberry Pi's PoE HAT Ships For $20, Tosses in a Free Fan (linuxgizmos.com)

Posted by msmash on from the gizmo-updates dept.

Raspberry Pi is offering a Power-over-Ethernet HAT board for the RPi 3 Model B+ for $20 that ships with a small fan. Per blog LinuxGizmo, the "802.3af-compliant 'Raspberry Pi PoE HAT' allows delivery of up to 15W over the RPi 3 B+'s USB-based GbE port without reducing the port's up to 300Mbps bandwidth." From the report: The Raspberry Pi PoE HAT features a fully isolated switched-mode power supply with 37-57V DC, Class 2 input and 5V/2.5A DC output. The HAT connects to both the 40-pin header and a new PoE-specific 4-pin header introduced with the B+ located near the USB ports. To enable PoE, you need power sourcing equipment, which is either "provided by your network switch or with power injectors on an Ethernet cable," writes the foundation in a blog post.

90 comments

  1. Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's GbE, but throughput is only 300 Mbps. that's fucked up.

    1. Re:Wait what by daver!west!fmc · · Score: 1

      That's GbE attached via USB 2.

    2. Re:Wait what by darkain · · Score: 5, Informative

      The gigabit ethernet port is connected to the CPU via a USB 2.0 on the board, so that is your bottleneck.

    3. Re:Wait what by bobbied · · Score: 1

      It's GbE, but throughput is only 300 Mbps. that's f...ed up.

      That's USB 2.0 limited speed which is how the Pi works for pretty much all it's basic IO ports. Love it or not, that's a Pi.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    4. Re: Wait what by bobbied · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Linux at its best

      Has nothing at all to do with Linux, but the hardware on the Pi. Ethernet connections go though USB 2.0, which limits the bandwidth.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    5. Re:Wait what by gweihir · · Score: 0, Troll

      That is the bad engineering found everywhere in the Raspberry Pi. The competition has native Ethernet or native GbE.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    6. Re:Wait what by silverkniveshotmail. · · Score: 0

      It's a Raspberry Pi, what do you expect? Do you think the first machines with GbE had throughput anywhere close to 1,000mbps?

    7. Re:Wait what by suutar · · Score: 1

      It's limited by the USB link.

    8. Re:Wait what by olsmeister · · Score: 1

      Sounds throttled to me. Is that you Verizon?

    9. Re:Wait what by Severus+Snape · · Score: 1

      So all I/O is still over a single USB bus?

      I understand there needs to be cost cutting somewhere in devices like this but it's the single component that has never been updated. PoE and network booting is really useful and I think I'll upgrade. More I/O bandwidth would kill the competition.

    10. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want good LAN on a cheap SBC, go get an Odroid-C2. It pretty much maxes out gigabit ethernet. for $46USD it's hard to beat.

    11. Re:Wait what by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole point of the Pi project was to make a learning tool for students as cheaply as possible. There are hundreds of other single board computers out there with more features and bandwidth. Use the right tool for the job.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    12. Re:Wait what by bobbied · · Score: 1

      It's a hardware limit based on the Pi's cheapness... Can you hear me now?

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    13. Re:Wait what by jon3k · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For $35 and compatible with Raspberry Pi huge ecosystem of accessories and a broad range of compatible operating systems? Seriously, because I'd be interested. I also own a Rock64 (along with several Pi) and have run into numerous problems with it.

    14. Re:Wait what by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The whole point of the Pi project was to make a learning tool for students as cheaply as possible.

      They've also been *incredibly* popular in industry. It's pretty common to need a SBC to do some shit and it's not performance sensitive. The fact there are cheaper and more powerful ones doesn't really matter: the Pi is well understood, easy to source next day, and well documented and available for long periods of time. Saving a few bucks is nothing compared to the engineer time not spent messing around.

      Likewise the Arduino has revoloutionised vendor devkits.

      Weirdly these threads seem to be full of people basically complaining you don't get a fast desktop for 25 dollars.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    15. Re:Wait what by serviscope_minor · · Score: 0

      That is the bad engineering found everywhere in the Raspberry Pi. The competition has native Ethernet or native GbE.

      Great! If I ever need more than 300mb/s of bandwidth, I'll be sure to check out the competition. In the mean time, the Pi has proven more than powerful enough for every task I've used it for. In the mean time I'll stick to the Pi because it's well engineered enough, cheap enough, has a long product life and involves zero fucking around.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    16. Re: Wait what by youngone · · Score: 1

      Low effort Troll.

    17. Re:Wait what by youngone · · Score: 1

      Weirdly these threads seem to be full of people basically complaining you don't get a fast desktop for 25 dollars.

      Or, these threads are full of low effort Trolls commenting on things they don't understand.

    18. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have multiple rock64's, TinkerBoards and Pi's of all sizes. No one of them is good for everything. If its not the hardware tha is a problems, it will be the software.

    19. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what's weird? People sticking up for Broadcom no matter how absurd it is.

      The Pi is a pretty good product, but it has a few serious compromise which makes the thing a whole lot less usable and reliable than it could be. I'm talking about things like the miserable power delivery, which now officially has pushed their PSU out of micro usb spec - it delivers 5.1V, not 5, which ironically still isn't always enough - or the stupid 100Mbit/1Gbit over usb "solution", which is a terrible idea in every aspect, etc, etc.

      "people basically complaining you don't get a fast desktop for 25 dollars" is a retarded mischaracterization of the critique. The point is that many of these flaws are dirt cheap to fix, such as a better power delivery - which the even cheaper Arduino manages to do right. Fixing these would not drive up the cost in any meaningful way, but we don't get that but a bunch of useless, asskissing apologists instead.

    20. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Look at a dumb 1080p TV : there's a CPU in there with some kind of integrated GPU - maybe with no 3D support but with H264 decoding and some complicated video stuff ; there's some embedded flash on the motherboard for the firmware ; connected to that is a single USB 2.0 port so as to connect USB drives for playing xvid, H264, mp3 , showing jpeg etc.

      An OTA HDTV tuner might be closer as there are no HDMI input, no legacy analog input (RCA, S-video). There's simply a HDMI output, a legacy analog output and there may be a USB 2.0 port again to play movies.
      [On an actual HDTV tuner device, there would be one external USB, one internal USB for the actual tuner chip, both sharing the single 480 Mbps bus. Or there would be internal USB only]

      My point is that Raspberry Pi 1, which only had a single core ARMv6 and low RAM, used a CPU that was designed for similar applications. Even the GPIO might be there because this made the CPU (SoC) trivially flexible for cheap. In a basic device this can be used for buttons and IR receiver.
      Why a rather complex GPU? Probably to make "digital signage" with fancy graphics. I.e. the Powerpoint-like TVs hanging on walls and ceilings when you're waiting in line.
      The SoC probably wasn't a big success, squeezed between cheaper chips and the simple option of using some Atom based PC hardware (on which any idiot may install XP, XP Embedded, 7 or any linux PC distro, and full of peripherals like audio jacks and ethernet)

      So inventory went to Raspberry Pi 1 and then they remade the same SoC but with a more recent quad-core ARM CPU part - compatible, cheap and with that same single USB 2.0. Incidentally in 2018 we have flagship phones with USB 2.0 as the bus exposed to the users (and SD for storage).
      Single USB 2.0 is not about being good. It's the easiest you can do and be vastly useful. We used to have RS232 as a "bus" and battery backed SRAM for mass storage (sometimes as 1MB memory cards, wow)

    21. Re: Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows at its best too. Windows can't push more than 300mbit over USB2 either.

    22. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hence my little theory, for generic multimedia/other use the Broadcomm SoC was not succesful (*!before* it went into the Pi) because at that time using it would have been a custom job - whereas you could drop an ITX Atom board and have humongous support (linux, BSD, Windows, even DOS?).
      E.g. every ATM seems to be a Windows PC instead of something random and custom (let's say MIPS or ARM running QNX for the sake of example).

      Weirdly these threads seem to be full of people basically complaining you don't get a fast desktop for 25 dollars.

      I've always complained of a lack of VGA version (to hook up to CRT or an old 1280x1024)
      [Man constantly mentioning he doesn't own a TV]

    23. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fun fact even 10BaseT works fairly well. Many would dream of symmetric 10/10 low latency Internet. It also beats bad wifi that slows and jitters when the neighbors come back from work and school and/or it's raining.

    24. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time is money. Choosing the right tool for the job could cost you a year debugging a custom kernel module required to drive the hardware. In almost every other "not pi" solution there's a technical hurdle that makes the board useless as an alternative. Some times it's as simple as the board being stuck at a particular kernel version with no way to upgrade.

      The Pi may have started as just a learning tool. But it has become right tool for the job nearly in nearly every case. I think it's fair to ask that more effort be put into knocking some of the sharp corners off of the PI. I would pay more for a PI with certain hardware enhancements/corrections. There's a huge developer ecosystem available to help. As far as single board computers go, the PI is best positioned to be something more than what it is today.

    25. Re:Wait what by xQx · · Score: 1

      The funny thing is the Raspberry Pi foundation resisted putting GigE on their Pis for years, because it only has a USB 2.0 bus and it wouldn't run anywhere near GBE speeds.

      But all the competitors products had GigE (connected to a USB 2.0 bus), and their customers kept saying "we love the Pi, but why does it only have Fast (100M) Ethernet? Why can't you do GigE like every other single board computer?

      I'm guessing they got sick of arguing the point and in the Pi 3 just went "Fine, you want GigE that runs at USB 2 speeds; have GigE that runs at USB 2 speeds".

      Say what you like about the Pi (for example, you could look at the foundation's "charitable" status in the UK and determine for yourself if this is a legitimate foundation or a tax avoidance and marketing strategy; or the dishonest / loss-leading pricing strategies they force onto their international retailers), but you can't actually blame them for this one.

    26. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not? Servers had 64bit PCI slots...

    27. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing I wanted was a cheap PVR. I got the original Raspberry Pi and managed to get gnutv working on it with a Hauppauge USB TV stick hooked up to it. The thing actually worked except that the bandwidth of the USB wasn't enough. I wanted it because it was low power and quiet, something I could leave on all the time to record those cheap old horror flicks that come on late at night. What I really want is a quiet desktop computer. It doesn't have to be super-powerful, just be able to play youtube videos and high def mpeg files.

    28. Re:Wait what by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 0

      the bad engineering found everywhere in the Raspberry Pi

      So good engineering would have rewired the SoC's architecture?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    29. Re: Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      really check out the network boot before you jump, it can be iffy to no

    30. Re:Wait what by gweihir · · Score: 1

      No, good engineering would, among other things, not have used an inferior Broadcom SoC in the first place. Seriously. Do you think they are the only ones that make SoCs of this class?

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    31. Re: Wait what by raynet · · Score: 1

      Bad chipset then, good USB ethernet chipsets compress the datastream over USB, thus can get higher transmission speeds.

      --
      - Raynet --> .
    32. Re: Wait what by houghi · · Score: 1

      Yes. And that is why I use a Rock64 linked to a 8 port disk tower over USB3 as backup of my backup. Because it is closer to what I need.

      I use a Pi zero W with a relay to turn that on and of (among other things) as I do not need the full power of the Rock there.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    33. Re:Wait what by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Fun fact even 10BaseT works fairly well. Many would dream of symmetric 10/10 low latency Internet.

      That is a very good point.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    34. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the bad engineering found everywhere in the Raspberry Pi. The competition has native Ethernet or native GbE.

      Maybe one day you'll be able to go back in time and prevent the tragic release of the Raspberry Pi with its inferior ethernet port and hobbiests and students around the world will give thanks to you for ever more. Or maybe you're a pathetic nerd failure, it's just impossible to tell!

    35. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.dslreports.com/spe...

    36. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, good engineering would not have compromised the design by idiotic marketing gimmicks or other ill conceived and stupid "cost cutting" measures which cuts very, very little cost at the expense of both usability and reliability.

      Two examples among many others:

      1. The PSU. Micro USB made little sense from the beginning, but there was at least some merit to the idea that you could use any leftover charger you might have lying around. Since a while back this is a completely moot argument. You either buy an "official" adapter or make damned sure that you have a good one, or you'll have no end of problems because of voltage drops or inability to deliver enough current.

      2. The design is purportedly for education and trying things out, which presumably means a lot of power-cycling. It has no power switch. Yes, it can be worked around, but that's not the point.

      These are just two examples among many others of poor engineering choices which would not make the design markedly more expensive, but still manages to hamper device significantly.

    37. Re:Wait what by fisted · · Score: 1

      Because performance is all that matters, and you get the performance for free, basically. Right?

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    38. Re:Wait what by gweihir · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? This is not about performance, this is about interfaces.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    39. Re: Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bad chipset then, good USB ethernet chipsets compress the datastream over USB, thus can get higher transmission speeds.

      Which works fabulously with already compressed data. Let me see how well such a thing would compress a stream of data that was XZ compressed. I'm going to take a pretty good guess its going to top out at the max USB bus speed.

    40. Re:Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are hundreds of other single board computers out there with more features and bandwidth.

      Recommendations please?

    41. Re:Wait what by fisted · · Score: 1

      It's GbE, but throughput is only 300 Mbps. that's fucked up.

      That is the bad engineering found everywhere in the Raspberry Pi

      Throughput is performance.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    42. Re:Wait what by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Apparently they're the only ones with usable Linux graphics drivers, unless something changed.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    43. Re:Wait what by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      I can agree with these arguments, but they don't seem to have anything to do with the network interface.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    44. Re:Wait what by gweihir · · Score: 1

      No, throughput is a specific aspect of performance called throughput (actually network-throughput to be exact). That is why there is a separate word for it. But that is not the real problem. The real problem is that networking over USB is basically a hack that causes numerous problems. And it is an entirely unnecessary hack as SoCs with integrated networking exist that are comparable or better in all other aspects. They are just not made by Broadcom, and the RasPi people are in bed with Broadcom. Also explains why they selected an SoC for a learning machine (!) where a lot of the datasheet is not public.

      But from your use of discussion-sabotage techniques I see you do not want to actually discuss facts. That is fine, just do not expect to be taken seriously.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    45. Re:Wait what by silverkniveshotmail. · · Score: 1

      Because most people weren't running servers with 64-bit PCI slots and we're talking about a Rpi...

    46. Re: Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most allwinner based boards can run a mainline kernel without problems. We use many odroid zero 2 plus at work with no problems. It has internal 8gb flash which helps a lot in high vibration environments. The A53x4 core is enough for some basic machine learning etc.

    47. Re: Wait what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many competitors have native Ethernet. Some boards connect gigabit ethernet pc USB 3, but I think the pi is the only one running it over usb2. It is a welcome upgrade but more like an extra than really a feature...

    48. Re:Wait what by fisted · · Score: 1

      You can't be serious.

      Throughput is performance

      No, throughput is a specific aspect of performance

      Yes, dimwit, throughput is the specific aspect of performance that we're talking about. It's not wrong to say we're talking about performance when throughput is an aspect of it.

      I can't believe you're maliciously nitpicking in this way while also saying

      But from your use of discussion-sabotage techniques I see you do not want to actually discuss facts. That is fine, just do not expect to be taken seriously.

      I recommend you take a piece of your own advice and fuck off.

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  2. Probably the usual, really bad quality by gweihir · · Score: 1

    This is VHS against Betamax all over,

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Probably the usual, really bad quality by FormOfActionBanana · · Score: 1

      I'm just disappointed it's not really a hat. I thought this was a wearable joke computer and I clicked on the link so see what its power supply was.

      --
      Take off every 'sig' !!
  3. Nice, but what's the temp specs? by bobbied · · Score: 1

    A fan is nice, but what is this thing's environmental specs these days?

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re: Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they dump a truckload of trash into the open sea.

      okay but how can they tell the garbage apart from their RPi stock?

    2. Re:Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Zmobie · · Score: 1

      If I'm looking at the pictures right, that fan also seems to cover the GPIO pins entirely... Wouldn't that kill a ton of use cases for someone deploying this thing remotely with a PoE setup?

    3. Re:Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From TFA:

      "You can add another HAT board on top of the fan with the help of some pass-through headers for the 40-pin GPIO and the 4-way header to expose the pins on the other side of the PoE HAT."

    4. Re: Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Instead of looking at the pretty pictures, you try actually reading.

      You can add another HAT board on top of the fan with the help of some pass-through headers for the 40-pin GPIO and the 4-way header to expose the pins on the other side of the PoE HAT.

    5. Re:Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Zmobie · · Score: 1

      I admittedly skimmed it and missed that part. Still sounds stupid though, now you have to buy a second board to cover most of the use cases anyway? So now the cost is doubled at least (depending on how difficult/expensive the pass through headers are) and it isn't really an out of the box solution.

    6. Re:Nice, but what's the temp specs? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I admittedly skimmed it and missed that part. Still sounds stupid though, now you have to buy a second board to cover most of the use cases anyway? So now the cost is doubled at least (depending on how difficult/expensive the pass through headers are) and it isn't really an out of the box solution.

      You don't need to buy a second board. There aren't that many HATs for the RPi - most people just connect their peripherals directly to the lines themselves.

      And passthrough headers are trivially easy to come by - they're just regular headers that have longer pins so they pass through. Pain to solder but not hard. You can expect Adafruit and the like to have kits with the necessary passthrough headers included.

    7. Re:Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Zmobie · · Score: 1

      That sounds more workable then. I guess I need to get my Pi back out and play around with it again. I got a 3 a while back and it got mothballed because all the stuff I wanted to use it for became overly complicated really quickly. I liked the idea of being able to do PoE when I saw this, but guess I'm not familiar enough with the other parts for the boards.

    8. Re:Nice, but what's the temp specs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I got a 3 a while back .... I liked the idea of being able to do PoE

      It only works with a 3 model B+ and not with the original 3B.

  4. Sadly, it runs over USB2.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's GbE, but throughput is only 300 Mbps. that's fucked up.

    Ethernet is implemented on top of USB2.0 in all models of Pi, so it has always been fucked up.

    Pi users have long been calling for a SoC upgrade to provide native Ethernet, or at least to run over USB3.0, but there's no sign of any such move yet.

  5. any IO will slow the 1 USB bus on this by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    any IO will slow the 1 USB bus on this

  6. Will it fit in a standard case? by KixWooder · · Score: 1

    Lots of these Pi accessories are neat, but completely ruin its ability to be sealed in a case. It looks like this one will fit.

    Any ideas?

    --
    I hate fat people.
    1. Re:Will it fit in a standard case? by jon3k · · Score: 1

      They have stated that it is compatible with the official raspberry pi case. YMMV depending on the case you're using if it's not the official one.

    2. Re:Will it fit in a standard case? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C'mon man. It's a Raspberry Pi. Do you have a box? A box cutter? BOOM, Son! You are on the road! It's a project computer. Project. Like, you make..projects. One project would be getting off your lazy ass and instead of pretending to be smart like someone on /., just actually be smart, and your case solutions will literally present themselves.

    3. Re: Will it fit in a standard case? by KixWooder · · Score: 1

      Well my project is going to be in the attic mounted to a ceiling support. Iâ(TM)m not using a cardboard box.

      --
      I hate fat people.
  7. Wasn't the whole point of the RPi his price?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If I wanted to pay $20 for a mere module, I would buy a whole PC.

    Where are the disposable computers you can buy in a 12-pack at the discount store?

    1. Re:Wasn't the whole point of the RPi his price?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Power-over-Ethernet on a general purpose PC (or PC replacement) is not an exactly widespread feature.
      Single cheap cable long distance for power + data that you cut from cheap spool to your length.

      HP I think made a thin client, all-in-one with 19" LCD, that is powered by the Ethernet cable. I think that's awesome but it's also at a somewhat "enterprisey" price.
      PoE hardware for consumer exists but it's just routers and cameras.

      To add to your complaint you'll need an expensive PoE switch or a "PoE injector" (kind of 2-port switch)
      But this replaces a power supply on the Pi itself.

    2. Re:Wasn't the whole point of the RPi his price?? by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      A five port unmanaged 100Mbps 802.3af PoE switch delivered from Amazon will set you back just under 26GBP here in the UK. The cheapest 802.3af injector I could find would set you back 20GBP. If you want a Gigabit PoE switch they will set you back around double. Thar is hardly expensive.

  8. Not a bad price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used a BR300 DC/DC converter to power a pi over the extra conductors on a ethernet cable (custom PoE sortof) using a old 12V DC wallwart to drive it. Abour 7 bucks worth of parts, but just enough juice for the pi at 1A.

    1. Re: Not a bad price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I use a proper PoE adapter which plugs into the USB and Ethernet ports, it costed me 9 bucks.

    2. Re: Not a bad price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Link or brand please.

    3. Re:Not a bad price by virtualXTC · · Score: 1

      Given that the BR300 is going for $5.60 at Digi-Key, that must of been one cheap wall-wart you found...

    4. Re:Not a bad price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had it, so it was free. I save them from stuff I decommission. I probably have a dozen or so of various voltages/currents laying around. Doesn't everyone? Old routers, phones, answering machines...

    5. Re: Not a bad price by BESTouff · · Score: 2

      This one: https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Power-...

  9. Two questions by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    1) What is a HAT? 2) Can I make one for my ARM Serial Signal processor, to be referred to simply as an ASSHAT?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Two questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would guess that if you can't answer question 1 for yourself, then you are unlikely to be capable of doing 2.

    2. Re:Two questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's "Hardware Attached on Top", so yes.

  10. I love my pi, but... by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

    I get the impression the costs are slowly creeping on this thing and the features kinda stagnant.

    Firstly, to my knowledge, it's STILL 100Mbit networking isn't it? Routed through USB somehow? For most Pi functions, this isn't going to impact people, but if you are an American / European running a Pi and using it as a regular speed test unit
    https://www.google.com/search?...

    You'll see that anyone with a particularly beefy internet connection will be limited.
    Also the CPU is almost good enough to perform light level NAS functionality now. Again, that ethernet letting you down.

    Plus it runs quite warm.
    Plus there's starting to be several x86 micro PCs which are coming dangerously close in price but able to do, quite a bit more.

    The POE hat should be built in and a reasonable passive cooler.

    1. Re: I love my pi, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not still 100Mbps. Latest one added WiFi.

    2. Re: I love my pi, but... by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

      You're right, however,.......

      "Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0 (maximum throughput 300 Mbps)"

    3. Re:I love my pi, but... by Voyager529 · · Score: 1

      and the features kinda stagnant.

      Counterargument: That's not the point. This isn't an iPhone keynote where hype generation is a part of the process. RasPi has been being on having an open source hardware design and a low barrier to entry that enables everything from amateur electronics with its GPIO to being an inexpensive first computer for programming and development to the ability to turn it into an appliance for anything from a Chromecast alternative to a home automation system powered by an Ocarina. It may not have whizbang features or a breakneck release pace, but I think there's at least some value to the fact that adding "Raspberry Pi" to your search string will likely provide a tutorial that won't be obsolete on the next release.

      Firstly, to my knowledge, it's STILL 100Mbit networking isn't it? Routed through USB somehow?

      It's technically closer to 300Mbits or so. The original release (or two) had 10/100 ports, so putting the ethernet port on the USB 2.0 bus wasn't an issue. They added gigabit, but changing it from being a USB device to being its own thing would have required a whole lot of reinventing the wheel and sacrificed backwards compatibility. Not to say that 38MBytes/sec isn't a number worthy of improvement, it is...but let's keep some perspective here: External hard drives won't go much faster than that because they're on the same bus with the same limits. I've yet to see a MicroSD card that can sustain those rates for any meaningful amount of time. Sure, we'd like it to go true gigabit, but it's typically not a requirement...and if it is, the RasPi isn't worth the effort.

      Also the CPU is almost good enough to perform light level NAS functionality now. Again, that ethernet letting you down.

      And the USB bus, and the other bottlenecks that aren't going away for a $35 system board. If the intent is to configure a Pi as a NAS, it probably makes more sense to just buy a QNAP..

    4. Re:I love my pi, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Technically it isn't 100Mbit but in actuality don't expect much more, the Ethernet is still sitting on USB 2.0.

  11. Stupidly blocks IO pins by GoRK · · Score: 1

    Or you could get one that doesn't block all the IO pins https://amazon.com/NavoLabs-Ra...

  12. The I/O Reality of Pi by Xnet+Project · · Score: 1

    In our testing with Raspberry Pi's (Specifically The RPi 3 B+) total hardware I/O has never exceeded 22MB/s. On the note of better quality chips with a higher process tends to cost more on the hardware side, and kernel development to build around a newer chip will take time. It's a bit of a double-edged sword pushing a simple SBC from as cheap as $3 to make and pushing it to $75 or more to make completely negating the purpose of inexpensive computing solutions for small projects. No matter how you slice it, hardware cost, and time to development around the new hardware architecture will always be a factor as seen from other more expensive SBC solutions offering more for performance.

    Key factors to consider:

    How much will bulk purchases for newer or different chips cost?

    How how many development hours will it take to build on operating systems to support it as well as previous hardware types such as attachable hats?

    How much will it cost to build a newer Pi version?

    How long will it take?

    Something to consider.