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firebat45 t1_j3llqlm wrote

Yeah I'd prefer it if they would just focus on producing Raspberry Pi boards. Everyone hates console and graphics card scalpers, but Pi scalpers are a huge problem too. It's been nearly impossible to buy a Pi at MSRP for years now.

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aughlord t1_j3loysg wrote

Is there an actual solution to scalpers beyond limiting purchases to individuals?

After all, I might want others to resell my products in order to reach further markets and they might want to increase pricing on said products.

Maybe waiting lists?

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Shawnj2 t1_j3lrq8c wrote

Yes, produce enough boards that scalping isn’t an issue

Otherwise there is a supply/demand mismatch and someone is going to take advantage of that by increasing the price, whether it’s a scalper, the Pi foundation increasing prices, or store markup.

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ispeakdatruf t1_j3mttrw wrote

> Is there an actual solution to scalpers beyond limiting purchases to individuals?

Why is limiting purchases not a solution, albeit not a perfect one?

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ItWasTheGiraffe t1_j3mwcnm wrote

The demand still exists, the supply still doesn’t. Same thing happens with shoes. Individuals will buy a pair and look to flip because there is money to be made. Even if scalpers are prohibited from buying in bulk, scalping will still occur.

The solutions to the availability issue are to either increase supply, or raise the price. One of those is obviously preferable to the other.

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Locked_door t1_j3m41hr wrote

Increase prices to the point people are willing to pay until the manufacturer is able to produce enough supply. Eliminate the middle man…

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NotAHost t1_j3lzttu wrote

Do you think the resources for developing camera boards is impacting the production of Pi boards?

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3muxic wrote

Yes. I think it comes from the overrall raspberry pi budget.

Budget spent on developing the camera is budget not spent on accelerating the manufacturing of boards.

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NotAHost t1_j3mvgif wrote

How would they accelerate the manufacturing of boards? Aren’t they manufactured by third parties?

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3mwgrg wrote

Invest in better R&D to ease the manufacturing of boards. That's one idea of many.

Are you implying that nothing can be done to accelerate the manufacturing of boards?

Are you implying that Raspberry pi fondation is already at the top maximal optimisation possible when it comes to board manufacturing?

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NotAHost t1_j3n7ylu wrote

I'm trying to understand what you think the bottleneck is that tossing more money would simply solve. Most R&D takes years to have results, and typically budgets have money set aside. It isn't about spending $1M on camera development board or $3M on fab, it can often be an independent decision.

Are you implying that the problem isn't primarily being supply constrained on chips? Or do you think Sony UK Technology Centre is having issues making boards?

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3n85lk wrote

I did answer your question, answer mines. Otherwise this is just you asking wide empty questions without ever being responsible for what you implies.

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NotAHost t1_j3ne471 wrote

To my limited understand of the problems that the Raspberry Pi foundation is facing, I do not think there is anything reasonable that can be done to accelerate the manufacturing of boards in the short term.

I also do not think it is likely that the Pi foundation can reasonable increase the 'top maximal optimization possible' when it's Sony fabricating the boards, and a chip shortage that is probably related to Broadcom and more suppliers.

It may be possible for them to switch some chip suppliers and release variations of their boards, but they also have to 'optimize' with their ability to support the boards for 10+ years, one of the core foundations of the organization.

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3nj2mj wrote

> To my limited understand of the problems that the Raspberry Pi foundation is facing, I do not think there is anything reasonable that can be done to accelerate the manufacturing of boards in the short term.

That's just goalpost moving. "short term" was never implied nor stated.

You added "short term" because you know there's some stuff to be done eventually.

And if there's some stuff to be done eventually, then I'm right to say that the budget spending on bringing this cam to market should have been invested into accelerating the manufacturing, is a VALID opinion to have.

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NotAHost t1_j3nuio6 wrote

I added short term because this problem is temporary. To solve this problem, you had to solve this problem in the last two years, or otherwise have a magic ball to tell you COVID was going to impact chips the way it did and act before the pandemic.

There is nothing 'to be done eventually.' Chips will come back in stock eventually, board production will continue. You just want to say 'throw more money at it' like it will solve all the problems without understanding the problems. I literally work with PCB manufacturers on a daily basis.

You're also missing the point. The camera budget was likely independent of the production budget. Even if they canceled the camera entirely, it is unlikely to have had an impact on production over the last two years. Budgeting was not the problem, you can read Eben Upton's post about it. It's all been about chips, and any reasonable solution would have taken longer than the pandemic or impacted support of its products.

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3nw3vt wrote

> You're also missing the point. The camera budget was likely independent of the production budget.

It's not. It comes out of the same budget overrall.

> it is unlikely to have had an impact on production over the last two years.

Once again you're implying that Raspberry Pi management is perfect and that no amount of additionnal work hours/budget could improve, even slightly, the situation. That's just wrong.

Look, take 15 minutes and introspect that your POV is that nothing could be done to improve (even just a little bit) the production of Pis, not now not later. You're arguing that the incredibly complex and numerous steps of bringing a product like a Raspberry pi to consumers (from R&D to manufacturing to suppliers etc) can't, in anyways or form, be improved, even slightly.

Every tech companies, from Apple to IBM to Razers to Intel to Sennheiser etc etc etc are all constantly improving their productions, but Raspberry pi actually have it perfect and nothing could be improved. That's your take.

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NotAHost t1_j3o3tgx wrote

>Every tech companies, from Apple to IBM to Razers to Intel to Sennheiser etc etc etc are all constantly improving their productions, but Raspberry pi actually have it perfect and nothing could be improved. That's your take.

This isn't about improving products, this is about production of more raspberry pis. If you want to put words in my mouth, fine, let me return the favor.

You believe that the Pi foundation should shutdown all other divisions, all development of different products, future products, etc., if it means they can get one more single raspberry pi fabricated even if it costs millions and the company goes under. That's your take.

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3o5lir wrote

>This isn't about improving products, this is about production of more raspberry pis.

Which why I said "are all constantly improving their productions". I'm talking about production, not products https://www.dictionary.com/browse/production

>On the other hand, you believe that the Pi foundation should shutdown all other divisions, all development of different products, future products, etc., if it means they can get one more single raspberry pi fabricated even if it costs millions and the company goes under. That's your take.

That's not my take. My take is very simple: The funds used to launch the camera (from RnD to productions to marketing etc) should have been used to accelerate the production of raspberry pi instead.

You're the one arguing that accelerating that production is impossible.

Just read the chain of comments. It's exactly your take. Your putting words into your own mouth.

I just have a different budgeting priority, which happens all the time, and for some reason you're butthurt about that.

I don't care if we don't have the same budgeting priorities, but saying my priorities don't work because improving production isn't possible ("but but but what can they do?!" ) , is an ignorant take.

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NotAHost t1_j3rcdu2 wrote

The camera budget wouldn't have been moved to the production budget. The production budget is determined independently, based on the ROI of said budget. Tossing more money at the production budget would have done practically very little over the course of the last two years when the issue chip supplies, pretty much completely out of their control. You saying 'just do toss it into R&D for board production' screams that you don't know anything realistic about the industry. The board is simple. Sony makes the boards. The chips are simple. Broadcom and more make those. Do you understand that Raspberry Pi doesn't make the boards or the chips? The only 'R&D' they could do is change board design to account for additional chips and again, that goes against the core principles of the Raspberry Pi foundation. It would take time. And after all that work, as soon as chip supplies start picking up again, you have an ugly duckling product that was a colossal waste of time and money.

Your statements imply that the Raspberry Pi foundation doesn't know what they're doing in balancing the budget of new tech and production. That they don't know what is a reasonable amount of budgeting. That you know better than not only the CEO of the Pi Foundation, with his PhD from Cambridge, but the entire management team at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3rfs9s wrote

> The camera budget wouldn't have been moved to the production budget.

It could have. For sure.

> The production budget is determined independently, based on the ROI of said budget.

No, the production budget is determined by the production needs.

> Tossing more money at the production budget would have done practically very little over the course of the last two years when the issue chip supplies

That's not true. Intel, AMD, Razer, Seinnheiser, Xbox, Steelseries, Playstation, Sony, etc. are ALL constantly improving their production. And most of those have chip production shortage. Just because steps #298 of the production is slowed down, doesn't mean the hundreds of other steps can't be optimized.

My statements implies that there's still some possible improvement when it comes to the entire production. Which is true. No company right now has a perfect production.

Just because Raspberry pi doesn't manufacture the board, doesn't mean they can't possibly improves the production. Plenty of tech companies don't manufacture their own stuff, as it's made in some factory in China, yet they still work and improve their production, from signing better deals, from improving the R&D so that the manufacturing process is more streamlined, from switching to easier to work materials, finding better carriers with better routes, etc.

Once again, you're making a point that the raspberry pi production line is near perfect. That's just being ignorant.

> The only 'R&D' they could do is change board design to account for additional chips

See how ignorant you're being? How is that the only R&D possible? You're implying Raspberri pis are near-perfect.

Like, here's your take:

  • Signing better manufacturing deals from different factories = Nope raspberry pi fondation has near-perfect manufacturers right now.
  • R&D to ease the manufacturing of Raspberries, from the board specs to materials = Nope raspberry pis manufacturing and design are near-perfect right now.
  • Finding a better carrier with more direct routes/less downtime = Nope raspberry pi fondation has near-perfect carriers right now.
  • Cut deals with manufacturers to develop/add more customs raspberry pi automated assembly machines = Nope raspberry pi fondation has near-perfect amount of automated assembly machines right now.

EVERY TECH COMPANIES are investing to improve their production lines because there's optimization to be done, but you think raspberry pi fundation is immune to that, because there's little to do?

BILLIONS DOLLARS COMPANIES constantly invest to improve their production lines, to cut down manufacturing times, but Raspberry pi fundation is near-perfect and wouldn't benefits from investing more into their production lines? Such an ignorant take.

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MidnightAdventurer t1_j3on8bi wrote

What exactly do you propose they invest in? There aren't enough chips to go around - this is affecting everything from Raspberry Pis to car manufacturing.
The cause is a combination of Covid, trade restrictions (for really high end stuff) and some weather affecting the current fabrication plants.

There's only 2 things that can change this - one is more production out of the current semiconductor fabrication plants, the other is more plants. More plants are being build and in different locations to spread the risk around and I doubt the current plants are giving up on production capacity if they have a choice.

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3pjry9 wrote

I've already answered that question: Invest in better R&D to ease the manufacturing of boards.

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MidnightAdventurer t1_j3s411g wrote

Which will do what? Manufacturing boards isn’t the problem. There’s no chips to put on them…

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chevalerisation_2323 t1_j3s4lih wrote

Which means that when chips will be available, the production process will be shorter.

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Kevin_Jim t1_j3luan2 wrote

Until they switch to RISC-V that will continue to be the case. They main reason RPis are cheap is because they get a sweetheart deal from Broadcom.

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yumri t1_j3lz9dj wrote

Well the only good RISC-V board i have seen looks basically like Raspberry pi 3 but with a RISC-V SoC made by VisionFive who also makes the SBC it is in. The main problem is it is RISC-V not ARM so the code will have to change to match.

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Kevin_Jim t1_j3m5etf wrote

I doubt they RaspberryPi foundation will have match trouble porting their libs, and it’ll be relatively straightforward to maintain the same GPIO.

It’s a matter of resources and commitment. They have the resources, but the moment they even think of deviating from Broadcom, there will be not coming back from it. So, they have to be 100% in.

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yumri t1_j3mze74 wrote

As VisionFive is a competitor to the RaspberryPi foundation but they actually have a product you can buy. Again the problem is most is made for ARM not RISC-V but as you explained it will be relatively straightforward to use as the same GPIO count and connectors.

So the Camera module should work with their board when the environment is made for RISC-V not just for ARM. I am hoping it will be but i do not know how hard it will be as i don't know RISC-V programming.

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Kevin_Jim t1_j3n8q8u wrote

LLVM made porting across architectures much easier than it ever was.

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DocPeacock t1_j3mnu8o wrote

They are producing plenty of R Pi boards, just not for the consumer market. Commercial and military are using more RPi than ever before. I believe that is their primary income stream now. The hobbyists and hackers will get the leftovers if available. The shortage causes scalpers, not the other way around.

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rando-mcranderson t1_j3m4ytt wrote

Agreed.

I broke down and bought a Le Potato because I couldn't find a Pi - even overpriced - for a project I needed to get done.

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ma2016 t1_j3me8rf wrote

Good thing I bought one years ago and never got around to using it in a project! Hooray! 🙃

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HeyZeusDiedForYou t1_j3mv9tb wrote

Same, now I feel compelled to do something cool with it just because of the knowledge that there’s a shortage

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ma2016 t1_j3mx7qe wrote

An easy project is to set up a flight tracker in your own home! https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build/

I did it with my old Raspberry Pi because I was desperate to do something with it. The extra parts (antenna and USB signal converter) are like less than 40 bucks if I remember right. Took me like an afternoon to get it all setup. You contribute data to FlightAware and in exchange you get free Enterprise membership (like 100s of dollars/year). You can also set it up so you contribute to FlightRadar24 as well, with a similar membership incentive. I go on a lot of business trips so it's fun to have access to all the extra flight data and keep track of where my plane is. Also, with FlightAware there's a specific web page where they show you exactly what your antenna is detecting. It's really cool to see that I'm tracking some international flight at 35,000 ft and hundreds of miles away all from my apartment haha

TL;DR: It's a fun easy project requiring few extra parts. However, once it's set up there's not much to do with it except check on it.

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HeyZeusDiedForYou t1_j3n3zhe wrote

That’s awesome, would love to hear any other recommendations if you have any

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ma2016 t1_j3n7tz9 wrote

Only other thing I considered doing was setting up a twitter bot that tweeted out the largest donors to politicians that voted to overturn the 2020 election. fec.gov tracks all political donations, including basic info on individual donors. They have an API through which you can query data like any other API. I messed around for a while and got pretty much what I wanted out of some basic Python scripts.

​

What I wanted to do (before several life events got in the way in 2022) was set up a service on my second Raspberry Pi which periodically queried the FEC API for the largest recent donors to this list of politicians. Then I would have a twitter account specifically set up to tweet the results. I was gonna call it "Insurrectionist Tracker" or something like that. Anyway, ended up only being able to get the python scripts to run locally on my windows PC, never set up the second Pi. I also was definitely not going to learn how to use the Twitter API in any reasonable amount of time. And now things are extra screwed cause of how Musk is handling things. Maybe I'll make a website or something.

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Emu1981 t1_j3ps5kk wrote

>Same, now I feel compelled to do something cool with it just because of the knowledge that there’s a shortage

My Pi is just sitting attached to my 3D printer that I haven't used in forever because I had health issues. I could probably sell it for a profit or use it in some other project but I do want to get my 3D printer up and running again sooner or later and Octoprint makes life so much easier.

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