thebaldgeek

I really want to finish slamming this thing, I really do… It is just pointless going on and on and on and on about it, but to try and draw it to a close….

http://betanews.com/2015/12/17/the-5-dollar-raspberry-pi-zero-is-too-damn-expensive/

When I found out that there was a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero being sold, I rushed to buy one. I did no research as to what it was, but for such a paltry amount of money, I couldn’t resist. For whatever reason, I even bought a case for it, which is arguably silly — why protect such an inexpensive piece of tech?

When it finally arrived, I was impressed with the small size, but very disappointed overall. This may sound incredible, but the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero is just too damn expensive. Quite frankly, it is ridiculous that such a useless computer is being sold. Do you agree?

In order to add the same ports as the $35 Raspberry Pi 2, you will need to buy the following. I have added approximate pricing and links.

USB OTG Cable — $4
4 port Powered USB Hub — $11
USB Ethernet Adapter — $10
mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter — $2

Total plus the $5 Pi Zero is $33. Yes, you are reading that correctly. The $5 computer, after buying essential accessories, is almost the same price as the Raspberry Pi 2. Plus, it is now a Frankenstein-like mess of wires and adapters. The $35 Raspberry Pi 2, with all of these things integrated, is clearly the smarter buy. Heck, you even get double the RAM and a more powerful processor!

That about wraps it up.
To make the zero anything less than zero takes a good chunk of change, and as pointed out in previous blogs, you have a real rats nest of wires to make it talk with anything.

One thing I had missed when I first blogged about it is that the USB port on the Zero are not USB hosts, but slaves, so to get them to talk to an interface of any kind you need an OTG cable to convert it. Blah.

I am going to try and leave it there.
It’s dead. If we ever find a use for a Zero, I will be sure and let you know, but honestly, I would not be holding your breath.

Zero equals -1.

Seems I am not alone in thinking that the Raspberry Pi Zero is just wrong.

http://hackaday.com/2015/12/01/raspberry-pi-zero-or-minus-one/

My favorite site has pushed a blog on the Pi Zero.
(Note, unlike me, they were a lot more measured and factual. To be fair (or self justifying) I was REALLY ticked off at the foundation for releasing a … errr… compromised computer… My tone in that first blog was overly caustic and condescending (and sarcastic)….. Give me 6 or so months to calm down and I might try again).

Here are a few snips.

They start out saying that the foundation is defending the Zero by saying it was supposed to be cheap…. cheap enough to be bought by those that usually can not afford a computer.
Hackaday calls them out on that…. As do I. If it supposed to be cheap, then why is it anything but cheap?

Adafruit is selling a Budget and a Starter Pack that cost $29.95 and $59.95, respectively. The Budget Pack contains a Zero, SD card, USB On the Go (OTG) cable, power supply and USB cable, a mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter, and 2×20 header strip. The USB OTG is a necessity if you want to connect a USB device, yes singular, since the Zero doesn’t have a standard host USB port or a hub. But even that isn’t sufficient, as we’ll see. On top of all this, since there is only a single USB data port, you’re liable to need a hub. The other USB connector is for power, as with all the other Pis. And, just to be complete, you also need to purchase a GPIO header unless you’re soldering directly to the board.

You keeping track of all the cables we need here?
All the power supplies?
All the adaptors?
Oh, and with all that, we are still not connected to any network.

How long did it take you to figure out all the cable connections in the second paragraph above? Do you think a student without a hacker friend will understand that? Remember, the goal is to reach students who don’t know computers.

The foundation has shot themselves in the foot.
They claim they are for the student, then make the product too complicated for most students.

Zero’s niche might be as an embedded controller, as I implied in the last section. If you’re going to build a small stand-alone device the Zero’s size is a boon. But nearly all devices are going to need some form of communications. The Zero needs the USB OTG adapter to support WiFi, Bluetooth, or other wireless adapters. This defeats most of the size advantage. I’ll grant that vendors will quickly produce daughter boards in the Zero’s form factor to support communications that might offset that criticism.

The smaller Zero uses less power which is a plus but once additional peripherals are added, that advantage lessens.

This is the part I zero’ed in on. It is a great size for an IoT device, but without network connectivity, its DOA.

Next is the bit I really went wrong with in my exasperated rant….

The biggest problem of the Raspberry Pi is something that has existed for years now: corrupted SD cards. This problem pops up time and time again on forums, and after Christmas will undoubtedly pop up even more.

A big reason for this is actually hardware based: no shutdown or power control.

I had totally forgotten about the SD card issues I have had.
My airplane trackers are ground zero for this.
The foundation could have added memory for this, but no, they stuck with the borked SD card.

Summing up Hackaday’s summary.

The Zero is a nice little board providing a lot of possibilities for hackers. But if the Raspberry Pi Foundation is meaning the Zero for students I think they missed the mark big time. The add-ons needed to use the Zero for development offset the low-cost of the board and are decidedly awkward to use for development and test. The hassle is not going to encourage students to work with this board.

It is clearly not the next best thing for student Pi developers. For them it’s more like a Raspberry Pi Minus One. My advice for encouraging students is to stick with the Pi B+ or Pi 2, and ideally the latter given its better performance.

So. There you have it.
Cold comfort that I am not totally losing it.

The solution?
I have a strong eye on these guys;
http://getchip.com/

Are you sick of me yelling at the computer yet?
Let me know if you are and I will see if I can change my tone….
Ok, with that disclaimer out of the way, here we go…………..

Who makes a computer these days and decides to not include any connectivity?
I could understand it if it was a big computer, but things are just getting smaller and cheaper.
The IoT market is booming. Connecting things (usually small and cheap) to the Internet is the next (current) wave of doing things.
What tiny handful of functions could you do with a small computer that runs Linux, but has zero network options?
What massive opportunity awaits a small computer that runs Linux and has Wifi or Bluetooth?

If you have not been living under a rock, you would have heard about the Raspberry Pi computer.
Its been out for a few years, it comes in three (four if you count their odd ‘rack’ mount) versions.
To say it has been hugely popular is a massive understatement. They have sold millions of the things.
Well, 3 days ago, they introduced a new version.
They are calling it the Raspberry Pi Zero.
Zero is for zero connectivity.
Sure, it costs 5 bucks, that’s kinda cute and besides the point since you will not be able to buy it for that much (its been years since the first Pis were released and you still can not buy them for their released price due to their popularity), but it is going to cost a lot more, and take up a lot more space because of the adapters you need to buy and use to get it connected.
So, 5 bucks for a computer that runs Linux, but that you can not connect to any network.
It shocks me to the core. That a computer company would deliberately chose to make a computer that has zero connectivity from stock.
All that experience, all that background, all that buying power, all the photos and blog posts of people putting Wifi dongles on your past computers to get them connected to the real world… All that and for your next computer you do not include an Ethernet port, you do not include Wifi and you do not include Bluethooth (low energy).

I have never seen such a spectacular new computer fail as the Raspberry Pi foundation.
They fought hard, they waged a war, the toiled long into the night, but at last, after months and months of hard work, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and launched the Raspberry Pi Zero.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/