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Raspberry PI4 – Skyrocketing prices!

by Simone Renzi / August 19, 2022
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This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

The Covid Pandemic has produced what has been dubbed “the silicon crisis.” Some electronic components such as processors have been unobtainable for several months, and the few supplies that have reached the hardware manufacturers have (rightly) decided to devote them to businesses. The consumer market has seen the costs of these peripherals increase dramatically, but unlike other Hardware manufacturers Raspberry I believe has really gone overboard.

I have personally put on hold all the projects I wanted to work on in protest, waiting for a return to normalcy, partly because the philosophy of the Raspberry Foundation has always been to provide a micro-computer at an affordable price.

As of today’s date (August 19, 2022) the cost of the Raspberry PI4 with 8Gb RAM is 239 euros, in the basic version, i.e. without the kit provided that includes Cover, Power Supply, Micro SD etc. We are talking about 239 for the Raspberry PI alone to which we will have to add a power supply, Micro SD, Mouse and keyboard for those without and it will easily go up to 300 euros.

The same 4Gb product 2 years ago did not come to cost 90 euros.

As I said, I have stopped my projects because there is no point in setting out to develop apparatuses that later will have no market! Lately I have been working on a cat detection system. Anyone who has a garden knows that if you live in an area where the feline species proliferates, it becomes a big problem to keep the lawn tidy. Cats prefer a nice blanket of grass for them to do their business. The problem is that these create holes, cause the grass to dry out, and most importantly, a very annoying smell. Therefore, the idea was to create a system with computer vision that would identify the cat that crossed the safety threshold and water it with a small jet of water. Of course, nothing extreme, especially with respect to our animal friends, just a small warning to let him know that that is not the right area to lay down his potty. It would have been interesting to try to market a beta, because it is a new product that does not exist on the market and most importantly it would be able to understand (in a mixed human-cat scenario) that humans are not to be targeted but cats are.

Such a project requires as hardware: a Raspberry PI4 with at least 4Gb of RAM since Computer Vision algorithms are quite heavy to run for real-time video processing, a night camera, mounts for the pointing system, a small electric pump, a jet, 2 motors for the pointing system, 3D printing of the mounts for the pointing system and the apparatus containing box, 3D printing of the gears , electrical wires, connectors, seals, etc. would require an investment of no less than 400 euros with today’s Raspberry prices. To this must be added at least 2 months of development of the software part.

A question arises… How much should I sell this prototype for? At least €600. And who would spend it?

I find it difficult that there could be anyone interested in buying such a system at such a high figure. Therefore I will remain patient and wait for prices to return to what they once were. The Raspberry Foundation has confirmed that prices should return to normal starting in September…. We will be in religious silence waiting for this to happen.

Having friends and colleagues who work in the same field as me, they too are standing still there. Thank God we do not lack the 250 euros to buy a Raspberry, however, the argument is related to a “principled” perspective. A company that claims to be close to the Developer and Creator Community cannot propose prices like that! Those who work in the IT field know what I am referring to. I mean at 239€ today you buy a Notebook certainly not over-performing but including keyboard, touchpad and monitor(check for yourself by clicking on this link)

In the IT field, the scent of ethics has always been inhaled in Communities. In Developer Communities we often help each other for the sake of sharing our knowledge with others. If I don’t know something you explain it to me, tomorrow you may need me and I will reciprocate. Companies that approach developer communities are usually companies that go yes to look at making money, but they don’t do it brazenly because usually the Founders of these companies are people from the Communities… They are from ours. One would not expect to observe “Entrepreneurial Scaltro” behavior.

Before throwing gasoline on the fire, however, it is the case to wait and see if the Raspberry Foundation will keep its word and return to selling their products at the prices we were all used to.

Simone Renzi
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