I've found [1] to be the best guide for getting started with them; you need to make a copy of the firmware partitions that you re-flash after installing Linux onto it in order to get the 4G modem working. It's honestly absurd how much you're getting for a fiver with it; add a power bank (or make your own from scavenged vape batteries in the spirit of this post) and you have a full Linux machine with WiFi and 4G that can work almost anywhere.
What an interesting gadget! It looks like it has most of the features of an Orange Pi Zero, but at around 1/5th of the price.
it's almost like everything matching the pi footprint is severely overpriced!
There's a silver lining in raspberry pi and it's clones being so relatively expensive: they create a market and demand for hackable devices. In an age with so much pressure to plug every single digital hole, these devices bring some much needed market pressure to the opposite direction.
Or, put another way: to have electronics so cheap today, we're sacrificing empowerment technology could give us. We have dirt cheap supercomputers in our pocket, but what for? They're just overspecced entertainment machines.
Gotta pay for the cop doing surveillance device r&d somehow...
https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/rpi_maker_in_residenc...
The original Raspberry Pi Zero was a good deal at $5 or even at $10. Too bad it was always poorly available and mostly bundled with overpriced dongles, power supplies, SD cards etc.
The poor avaialbility was largely due to the great pricing: small commercial users scooped them up in the largest quanitites that they could because they were so competative against other options both in terms of pricce and having the advantage of decent support¹ unlike other inexpensive SoCs. Max-per-customer limits imposed by some distributors were not hard to get around. That meant it was difficult for the individual tinkerers that they were aimed at to get hold of them. And once an availability gap was spotted in the market the scalpers crowded in, so even those commercial users had trouble getting them at RRP.
If the current models were any cheaper, that might happen again. It is one of those places where the infamous “what the market will bare” works against us: unless you are buying in bulk you have the choice between paying more or having no availability at all.
People are willing to pay more the rPi units because of the support¹ and reliability². I know I am, last time I wanted a small unit like that I went straight for an rPi without even looking at the other options that might have been cheaper.
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[1] official + community
[2] While not perfect in that regard, no supplier is, and the Pis do seem to do better than others in that regard, especially when compared to anything noticable less expensive.
> The poor avaialbility was largely due to the great pricing:
the poor availability was because they didnt make enough. they blame supply chain issues around covid. in the time they were complaining that it wasnt their fault, competitors like the esp32 started appearing and taking market share. i was totally put off the rpi because of that saga. its no longer a good deal, there are better options in either direction (more microcontrollery or more power)
From what I've read online somewhere, Zero was a loss leader product made with input from Eric Schmidt, intended to be sold along attractive accessories. The Pi Foundation did try briefly but wasn't able to come up with the accessories, leading to that poor availability and WH variants that made little sense.
what you're generally paying for is support and community. havin people you can ask questions and knowing there's a good chance that soneone out there has both seen your issue and knows a fix is extremely valuable and worth the money if you're just trying to put together a small one off project.
I like the picos. I think there’s a lot of bang for your buck in there for making little devices and prototyping.
Isn't Orange Pi Zero already sold at cost of material & labor?
> or make your own from scavenged vape batteries in the spirit of this post
On this note, anyone got a tut or links to where I can get an appropriate charge controller/BMS (UK) to do this?
Like the post's author, I've been collecting vape batteries for a while and would love to build a power bank or use them in some IoT projects.
Aliexpress. A simple TP4056 usb-c charging board costs as little as 50p. For a few pence more you can get a power bank board with a charge controller and a 5v boost converter.
Interesting, I have some TP4056 already, but wouldn't I need some form of "balance" circuitry if I want to connect multiple of these together, to ensure they're all charged and discharged evenly?