ELI5: Why are SBCs nowhere to be found? - eviltoast

Been looking for RPI4 CMs for ages now and they’ve been sold out for as long as I can remember. Same with full size RPI4s and some Odroids. Is this just the new normal or are SBCs and CMs going to show up on the market again at some point?

  • Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Underpowered is probably the reason, they’re small and really low powered. A pi could be a 1/10th the power consumption of an x86 computer, and thus less noise and heat.

    • Toribor@corndog.uk
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      1 year ago

      Back in 2016 or so you could get a RaspberryPi 3 for $35. Add a $5 power supply, $5 SD card and $10 case (or 3d print your own) and you’ve got a nice little piece of hardware for running a tiny project at home for ~$50. More than enough for hosting some simple web services, backup software or something like Home Assistant.

      Plus it was popular (which makes it even more popular). It’s always been very easy to find guides written specifically for the hardware, despite it’s limitations.

      I think the value proposition has been dropping steadily though. They cost more, are hard to find and there are now a lot more competing SBCs on the market. RaspberryPi still has name recognition though, for now.