In fact, raspberry pie can still do some work if it is only from the perspective of realizing functions. But from a practical point of view, the greatest value of raspberry pie is mainly used to learn the basic principles of servers and some common sense of circuits. Many innate factors make it difficult to become the mainstream of the development of smart devices.
First, the issue of cost.
Let's settle the account first. A third generation+raspberry pie is 200+ yuan. If you want to make a product, plus two other modules, according to the price estimation of one module 100 yuan, the material cost should be at least 400+ yuan. Plus some basic components, power supply and casing, it will cost 500 yuan.
And what level of products can two modules of raspberry pie make? Humidity meter, jack-o'-lantern, doorbell ... is about this level? 500 yuan's material costs, including promotion costs, transportation costs, labor costs, time costs, taxes and fees, will cost 700-800 yuan, and I'm afraid it will still lose money.
Second, the endurance problem.
The power consumption of raspberry pie determines that it can only be used in large equipment. Although many people on the Internet have used it to make smart flower watering devices, toy drones and other small creative products. But how many people have carefully considered how long these creative products can last under the condition of using batteries as power supply? Let's see what the doorbell looks like:
A high-end luxury doorbell with a price of nearly 1,000 yuan occasionally makes a buzzing fan sound. You have to wait a while when you turn on the power button, and you can't use it until the doorbell rings. Need to use a dedicated power supply, if you use a general lithium battery, it can only last for a few hours.
To sum up, since it can only be used in large-scale equipment, the small size of raspberry pie itself has lost its practical significance.
Third, compared with single-chip development board, there is no advantage.
The closest thing to raspberry pie is the ARM microcontroller development board. Take ARDUINO as an example, it is regarded as a microcontroller development board that is more beneficial to beginners than 5 1 series microcontrollers. The only difference between it and raspberry pie in application is that it is a microcontroller and has no operating system, so it can't be used as a computer. The price of an ARDUINO is about 25-80 yuan depending on the version. Except that it can't be used as a computer, the function it can achieve is comparable to a raspberry pie, and the development is much less difficult. The power consumption is much lower than that of a raspberry pie, which can basically meet the battery life requirements of handheld devices. A human infrared sensor, a WIFI module, a buzzer, a transistor and several batteries are added. 100 yuan is definitely more than enough. With some basic components and a shell, if the cost is properly controlled, a smart doorbell can be made in 150 yuan, which is much cheaper than a raspberry pie bare metal. As long as the publicity is proper, it seems that 200 yuan can be profitable when it is sold at this price. No fan, no buzz, it can be turned on in a few seconds, no need to wait, and a few batteries can wait for about a week. This is just a bit like what a product should look like, isn't it?
The market share of civil smart devices derived from raspberry pie is basically close to zero. Apart from the fact that the price and power consumption are twice as high as ARDUINO, the only advantage is having an operating system. However, it is not difficult to install a small operating system on ARDUINO if it is really necessary. For example, an operating system specially designed for single chip microcomputer, such as ProtoThreads, only needs to burn 120 lines of code. Although its function is not as good as Raspbian's, it is compact and naturally consumes much less energy, which is convenient to solve the problem of poor endurance of handheld devices.
From the production point of view, ARDUINO can almost be regarded as a complete victory over raspberry pie, but Rao is so. ARDUINO is still considered as a "toy" in the development board of single chip microcomputer (the cost is still too high to be suitable for mass production).
And what is the price of development boards commonly used in industrial production?
ESP8266 series, the most popular MCU development board in the Internet of Things industry. Alibaba wholesale above, the unit price is around 4 yuan.
You need to spend 200+ yuan to do what other companies can do in 4 yuan. Slow start, short battery life and higher fever than others. Which company do you want to work for?