The Future of Consumer SBCs: Has the Pi bubble burst?

What will be the future of consumer SBCs like the Raspberry Pi? In this video I discuss how the market for low-cost, small computers is changing, and offer my predictions.

My December 2022 interview with Eben Upton is here:

My recent review of a $100 mini PC is here:

And of a reconditioned small form-factor (SSF) business PC here:

Finally, the PicoMite VGA project video I mentioned is here:

For additional ExplainingComputers videos and other content, you can become a channel member here:

More videos on computing and related topics can be found at:

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:33 Price Changes
05:19 Heavier Distros
09:37 32-Bit Support
10:46 User Expectations
13:19 Supply & Microcontrollers
15:41 My Predictions

#SBC #FutureSBC #MiniPC #RaspberryPi #explainingcomputers

[JeffGeerling]

Great overview of the situation; I think one good outcome of the whole thing is that efficiency is something that's actually cared about these days, as moore's law keeps getting bumped out. Performance per watt is a more important metric than ever, and we are seeing some pretty powerful hardware using less than 5 or 10 watts!

[thatchrisagain]

I have to say you are definitely the kind of lecturer I wish I had at university.

Always engaging, always interesting, always concise... well worth the many hours I've binged so far looking at your previous content!

[PreworkoutVegemite]

You've been a constant source of knowledge in the Tech Space, keep doing what you do.

[MGSBESTProductions]

From $35 to $200 it has no longer been an option for my University. We’ve completely dropped the use of RPI and switch to alternative SBCs that are more available and affordable. The support of other SBCs has greatly increased over the years compared to what it used to be. Given that the price and availability made RPI attractive both of those positives are now a thing of the past. When they meet both of those criteria again we may switch back but until then we are done with the RPI Foundation.

[nkkri]

The raspberry pi is useless if people can't afford it.

[bryans]

I was really into the Raspberry Pi a few years ago, simply for the challenge of seeing if I could create usable, low cost desktop replacement. Thanks primarily to this channel I succeeded but unfortunately, after a while the shine wore off and I moved on to other challenges. I'm still a fan of SFF computers.

[PPAChao]

I bought an Orange Pi Zero Plus and an Orange Pi PC back when they were both under 15 €. They are very versatile and useful devices (one is still in everyday use) & exceeded the expectations set by the low price, but nowadays you pay closer to 35 € or 40 € for the same exact models, probably plus shipping and taxes. At that price (for which you can sometimes get a used laptop), their limitations make them of dubious value—might as well pay twice as much for an x86 device with eight times the performance.

The upper end of the 2020 SBC market (e.g. RK3399 devices) has been underwhelming in terms of user-ready software development. Three years later, something like the Rock Pi 4 still requires arcane Frankenstein-patching to have working video decoding—in only some circumstances, with some programs, under some desktop environments. It hasn't come down in price either, while X86 mini-PCs have closed the gap. The RK3588 may be powerful enough to bruteforce a lot of these problems with software decoding, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of an efficient and optimised ARM-SoC.

[privacyvalued]

There are two additional categories of SBC consumer: Small business/ISV back office user and the home automation user. The SBC is perfect for the back office for hosting network shares and running scheduled processes (e.g. nightly cron jobs, offsite backups). It's an always on, low wattage device with enough compute to handle the basic tasks demanded of it. A SBC is a very good, fairly inexpensive option for small business owners instead of having to invest in expensive server hardware. They are also good machines for a centralized home automation host. One machine on the network that IoT devices can connect to and are controlled by. People are slowly realizing that cloud managed home automation isn't all that great.

[grayfox]

Raspberry Pi was the leader in SBC a couple of years ago. My opinion. Their inability to provide hardware to the maker community offered an opportunity for others to fill the vacuum. I was looking at several projects but the lack of hardware shut them down. While other manufactures are out there I am hesitant to change hardware and generally the cost is greater. I am not sure Rasp Pi can recover the base they once had. I think they are still struggling and are now in the catch up mode against other suppliers. The state of the art has moved on as you so aptly demonstrated. Great presentation.

[CCoburn]

Feature creep and bloat are the banes of computing. For instance, years ago, we had perfectly functional word processing, database, and spreadsheet programs. They were easy to use and did anything that 99% of the users wanted. And, because computer systems didn't have many resources, these programs didn't use many. But then companies started adding features -- often features no one wanted -- to their software. The new programs were more complicated to use and used many more computer resources. Great news, if your business is selling new pieces of computer kit. Bad news if you are a consumer. And just as soon as the user managed to learn how to use the new software, the software company came out with a "new and improved" version. This version had MORE features no one wanted, used more computer resources, and had a new and more complicated UI. This cycle continues unabated today.

[Praxibetel-Ix]

This was a great insight into the consumer SBC market! Nobody could do it better than you, really. SBCs have certainly changed in the past decade, where we went from a low-cost SBC to learn coding and do projects on to SBCs that have about as much power as a typical desktop and exciting new things like a RISC-V processor. Keep that Pi bubble floating! (well, at least for as long as possible...)

[iam.jasonhoward]

In the context of bridging the digital divide, I hope SBCs stay in an affordable price range. It would be fantastic if more schools and libraries could use Raspberry Pis to teach digital literacy skills.

[skoolspirit]

Since my interest in SBCs was basically inspired by this channel, I've done many projects and expanded my modern computing knowledge in directions I'd never imagined it heading. I'm appreciative for the gains I've made thanks to the community of enthusiasts. I was lucky to get some cheap pis when the market was good and they've been wonderful companions in my ventures. Sorry we couldn't all enjoy the bounty. Still dislike Youtube comments like the "pi is dead" "we've moved on" etc. A web search shows me a University of Cambridge stat from 1 year ago - 40 million pis sold. Seems like many of us have working boards and will continue to bask in our good fortune. "Long live the (inexpensive, functional) SBC!"

[stevehorne]

IMO on-board flash storage would be a huge mistake. Right now, you can repurpose a Raspberry Pi simply by changing out the micro-SD card. If you want to experiment with something that could leave your OS unusable, just copy your main card first. It's not just the option to boot from a different drive - it's the ability to remove your normal drive and know that whatever damage your experiment does, even if you manage to erase or corrupt all connected media, your disconnected main OS card is absolutely immune.

There's other use cases where that's not an issue, of course, but there's also other SBCs that already provide for those use cases.

[Aceks]

As for SBCs, I transitioned to the Orange Pi, and Banana Pi platforms. I turn them into remote control cars, drones, NAS servers, retro gaming machines, and as microcontrollers. I did successfully turn a Orange Pi 4 into a mini PC, it could stream videos, browse the internet, online shopping, email, word processing, retro gaming, streaming video, etc.

As for emulation, I use a SFF computer hooked up to my television. SFF computers has more power than any SBC, so it is the best choice for retro gaming up to a Nintendo GameCube.

[deanstyles]

My view is that the Pi5 may change things but a lot of the market has switched to either microcontrollers or low end x86 hardware. Maybe the Custard Pi 6B, whatever happened to it? 😅

It certainly doesn't help that a lot of non-raspberry SBCs tend to have poor software support, whereas any old distro can work on x86 hardware.

An SBC costing more than $100 has a limited niche audience.

[djchewmacca]

I'm a RPi enthusiast. I've been collecting them since the RPi 2. Whenever they released a new Pi I would buy one immediately. I'm so glad I did over the years. I have a small collection of them now. I mainly use them for retro gaming and media playback.

[HKey_Root]

I felt it in my bones that this would be a possible future, in the short term rather than the long term. It was fun while it lasted. *slides in an i5 Mini PC*. Thank you as ever Chris.

[edwardaudet]

My first computer was h89 from heath kit. I ran hdos and later cp/m. It was a slow move up to x86 machine from 8080 machine. But I have enjoyed the ride. I get a big kick out of my RaspberryPi machines 4b and 3b. I use them with my trains and DCC++EX. But just recently my old 86 computer died. And I was directed to a mini pc by my mentor Chris and I have been a very happy person. Enjoy your channel your the wizard of acknowledge. Thanks
Ed

[johncundiff]

Such an accurate recap of SBC's in the world today! Thanks as always Mr. Barnatt for explaining computers to the masses!!! Keep up the good work!