The Raspberry Pi was born on February 29th which means we’re only three years away from its second birthday, and a new hardware release from the Pi Foundation is becoming somewhat of a tradition. This year is no different: a new Raspberry Pi has been announced. The Raspberry Pi Zero W is the latest iteration of the Pi foundation’s tiny and extremely inexpensive single board computer. It’s a Raspberry Pi Zero with WiFi and Bluetooth.
The specs of the new Pi Zero W are nearly identical to the previous incarnation of the non-W Zero. It sports a 1GHz single-core processor, 512 MB of RAM, features Mini HDMI and USB OTG ports, uses a micro USB port for power, features the now-standard 40-pin header with four additional pins for composite video and a reset button. This board, like the second hardware revision of the Pi Zero, also features a CSI camera connector.
Of course, the big feature is the addition of WiFi and Bluetooth. The Pi Zero W adds the wireless functionality from the Raspberry Pi 3B. That’s 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0.
The Pi Zero’s claim to fame was, of course, the price. The original Pi Zero was at first a bit of hardware glued to the cover of the MagPi magazine, later to sell for just $5 USD. The Raspberry Pi Zero W is priced at just $10.
What’s changed in the Pi Zero W? Unless you’re looking at the PCB from the angle of RF design, not much. The big change here is the addition of WiFi and Bluetooth. This hardware comes directly from the Raspberry Pi 3B. Encased in a fancy, glassy chip and attached to the board through weird curvy RF traces, both of these Pis have 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0. As with the Pi 3, the Pi Zero W doesn’t suffer from photonic reset of the wireless subsystem when exposed to a laser.
One marginal difference between the Zero W and Pi 3’s wireless system is the antenna. Where the Pi 3 uses an SMD chip antenna, the Pi Zero W uses a PCB antenna. What effect does this have on the wireless capabilities of the Zero W? I assume not much, but then again my RF testing rig is made out of duct tape.
Ultimately, a cheaper Pi Zero
From what we’ve seen over the past few years, the best use case for a Pi Zero is a Linux-enabled thing. Something that just sits there, taking in bits from the GPIOs, doing a bit of processing, and sending bits out again. The Internet of Things without the Internet, if you will.
Of course, this makes for a perfect IoT prototyping device. For instance, right now I’m working on a ‘Days Since Not A Hack’ counter — a device that will query the Hackaday comments and determine the number of days since someone said a Hackaday post isn’t a hack. A Pi Zero with a WiFi adapter is the best hardware for the job. All I need is an eight dollar WiFi USB adapter.
Now that the Pi Zero W has Wireless baked right in, this project is even cheaper. Instead of five dollars for the Pi, eight for the WiFi adapter, and a few dollars more for the requisite USB OTG adapter, I only need the ten dollar Pi Zero W. Yes, the same results could be obtained by hardwiring a seven-segment display to show ‘0’, but that’s beside the point.
A New Case
There is no shortage of Raspberry Pi cases. If you want a laser-cut case, a 3D printed case, die-cast, or injection molded case, there’s a case for you. A few years ago, the Pi Foundation got in the game with an official case for the normal-sized Pis. Now, there’s an official case for the Pi Zero.
The official Raspberry Pi Zero case comes in four parts. The bottom raspberry-tinted part features handy clip retainers to keep the Pi Zero in place. The three top pieces are embossed with the Pi logo, and provide either a solid cover, access to the GPIO pins, or allow for the installation of a camera module.
Want a free Raspberry Pi Zero W?
Every week, we get some hardware wizards to share their knowledge in Hackaday.io’s Hack Chat, and this week is really great. We’ll be talking with [Roger Thornton], Principal Hardware Engineer at Raspberry Pi. If you’ve ever wanted to know how to make a tiny Linux single board computer, this is the guy to ask. [Roger] oversees design, test, compliance, and production for all the Raspberry Pi hardware. He’ll be in the Hack Chat to give you the inside scoop on baking Raspberry Pis.
As with most Hack Chats, there’s going to be a hardware giveaway. We’re sending out Raspberry Pi Zero W boards to the people who have the best ideas on how to use this new tiny bit of wireless hardware. Sign up for the Hack Chat and join us on March 3, noon, PST.
neat! my hardware password manager (hackaday.io/project/9564) could profit from that!
So could the ZeroPhone =)
indeed. ;)
SO many possibilities for the password manager. This could be a wireless mooltipass.
Neat! I just bought a bunch of zero w’s, they will be shipped to “my personal” wide-area network of home addresses. It’s now of stock. Soon I’ll make a profit of $20, while destroying my reputation.
In a world where I could kill you with no threat of consequences, I would do so. Fortunately for you, we do not live in such a world.
Unfortunately, we do live in a world where a thing, which is worth much less than a human life, can still be a reason to take it. Most of the things you could be capable of doing with a WiFi Zero aren’t worth it, for sure.
Fuck that guy, of course, don’t get me wrong.
Looks like I forgot the /s tag again. *sigh* I guess nothing is obviously satirical, with Poe’s Law being what it is. I suppose an argument could be made that rather than that particular action being a reason for killing, that the attitude it revealed demonstrated that ebaymemes would continue to cause harm, possibly even more severe. Of course, that requires a lot of assumptions and a purely utilitarian view that a large amount of smaller harms is equivalent to one large harm, which I don’t necessarily accept. It seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it? :P
It does seem harsh. But hey, on the Internet, there are all sorts of people – you can never be sure if the person on the other end is actually joking =D So, yeah, don’t forget your s/’es – as long as people don’t reach the “using sarcasm tags in serious comments” level,we should be fine.
Is it going to be unobtanium like the other pi zero?
I really wish they made it so OEMs could buy a bucket or a truck of them. The fact they don’t is severely limiting a lot of things.
For example we wanted to sell a shield for the Smoothieboard with the Zero on it, pre-flashed with Octopi, so users had an easy plug and play way to get Smoothie+Octoprint, but we can’t because they won’t sell more than 1 Zero at a time. Sucks.
That sounds more like an application for the Compute Module.
But it would be hilarious if they sold an actual a 5 gallon pail full of loose Pi Zero boards.
It does…
But also consider that the Zero, for virtually the same form factor, contains a more user accessible header and peripherals.
Not to mention the BOM and layout for the host board would pretty much just add a pin header shoe-horned in whereever – even as an acceptable after-thought, then get a batch of micro-SD flashed, rather than a whole dedicated section or at least a decent re-design to fit, plus support circuitry and extra setup at the factory/shop to pre-configure each CM.
If it was from a fresh or revision design, it may make sense if the cost/profit margin had minimal impact.
A thousand times this!
I wish they’d stop coming up with new shit, just for a while, and actually nail down meeting demand for the stuff they’ve already got.
Ditto.
Tritto :-)
Quitto! :-)
Seconded
pentitto
repetto
Gepetto
GOTO JohnU
Actually, they’re about to do exactly that. There was an interview with Eben today I think, where he said they’re not gonna do anymore hardware for a year or 2. Except maybe some tweaks on the Pi3.
Keeping demand higher than supply is what keeps them from losing money on them.
And the Compute Module are those meant for mass produced products using them as brains.
But if you got the cash and willing to sign a contract, then I guess you could buy a pallet of them with a higher unit price.
Like you want to suggest a negative volume discount? Strange idea.
Keeping demand *slightly* higher than supply, not an order of magnitude higher.
Wouldn’t the chip or chip pro be an ideal solution to this? It’s cheaper too.
Not saying it’s better, but presumably you guys know what your’e doing and don’t need as much community support as a 20 year old cutting his / her teeth into an EE/CS degree?
The chip would work fine, except they need to nail down the stability issues. One advantage the Pi has is it’s rock solid OS support. The chip pro is a dud IMO (more expensive than chip with less features).
I have to agree here with any PI you have a solid OS it’s well documented just about anywhere. If you have a problem I’m willing to bet it has already been answered on a forum somewhere for you. C.H.I.P while being a cool little board never really took off, I know there are thousands of CHIP owners but Raspberry Pi has sold over 10 million boards.
The CHIP took off. The kickstarter was huge and they raised VC. They just got buried by a conveniently timed $5 board which is being made with virtually zero margin.
I just ordered a CHIP a week ago… but now the Pi 0 W is an equally useful, and equally hard-to-source option for my application…
AHH its just a little run of a 1000 just so they can say they have them and they are making them. there going to say they will be making another batch next month.
Then ali will sell them for $40 because the reg zero is selling for $35.
And in reality after 21 days every one will say out of stock expecting more in. pre order now.
Sounds like a scam to me.
huh? I walked into microcenter and bought one. I walked into microcenter another time and bought one then too.
cool story, bro
I think you missed hit point.
They are available in a walk in brick and mortar store. If there were still availability issues people would be grabbing them all and re-selling them.
They are available in Micro Centers. The majority of people do not have reasonable access to a Micro Center.
Zeroes are available now.
But that was not the case for a long time, and sadly is probably going to be the case with this version for the foreseeable future.
Except they only let you have one per month, which is super annoying. So no you cant grab them even in a MicroCenter (I tried).
Oh and yes people are re-selling them for $16-$30 on eBay.
Need deeper comment nesting
My point is with them being available at Microcenter they are probably elsewhere too.
Its not unheard of for a new product to have limited availability when its first introduced. People wait in line to get their eyephone, ybox, playtoy, etc when a new model is first released.
And you could get more than one Pi zero per month just by asking a different sales droid for one each time you went in. but that was just within the first couple months, they have been hanging on the rack for a while after.
Hmm, wonder if they still sell for that much on fleabay. My luck I’d get scammed though with one of those buyers who requests a refund and sends back something else.
My nearest Micro Center is 5 states away. I’m not going to drive 18 hours for a $5 Raspberry Pi.
Honestly I don’t know of another retailer that sells them in physical stores. Maybe Fry’s. But outside of major cities there really are no retailers that carry the Zero.
Yeah you can order them online now fairly easily. But that brings you back to the whole price problem. My closest retailer of the Zero is probably ~250 miles away. If I order it online I have to pay anywhere between $5-15 extra for shipping and handling.
(need more nesting)
Not long ago, they ran a promo where the first Pi Zero was free, the second was $x, third was $y, etc …
Now you can just buy as many as you want.
Yes, it was once a problem, but no more.
As for whether Pi Zero has the same problem as Pi Zero did at launch… who knows. Perhaps other devices like ESP8266 have soaked up enough “wifi-gizmo” space that the demand won’t be as great relative to supply.
Yeah, based on a true story, too. I bought one from here with no problems. Not planning on buying another one soon as the new one just came out.
It’s not unobtanium. They’re in stock. Just buy the $99 Adafruit Pi Zero Fuck Yourself Kit, where it’s always in stock.
Woah, I thought that kit was $999.95. I’ll go and grab one quickly while they are still on sale.
seriously, I just bought the prior pi zero at $5, except with an $11 shipping and handling fee. They did not even bother to box the product up in cardboard at that price.
They’re probably obligated to sell at the price point, yet the market demand for them is just significantly higher.
just checked on Ebay: old PI Zero alone is from 2x (auction) to 3.5x (buy it now) the retail price for version 1.3 (latest old model, not the W), plus shipping. Why on Earth would someone attempt to sell something at over twice the official price if it was really available at the official price?
“Why on Earth would someone attempt to sell something at over twice the official price if it was really available at the official price?”
Because people would pay it, instead of checking the official retailers that have had them in stock more often than not the last eight months.
Well I went to piHut and ordered one, so i did with the pi Zero back then. O and just to annoy you, I went to pimoroni and orderd another one.
You monster!
https://youtu.be/nlJ8WGZbPMk?t=204
This is encouraging. Eben says 25k being produced per week, which HAS to be more than the Zero 1.0 at launch.
“This is encouraging. Eben says 25k being produced per week, which HAS to be more than the Zero 1.0 at launch.”
Considering that Pi Zeros are still in short supply, I’ll believe an adequate supply will exist when I actually see it and I really doubt that I will.
“Is it going to be unobtanium like the other pi zero?”
My thought exactly and considering it’s an unobtainable (at $5) Pi Zero with added features, it will be unobtainable at $10. Can anyone explain to me why this outfit apparently can’t even remotely supply the demand for Pi Zeros, at least at the prices they advertise and not sourced from some gouging retailer grouping it with a bunch of overpriced accessories I don’t need?
If one would be in the business of shifting $5 Pi Zeros, one would need to meet demand at some point. On the other hand, if one were to view them as a limited expense for unlimited amounts of “free” advertisement and hype…
Dunno – Just bought one from PiHut, so we shall see.
I have 6 zero’s. Does not sound like ‘unobtanium’ to me.
Exactly. I have one of the first, 6 of the Rev1.3 and for an hour now the zero w. – all accumulated over time.
Yah I want to buy some but it’ll probably be a six week wait to get one.
Think you need an “hours since not a hack” monitor.
Is your code smart enough to handle comments like “before anyone says ‘not a hack’ I think …”? Google and the rest are still pretty poor at handling negatives.
I get the ‘this is truely not a hack’ comments, but we need something that can detect if the following would play out:
Usr: “Not a hack”
AI: “But this is [a tool to help hack] | [something ripe for hacking] | [example of a professional hack]”
Usr: “That’s besides the point”
AI: *Resets counter*
This post is about a new selling piece of hardware to technically its not about a hack. Yes a PiZW could be used for a hack this post in itsself is not about a hack :)
Did I trigger the counter?
I want an adafruit product placement filter.
Get coding!
It never detects such comments from Antipodeans.
.ʞɔɐɥ ɐ ʇou sı sıɥʇ
Just implement the Aussie version… problem solved! :)
Yes, the same results could be obtained by hardwiring a seven-segment display to show ‘0’, but that’s beside the point.
XD I’m dying!
Yup another Pi-zero no one can buy, I have moved on, the OrangePi Zero costs $7 and has wifi, a faster CPU and the suppliers actually has stock of them, sure you need to port things over but atleast you can buy it.
FWIW, just ordered one from the UK for a total of 16 € (including shipping).
Yeah I’m very into the cheap Allwinner boards; keep using the A20 (Banana Pi) in projects, just migrating to H3-based (Orange Pi). There’s much hacky amusement to be had MMAP’ing the onchip hardware and banging at it in Python or C from userspace. The Allwinner stuff has so much more I/O bandwidth than the Pi’s (e.g. 3 separate USB host ports, Gig-E if you want it, etc) it’s better for a number of use cases. IMHO “Armbian” is the distro of choice for Allwinner chips
Huh… I got an Orange Pi PC, and put Ubuntu on it (just cause that’s what I’ve used in the past). I never really got too far playing around with it. Never got sound working on it, but maybe I could have another go at it. I picked it up to use for my Kerbal project, but set it aside to work on other things.
I considered coming back to it after bugs were sorted out or maybe just going with a Raspberry Pi, to get the more established support and community. I’m not really a software guy. I’ve always done things with logic chips or CPLDs. I’m using my Kerbal controller project to force myself to get at least a rudimentary concept of coding in C.
Haven’t decided which route I’ll go yet.
Ive got Raspberry, Orange And Banana PIs.
Ive used the Raspberry PI in two projects. and have 4 going with the Oranges.
And Ive got a good variety of Oranges, A lot of work with them to get them going but once there going, well worth the money.
And One Banana PI. Very nice.
I have found the best results with the Oranges is to use the Banana PI software.
This board is most definitely going to be another ghost.
The Orange Pi Zero WiFi is a disaster. The Xunlong image is ancient (kernel 3.4) and the driver from the Allwinner SDK for the XRADIO WiFi chip (a licensed copy of an old ST/Ericsson design) is terribad.
I really wish people would stop blindly recommending the Orange Pi Zero.
Is it a good SBC? Yes, for the money it’s great.
Is it a great SBC with WiFi? No. The WiFi is shit and you will waste hours of your time trying to make it work to a barely acceptable level.
Save your sanity and buy a Raspberry Pi. Yes the performance sucks. Yes Broadcom doesn’t release datasheets (neither does Allwinner, at least not officially), but at least there’s enough of a community that the situation doesn’t suck.
You CAN buy the Orange Pi Zero, but if your project requires WiFi for the sake of your sanity: don’t.
The Raspberri Pi Zero W is probably going to have pretty poor wifi as well. It may be a lot easier to get it working. But the signal level is probably going to suck compared to other wifi devices on the market.
a) HMartin – OpPi Zero wifi is reportedly (according to the Armbian folks, and personally that’s the only distro I use on Allwinner) now fine. My OPiZero’s are in the mail so can’t check yet but I take their word that it works… I can’t seriously imagine using any distro’s supplied by a cheap board vendor; they clearly don’t have the time or expertise; without Armbian’s excellent work I wouldn’t be touching this stuff..
b) HMartin – all the Allwinner datasheets are readily available on linux-sunxi.org They’re not the greatest datasheets in the world but they have a lot of register info and stuff is not too hard to figure out (at least they’re in English and there is sample code to eyeball at in the SDK). I’ve been reasonably happy with them; waaay better than nothing.
b) lala “signal level is probably going to suck” – why do you say that? Factors that affect the Wifi signal are the PCB layout around the radio and the antenna placement/size/tuning. The RPiZero uses a chip antenna, the OPiZero has a small external one. Either one could be designed well or poorly.
Are you sure OPi0 wifi works now, and in which kernel?
Armbian folks have been going back and forth on this wifi working issue for months now.
I wish they would stop spending 80% of their time on repair jobs for SD cards or power issues ( as the devs admitted), and spend more time on driver /OS development!
No I’m not sure, don’t have a OPi0 in my hands right now, was just eyeballing the Armbian forum. I think they said that 80% of the issues that people _complain_ about are due to SD card/power; I imagine they nowadays ignore them.. :-)
Ok I just got my OPi Zero’s and yes the wifi performance is pretty poor. With Armbian legacy kernel and iperf I’m getting about 4mbits/sec (but reliably), with mainline kernel maybe a touch faster but with dropouts (few seconds then it comes back). Not great, I guess it depends what your use-case is. For many IOT things it’s usable (e.g. ESP8266 type throughput, but much easier to program of course). I stuck a $3 USB wifi dongle in and it’s fine (~20mbit), and a fancier 5.8Ghz with proper antennas and it’s up in the 50mbit range. If anyone ever sorts out the driver it’ll probably get a lot better b/c the access point is reporting a hell of a lot of tx retries. Anyway yes, you’re right, wifi not what you might expect. OrangePi Lite is vastly better (properly supported wifi chip). Shrug.
I can confirm Wifi is working for quite a while now, when last did you test it?
I purchased two Opizeros one is actively being worked on as a portable game system with RetroOrangePi and the other is a little home Nas , both are connected via wifi and the Nas is using the latest Armbian and work just fine withing the confines of what they are.
Just make sure you have a good power supply they are extremely sensitive to PSU issues, especially the wifi.
OrangePi is nice, but I’m not keen on hardware that has zero support. Not for rapid prototyping, at least.
I guess it depends what support you’re after. Software support (for me at least) comes from the Armbian folks or I build/fix it myself, hardware support – I grabbed the schematics+datasheets of all the Allwinner-based boards I’ve used and (in the case of Banana Pi/Orange Pi) the silkscreen is reasonably good so that’s all I’ve found myself needing to do board mods when required. I guess it depends on your use-case.
Yay, another Rasp Pi no one can ever buy for the advertised price. No one in Germany sells them for just 5$, make that 5€ if you will. Only some kits i am not interested in.
I was able to get one from pimoroni, technically in UK, but still EU for the time being… Currently sold out though.
Andreas – have you checked lately? They have the Ws in stock right now – I bought one half an hour ago, and just got order confirmation.
Pi Moroni Sell the bare boards for near-cost. 9.50GBP + shipping. Often has stock, etc etc.
http://www.whereismypizero.com/ helped me find the above seller, very happy with them too.
I bought 2 on different occasions in Microcenter, a store in Mpls, MN. $5 + sales tax.
Hehe! I’ve gotten 4 Megas and 4 Pro Minis from that store. Sadly, it’s a 2 hour drive for me, so I don’t get up there often. That purchase (and that last visit) was 1.5 years ago! I’d love something like that locally, but the only major tinkerers around here tinker on tractors, not gadgets, not that there’s anything wrong with that! Should have seen the labor saving inventions my father created back in the day to use on the farm back when I was a kid! ;)
I could have had fun with Arduinos if I’d have had them back then!
They never had any Pi Zero in stock when I visited the Mpls store, nor when I called them (many times). You lucked out there…
“Yay, another Rasp Pi no one can ever buy for the advertised price. No one in Germany sells them for just 5$”
Blame the German goverment for charging VAT on it.
I kinda wanna grab one of these to drive the tiny CRT in my Kerbal Space Program control panel. The CRT would be mounted in an optional side panel, mostly there for aesthetics. It’d basically play random GIFs or videos (whatever’s simplest to implement) on a 3 inch color CRT, set in portrait view. The animations would be things like SSTV images, video “feeds” of ground crew, etc. I’d probably have it keyed into my main panel to trigger the keys for the Chatterer mod as well, to make communication sounds coincide with changes on the screen.
My main panel is basically a collection of flight instruments (such as an attitude indicator), joysticks, toggle switches, analog meters, and seven segment LED displays to show orbital data. The secondary panel is something I’d like to build later on, as an optional add on. It’ll be a place to install a few “future ideas”. It’s a lower priority, and something not necessary for playing Kerbal Space Program, but I think it’d be kinda cool.
Finally! Very cool!
Hopefully availability improves, too…
Why would it – like the original PiZero it’s a headline winner / loss-leader – there’s no profit at $5 in there for distributors yet also no direct sales model, so unless you accept buying a bundle of USB cables/trinkets with your Zero (or some other form of upsell) from a distributor they’re basically Unobtanium.
Conversely Orange Pi (or NextThing’s C.H.I.P) are readily available for comparable prices direct-to-consumer (Aliexpress or Nextthing’s site; only the ChipPro is available in unlimited quantity though). The s/w stack isn’t quite as well smoothed out as the Pi’s but the hardware is generally superior (depending on your use case)
I couldn’t find the CHIP anywhere so I ordered the CHIP Pro dev kit. It’s a worthless trinket. Nothing shows up on the serial like it’s supposed to, and I can’t get it flashed with a stock image, nor does their stock image creator work (makefile in git repo). It errors out. On all of the issues, not a single useful response from their forums. Just a bunch of fanbois “it werks 4 me u must be dum”. F*ck CHIP. Don’t waste your time or money.
I’ve heard similar things for the Pine64. It doesn’t seem like any of the Kickstarter boards are delivering usable boards. I’ll stick with RPI/BBB/Odroids.
I managed to get the pro dev board working after trying all afternoon from a win7 box. Finally tried using my old laptop with ubuntu installed and the chrome flash plugin worked the first time. I’m thinking win7 just doesn’t work at all. There seems to also be usb connection issues, and I may have been lucky with the usb port I tried on my laptop. YMMV
My CHIPs work ok, and I reflashed them from a Windows 7 PC.
It does make things potentially more fiddly using onboard flash for the OS rather than an SD card. Shrug. Anyway, Orange Pi’s are pretty nice, about the same price as CHIP depending on your options, and quite a lot faster.. but no BLE. Whatever, horses for courses.
THe pricing Exclamation point is lost on Australains as well – a Pi3 is around $60 I see the Zero W for $25 – the exchange rate isnt THAT bad!
Dont get me wrong I love my Pis and very happy with the support and stuff and happy to pay the price it just never matches the “advertised” price – the challanges of a global market
>the exchange rate isnt THAT bad!
I remember reading recently that your road construction workers are paid $40/hours, Australian dollars. The official exchange rates might not be that bad, but it prices tend to rise with median wages.
Awsome they did not changed the test pads position!! Because I’m making an extension board connecting with spring loaded connectors, if they changed the position I would have been screwed :)
Orderd 2 this morning for a home brew wifi security camera project I want to hook up to zoneminder.
Been finding it difficult to find decent cheapish ip cameras that zoneminder can access without lots of work.
Pi zero with wifi, IR night camera with IR cut(available from the far east), IR led source, backup battery and enclosure.
Could add pan and tilt to a later version.
Will be less than most decent ip cameras thanks to the cost of the Pi Zero.
Now the RasPi Cluster HAT is a reliable Pentesting tool for Wlan and I could Imagen a powerfull Telemetry tool with one pi zero computing one dataflow. I also see WiFi projects like IP cams or little smart mirror projects with neopixel rings shrinking and robotic projects too.
I’m looking forward to see interesting new projects…
So, now that the Raspberry Pi has a $10 model with WiFi, we’re meant to believe that actually this is cheaper in real terms than a $5 board without WiFi? Because back when the Pi Zero was competing against the C.H.I.P you were arguing the exact opposite.
> can’t greentext
> Remember C.H.I.P., the computer no one could believe actually cost $9? Now there’s the Raspberry Pi Zero, a computer that costs $5 (if you can find one).
With nary a mention of the fact that one had WiFi and the other didn’t. Just wasn’t treated as important or affecting the real cost in any way. Of course, in the same article you made a big deal about the fact that the Pi 3 had WiFi and the Pine 64 didn’t, despite the fact that – unlike the Zero – it actually had USB Type A ports that could be used to add an external adapter, while completely ignoring the $15 cost difference between the two as well:
> The Pine64 will be shipping out to backers shortly, but it’s already dead on arrival. I’m a backer of the Pine64 Kickstarter campaign, and I should have some commitment bias towards this cheap 64-bit computer. Even I must concede the Raspberry Pi 3 is the superior board. It comes with wirelesss, after all, and adding the immense community support, examples, and libraries that are already written, the choice is clear: the Pi foundation hit another home run.
Show me on the doll where my words hurt you.
+1
That would be a big doll
Or a perfect project to use a Pi Zero W
^^^ *Spits coffee out laughing*
Quite, “sticks and stones” and all that – words could never possibly hurt anyone. Which is the very reason why defamation laws don’t exist and we’re all free to yell “fire” in any crowded theatre.
Great, I guess we will be able to get our hands on one of these at a reasonable price in about a year. Least it looks like the old v1.3’s should be dropping to a reasonable price now. Pretty much how i’ve been playing the Pi game. Wait till the next release and the prior release should be obtainable nearer to the prices they quote these as being sold for. When does the Pi 4 come out so i can get my Pi 3 already? lol.
I’ve bought about 7 pi devices over the years, my first one from the UK in 2012, the rest from the US, most probably from a retail store. I paid the expected price in all cases and never encountered out of stock. Just thought that this anecdote should balance some others…
Pimoroni have them in stock right now if you want one for ~$11.
Great news, but I’m disappointed by the fact that they didn’t add support for their official touch display :(.
3 years away from its second birthday? FATAL ERROR!
It’s a leap day joke.
This is marvelous. I’ve been holding back from getting some of the new SDR and highly portable ham gear despite their low prices because the UI comes up lacking. WiFi and BT would allow that control UI to be moved to a smartphone. That would also mean no messing with clumsy audio cables.
The WSPRlite, for instance, would be great setup and programmed via a smartphone rather than the current Windows-only laptop scheme. We can see the results with a smartphone. We should be able to set it up with one.
http://qrznow.com/review-sotabeams-wsprlite-hf-wspr-transmitter/
please let this support promiscuous mode on the wifi!
So you can help fix a friends router right?
right… yes… “fixing routers” er uh yes thats all that im doing with it….. cough* cough*
nobody can buy this module at this price, classic raspberry marketing
And it’s already sold out everywhere unless you want to drive 200 miles to one of the 8 brick-mortar stores that sell it.
I just did, I handed over a small number of moonies for a great board.
This is a product, not a hack.
Back to zero!
This is whining, not commenting.
Send a hack of your own in to the tipline.
This is whining about whining, not commenting. Please remain where you are, the killbots are on their way. This won’t hurt one bit…
This is a troll, not a useful comment.
Mmm, looks like it has a ufl connector for a better antenna too!
Is that what the author called a trace antenna? Looks like ufl to me too. Part next to it looks like a chip antenna. Especially as there is a small cap? linking them.
Oh no, i see it. :p Much more triangle-y!
Looks also like the cap near the ufl connector is in the wrong place. You can solder the cap to connect the antenna to the ufl connector, but if you would want to solder the transmitter to the ufl connector the pads are misaligned.
The ufl could just be for testing the trace antenna? Maybe its not intended for end users :( nothing some kapton and a diagonal cap would fix :)
Odd, my name changed to Bobski
My local microcenter has NEVER had a pi zero in stock when I called (many times, including today), often with a ‘held up in customs’ excuse. Now they said their first shipment of pi zero w is scheduled to arrive sometime on Friday. It is a long drive so just because they have it when I call on Friday does not mean they will have it when I get there. Bummer. Probably another ‘always out of stock’ item, like others I wanted to buy locally…
You are still further ahead than I am. I don’t believe there is a single retailer within my entire state that even sells the Zero. The only way I can buy it is to buy it online and I will have to pay shipping costs that exceed the price of the Zero.
HaD could sell a 7 segment display that only lights up as a “0” and it would always be accurate. Would make for a good desktop boggle.
I review the new PiZeroW and give my first impressions with the device and case. http://blog.alexellis.io/pizerow-first-impressions/
This thread needs an Arduino reference somewhere. It does not add to the conversation, does not make it more of a hack, does not even blink a light. Who is planning to connect a PIZW to an ARDUINO?
There is an oddball idea for a project in there somewhere, like a very very very slow in-circuit emulation/simulation of an ancient FPGA using the two combined.
the mega kit is 28 pounds ( 32 euro ) – – – -so .. thinking about arcade project , it makes more sense to get much powerful android mini pc for that price
I wish you could buy them for the quoted prices. I know that some lucky souls have done that but for the rest of us the $5 pie is more like $30 on eBay.
I believe the Zero was a toe-in-water market test.
It was already in process whilst the Pi 3 was sourcing the WiFi components, etc, so made sense to trial a limited batch.
Now the ‘W’ is complete as the Zero was well received, they’ll do larger batches, so the price should stabilize faster due to accessibility being easier.
Not likely, they have been restricting the supply for 2 years and will continue until someone is fired or quits. They are NOT a hardware manufacture, they need to get out of building and focus on design, software and the ‘Foundation’ goals. Also Open Source the products again.
Is that a china export logo?
Finally :-) This is what I am missing for the first Zero version which I own. No more need for USB dongles. I use Zero as arcade box with bluetooth joystick.
I hate to detract from this very informative thread of people complaining that they can never find a Zero at a reasonable price, but I have an actual technical question about this device…
Has anyone found information about how this is connected? One of the really cool things about the Zero is that the USB port is actually USB-OTG and can be easily changed into “gadget” mode. This lets you plug it straight into a computer and the zero presents itself as an ethernet device, serial, what-have-you.
Does the new Pi Zero W preserve that ability?
IIRC WiFi is over SDIO and BT is over one of the UARTs. This also means the UART clock will possibly be as unstable as it is on the Pi3, making the UART much less useful in the process.
What we actually need is to be able to use an icon to visually tag the metadata for posts, and for this kind of thing we need an unobtaineum icon ;)
Tried getting a zero in the uk. £5 for the zero and £4 shipping. Orange pi shipped £10 …. hmmmmm. Still its nice that they are improving what they have. But agree with others that they should fix current supply stock issue (especially the 1 per order limit) before trying to make the next new shiney shiney that will be almost permanently out of stock.
Realise that there are places where you can walk in and get one, kudos to those brick and mortar stores, but where I am in the UK. I have not yet even seen one in the wild.
unobtainium is correct. 1 per order limit is ridiculous. Maybe they should work with a retailer that can fulfill orders like Amazon. Canakit and Adafruit charge outrageous prices for shipping.
It is not a distribution issue, it is a manufacturing issue, they simply refuse to follow the ‘Foundation’ guide. It appears to be control, just as they stopped open-source support, it’s a control issue.
Still a turd, masquerading as a turd…
“Good ideas are overrated…The world is filled with people with good ideas and very short of people who can even rake a leaf. I’m tired of good ideas.”–Andy Rooney
Does anybody know if the bluetooth conflicts with the GPIO serial port (by default) like it does on the Pi 3B?
As for the ‘Days Since Not A Hack’ display… I once saw a sign set up in the manner of one of those signs, but the message was “Days since the 3D printer malfunctioned” and was similarly fixed at 0.
… well, I’m still waiting to buy a zero for $5, thats not in a kit, and I can get $100 worth of them… can I get 10 of these for that? no? still have to buy a $50 kit each? never mind then.
Does the wifi go into monitor mode?
The wifi will do whatever the hell the code on the SD card tells it to do.
So I read this article and went to Adafruit. They were in stock. I added it to the cart along with the other items I needed, clicked through the process and it’s on the way. Shipping was $9, but then I did order $30 of other things, so shipping worked out to 75 cents per item.
People whine about Adafruit. They are not Digikey, they don’t have a million sq ft warehouse. But they have this neat “e-mail me when it’s back in stock” feature. Sign up, and when the email arrives order it. It’s not rocket science, it’s a little bit of patience. I keep a running list of items I want and when the email comes I put the order in.
With the Raspberry Pi Zero W costing $10 and the C.H.I.P costing $9, the case for ESP32 + Micropython is a little weaker. Sure the Pi Zero W is not real time due to running Linux and doesn’t have a plethora of ADC e.t.c but it…runs Linux and Python and still has plenty of GPIOs. I think the Pi Zero W is the ultimate Python-puter w/IO.
I’ve already ordered 2 Pi Zero Ws (2 separate orders) from Pimoroni. Shipping to Canada was $5 US, which is not bad. Pihut also stocks them.
Since the first PI Zero I have been waiting for supply to catch demand and now they have Zero W. When I pointed out the ‘Foundation’ stated purpose was NOT being met by the marketing method used to distribute the Zero product I was told to shut up, post locked since they had thought it out and making diamonds was better than following the ‘Foundation’ goals.
I suggested they have a good look at out-sourcing the builds since they seem to be incompetent at meeting demand for products across the product lines. They suggested I simply have each student order directly from PiHut doubling the cost, I replied that I could buy NanoPi-NEO boards at quantity discounts with one shipping charge and did. The NanoPi-NEO is way more than needed for headless remote controllers but you buy what is available in a timely manner.
My local microcenter said they would have the Pi Zero W in stock and on their website Friday. However, when the Pi showed up on their website, it was already OUT OF STOCK. I see that the price of $10 is for ONE, and increases to $15 each for 2-5, and $20 each for 6+. I wonder if it will be perpetually out of stock like the Pi Zero… Of course, it is ONLY available for IN STORE PURCHASE, so even if it shows up on their website, there is no way to reserve one nor to guarantee that it is still in stock upon store arrival.
I see folks reselling these for a large markup on ebay. The law of supply and demand at work…
As I post this, 9 in stock at Columbus Ohio Micro Center. In store purchase only with “inverted quantity discount” pricing.
http://www.microcenter.com/product/475267/raspberry_pi_zero_wireless.
just got mine today, incl. the less than perfect case;
the case has no cutout for the micro sdcard, so you need to remove the pcb from the case everytime you want to change the micro sdcard. =(
Haven’t seen this question answered:
Does the Zero W add the PWM filter missing from the Zero which is needed to complete the A/V output port?
Or any cheap handy PWM shield to use here, and for an IR receiver too? Somethings to attach using lowly jumper cable?
Unluckily the W still doesn’t compare with the CHIP at $9 that includes the onboard 4g eMMC, but misses the HDMI ( sold separately for $15.) The CHIP appears more available too. Got 3 units shipped to me in Toronto in 10 days, from Burlington, ON, Dec 19- Dec 29 last year !
I got one last weekend
The heading for this article should be changed – it is simply not a $10 card.
It’s – sort of – able to be got for $10 plus shipping costs for ONE of them. But in volume they are $20.. Say on microcenter
1 at $10.00 each
2-5 at $14.99 each
6+ at $19.99 each
This is the opposite of a normal price curve, and shows that the $10 is just for a single sample (ie the ‘bait’ price), not what they are actually planning to sell it for.
It’s telling that on the adafruit site you can’t buy (even ) one for $10 as they are out of stock, but you can get up to 5 per customer for the ‘basic pack’ version for $24.50, and that’s without shipping (which it won’t tell you until you type in all your details etc..)
The other stores seem to be the same, you can only buy one at $10 (if they have any) but lots if you by the ‘basic kit’ for $24.95..
So the $10 is a con..
Not a con at all, I’ve bought two now for $10.
Just got one from Adafruit. Shipping fee causes severe heartburn…which is why I ordered some other goodies to reduce the average total cost per item.