Finally got my hands on some RPIs zero w2, time to deploy nerves hub and get cooking .

2025-01-17 13.58.231200×900 95.1 KB

So the Pi is pretty reasonably priced in most places now that the shortages are generally over. I can’t speak to Moldavia specifically.

The newer Pis are more expensive but also more capable. I think the RPi 4 hits a sweet spot for mild home server use and it has good grunt for driving displays (2x 4K). If you need less and want to pay less the RPi3 is still useful.

I am unconvincwd about the RPi5. Though it adds much wanted stuff, RTC, power button, PCIe options. I would love that stuff as a revision on the RPi4

RPi Zero is kind of amazing in that you can do linux application level development on a device that you can reasonably afford multiple of. There are many MicroControllers (ESP32) etc that are “better value” but you can’t build things quite as easily because they won’t run Linux.

Most x86 machines can’t match RPi devices in power draw. N100 is decent I hear.

I don’t think Pis trash SD cards more than others. SD cards just get trashed, that is an SD card problem. The pis problem is that it relies on those cards. Now Nerves makes all the important parts read-only so if you either add a disk or write reasonably you should do okay.

Using RPi for homelab/servers and using them for IoT are fairly different. IoT devices usually serve few and specific purposes and can be put together with care for the constraints. If you shove a herd of containers on a Pi4 anything can happen.

RPi are decent for several IoT uses but really mostly suited for driving displays and low-security needs. They are good for prototyping because of the massive ecosystem.

This is where Orange, Banana and other Pi are much more shaky. The RockChip parts are beefy but usually poorly supported. I think Geerling documented his journey with Pi clones. I have heard mixed but good things about LattePanda devices in terms of bang for buck.

And again. Are you maintaining a IoT/hobby/prototype device on this or using it as a small server. All you need for a server is that they upstreamed the basic drivers. You probably don’t care about much of the features on the board.

And for small form factor PCs, such as the now-dead NUC line. Those are not a fit for sensors and such but make sense for a home server.

So what are we talking. Building a device or hosting Plex? RPi can do the first until you get bored and decide to do the second. It is no the best choice for either

I’m as keen to discuss boards as anyone. But this is the announcement for a new release of NervesHub and I’d rather not it be entirely about whether the Raspberry Pi is worthwhile or not. Especially since Nerves is in no way limited to the RPi boards

If the thread gets split off I’m happy to argue why the OrangePi, Banana Pi and Mini-PCs are not great replacements for the Raspberry Pi.