I'll take ten.
In all seriousness, how do developers feel about this compared to larger communities around products like the Raspberry Pi? I've learned to follow the crowd when I'm using products for the best support.
This allows for real-time-ish use cases that the Raspberry PI can't handle well. Low latency audio, driving large LED matrix boards, high speed input sampling, etc.
So it's not quite the same market. $25 in this space is rock bottom pricing.
> tyingq: The pair of PRUs in the Beaglebone black is a large part of it.
source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15121720 (Aug 2017)
This LinuxCNC fork supports it natively: http://www.machinekit.io/
To answer the question though, honestly I'm not sure how you can go wrong with it being a smaller community. You can largely take advice about the RPi and apply it to the BBB (or the PB, in this case). The hardware and software is all roughly similar, after all.
It's matured a lot in the last few months, but that first half year was very rough. It took two or three firmware releases to even make it stable, and it's still a bugfest. (Can the support web site even work on iPhones yet? It used to be Windows+Chrome only.)
Because of that, my next foray into ultra-low-cost computing will be Raspberry Pi. At least I know it's an established product and because of that it probably has a good community and documentation.
If you are just fiddling around and mostly are looking to have something that's a lot like your linux experience. Either will work and it might be easier to find a specific github project for what you're doing on the RPi, but that is barely my usual experience. Even something like running a MAME cab on an RPi3, you'll get set up quick with RetroPi, but some things you might want to play won't hack it on the little CPU in there.
Any one of these is a great entry point, but it is definitely advisable to jump into your new project by seeing what people are using and picking the board. If your idea is even slightly left of mainstream you'll probably test out quite a few. More than likely, if you didn't have EE skills before you start, you'll hit some hard walls with esoteric choices like SPI vs I2C, or the best way to do wireless communication and not gobble your battery.
Long and short, embedded projects don't quite silo like software. You might start out thinking about your Pi like buying a netbook, then four years later you're doing embedded C on a 16-bit proc to get where you're going. Even just a few years ago this would be totally inaccessible to anyone without very specific experience (usually a degree). Now for a dollar, anyone can fiddle and grow an idea and the tools have become amazing! But just because it runs an ubuntu flavor and has a familiar window manager, doesn't mean people didn't make real specific choices to get it into that tiny package and you'll have to figure out what you really need as you go.
Another thing I am curious about is why is there such a price difference? RPiZ - $5 PB - $25
They're pretty awesome, but every time I go looking for one it takes a few days. Still, it is sort of fun. Like hunting for a newly-launched console.
It is a shame there aren't more MicroCenter stores around, although I'm not sure really how they stay in business. It was logical that computing equipment would make the switch to being purchased primarily online[0]. Somehow MicroCenter competes well on price and very well on selection. That place is like a retail NewEgg, carrying all kinds of very specialized things. They've got everything from water cooling rigs (multiple brands), to oddities like shrink tubing, development boards, 3D printing supplies and every kind of upgrade for PCs you can think of. It's a place I avoid when I don't have an hour to sit around and a reasonable budget because I always leave there with more than I intended on purchasing but it's so nice that when I need an adapter to plug my one power supply cord into my two ports on my new graphics adapter, I can drive up the road.
Small tangent, yeah, but this product would fit really well over there.
[0] While I'm sure Apple stores do OK and full PCs probably sell OK in larger electronics chains, none of those chains carry anything resembling a reasonable selection of pieces/parts.
Micro Center is where I went last time I built a desktop, last time I upgraded it, last time I bought boxed software, last few times I bought Raspberry Pis or components for them. And they're usually pretty full of other people doing the same. It used to be on my way home from work, and I'd stop in a few times a week just to browse.
It's about 20 minutes away, but I think I'd really rather go there than buy something online, if I have the time. And I imagine that's how they stay in business.
I would be surprised if PocketBeagle isn't also sold at a loss, although at a different scale.
Anyone else got thoughts/evidence on this?
something like 9$ (shipping included)
Though I kind of wish it used an H5; I can’t imagine it costs much more but it’s a much better SoC.