Hacker News Reader

Comment by esskay | Hacker News Reader

The SBC markets been on life support for a long time. Youtubers making videos about them don't seem to grasp that and keep pumping out reviews and projects like its still 2019. The pi specifically has plummeted in popularity and for most use cases they just aren't a cost effective option when second hand micro pcs are dirt cheap and vastly more capable.

View on HN

I don't think comparing new Pis to used micro pcs is fair. Compare a _used_ Pi with a used micro pc. If you have any geek friends, it's probably not hard to find a used Pi for free.

PCs don't have GPIO. They're different markets and the desktop replacement never materialized.

You get GPIO and any other needed interfaces on any PC, by adding a $10 microcontroller on a USB port, e.g. one of the STM Nucleo boards.

If you use a PC or mini-PC that you already have, that is much cheaper than using a Raspberry Pi or similar.

For most projects using GPIO, a <$10 ESP32 board or Arduino clone will suffice

MCUs are great but a lot of projects require linux and an application processor. Pi is the industrial standard.

1. Most people aren't using GPIO.

2. If you are as others said, you can get very cheap GPIO addons.

Imagine if there were a universal means to attach external devices, perhaps one of these external devices could handle GPIO. You might even call it a "Universal Serial Bus."

An SBC is a great gateway to embedded development. There are some industrial PCs in that niche, but generally mini/client PCs don't fill that need.

For a couple years, a Pi was a decent value as a cheaper small desktop replacement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com