Raspberry Pi Zero W?

tashman

Yes, you're quite right the one per customer/transaction means that they'll profit nicely from the excessive postage costs. On the other hand the controlled supply (sort of) does give the average hobbyist the fighting chance of getting one for cheap....That's my simplistic and probably naive view....

adamspc

@tashman said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@Dochartaigh the two primary UK sellers state one per customer but it seems to be one per transaction as I've had more than one from each. I'd rather this be the case than some git coming along and buying 100 simply because they're so cheap. Socks make excellent Christmas presents 😀.

I would buy them all if I could. All of them.

Flavor

@tashman I think you're right on your assessment. I think "they" all want the Pi Zero to be a hobbyist (entry level) product. It has an interesting parallel to how video game consoles are sometimes sold as loss leaders, and the real money is made on the games. This one is more like make very little money per sale but get lots of people to grab one each. It's also has some parallels to the online communities that will offer their service for free to attract tons of users in a bid to become #1 (with profitability coming later).

tashman

@Dochartaigh said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@tashman said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@Dochartaigh the two primary UK sellers state one per customer but it seems to be one per transaction as I've had more than one from each. I'd rather this be the case than some git coming along and buying 100 simply because they're so cheap. Socks make excellent Christmas presents 😀.

Same with Adafruit in the states - but they STILL charge you $10 shipping each individual order with 1x Zero...so still ~$15 per $5 board.

Even in-person at Micro Center the 1st is $5, #2-5 is $9.99/each, #6+ is $12.99/each (you ever see pricing that RAISES the more you buy? I haven't...).

Again, this is because Raspberry Pi Foundation can't keep up with supply, OR they have some weird marketing plan or back end something or other where they don't want to be selling these in the numbers people are demanding (when in reality, in an interview I watched, they simply can't produce enough in their UK factory which is where the Zero's are made - unlike the PI 3 being made overseas OR in their UK factory depending on the batch you get).

To increase supply they would need to invest in more resources but to get that money back (and more) is difficult as the profit margin is small on such a low cost product. It's probably not worthwhile. Also, they would have to target new consumers - just relying on established enthusiasts who jump as soon as a new Pi is launched (and who want more than one because they're so cheap - I am guilty of that) is not sustainable (i.e a demographically narrow group who are into retro gaming systems from their youth!)

Dochartaigh

@tashman
If I remember the exact percentage from that interview I watched (or maybe I read it - I forget), they said they already DOUBLED their UK production a while back. If it wasn't profitable enough to begin with, they would have NEVER done that...which to me proves they're making enough money to make it worthwhile. There's a bottleneck somewhere (which I have no clue where), but it evidentially isn't with their R&D department if they're still producing more models...if they put that effort into their existing product, we probably wouldn't STILL have a shortage of Pi's on the market I would bet.

Plus, an alternative way to think of it: raise the price from $5 to $6. BAM. Instant 20% profit margin right there...most things on the market don't make anywhere near 20% profit. Problem solved ;)

Fish

I thought I read/saw a video that stated since everything is on one side of the board now that production time is literally cut by 50% with the Zero W.

Either way, The Micro Center near me has the regular Zero and the W in stock. I have already made a few trips and gotten a few Ws and one regular Zero. I might make a couple more just in case.

Im actually in the process of getting the parts together to do the obligatory Zero W in a SNES cartridge build just to leave in my bag if I find myself somewhere bored.

dankcushions

@Dochartaigh said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@tashman
If I remember the exact percentage from that interview I watched (or maybe I read it - I forget), they said they already DOUBLED their UK production a while back. If it wasn't profitable enough to begin with, they would have NEVER done that...which to me proves they're making enough money to make it worthwhile. There's a bottleneck somewhere (which I have no clue where), but it evidentially isn't with their R&D department if they're still producing more models...if they put that effort into their existing product, we probably wouldn't STILL have a shortage of Pi's on the market I would bet.

Plus, an alternative way to think of it: raise the price from $5 to $6. BAM. Instant 20% profit margin right there...most things on the market don't make anywhere near 20% profit. Problem solved ;)

remember the pi foundation is a non-profit charity. the decision to make the units in the UK was to help the industry here, rather than for their margins/output (otherwise they would make everything in china or wherever).

the zero is hugely popular but my understanding is that they will only meet demand in so far as it fits within their goals.

Dochartaigh

@dankcushions said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

remember the pi foundation is a non-profit charity. the decision to make the units in the UK was to help the industry here, rather than for their margins/output (otherwise they would make everything in china or wherever).

the zero is hugely popular but my understanding is that they will only meet demand in so far as it fits within their goals.

If their sole purpose is to help people, they could do that BETTER with more money coming in, correct? The Zero is a PROVEN product with higher demand than they can currently meet. So not only would selling more mean more funds coming in - to which they could even better help people in developing countries, it would also create more jobs in the UK as well - it's a win-win-win situation (us, the consumer, with a lack of Zero's, being the 3rd "win" there).

Also, they make the Pi 3 in Asia as well as the UK (I have ones marked from both factories), so that's not really a reason or excuse for the Zero's production issues (which the Pi 3 doesn't seem to have for a LONG time now).

Flavor

@dankcushions said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

remember the pi foundation is a non-profit charity. the decision to make the units in the UK was to help the industry here, rather than for their margins/output (otherwise they would make everything in china or wherever).

the zero is hugely popular but my understanding is that they will only meet demand in so far as it fits within their goals.

This. QFT

Dochartaigh

@Flavor said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@dankcushions said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

remember the pi foundation is a non-profit charity. the decision to make the units in the UK was to help the industry here, rather than for their margins/output (otherwise they would make everything in china or wherever).

the zero is hugely popular but my understanding is that they will only meet demand in so far as it fits within their goals.

This. QFT

Care to explain to me how making LESS money helps MORE people in developing countries somehow?

Flavor

@Dochartaigh A "non-profit" doesn't necessarily exist to help people outside of the company. No, I guess I don't care to try to explain here. I think this thread has been sufficiently derailed already.

Has anyone done any more testing/development using RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi Zero W?

I keep hoping that our Raspberry Pi Zero W order will arrive, as we want them to work well on the http://gamepieadvance.com/ project. I'm assuming that I will need to switch over to the new image to get it up and running.

Update: I actually received a Pi Zero W in the mail today. It might be too late to try it out today, though.

Flavor

The IMG posted here booted fine, but I wanted my image to work. Just grabbing the new /boot files worked fine, but I used

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

on my old Pi Zero and then moved the SD over to my Pi Zero W. I also placed a wifikeyfile.txt with contents like the following in my SD's boot partition. Then in the RetroPie WiFi menu, I could import the credentials, and it connected easily.

ssid="WIFI BASE SSID"
psk="Secret Key"

P.S. Thanks @BuZz. Also thanks to help from https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroPie/comments/5yppft/make_retropie_compatible_with_the_raspberry_pi/

Fish

I used the posted image on a zero W today and it booted fine. Obviously slower than the 3 that I am used to, but it booted into ES just fine. Set up wifi and a bluetooth keyboard and started moving roms over.

CKidwell

@BuZz First I would like to say Thank You! I do have a question for you, I've got an external LED connected to a ground and GPIO14 like I did previously on a Pi Zero and it always worked, however on the Zero W it lights up for a moment and then turns off rather than just staying on to show when it's powered. Any chance there is something I can do in the software on my end to get this working that you would be aware of?

Dochartaigh

So BuzZ's uploaded images are 4.1.18 or 4.1.20, right? (thank you for updating those and uploading them)

How hard is it to update (or I guess add) ONLY the Bluetooth and WiFi drivers to a Zero running 4.1.0?

I ask because anything past 4.1.5 on the Pi Zero and I loose up to maybe 5+ FPS on many of the emulators (especially SNES is borderline unplayable). And yes, I've tested it on like 10x different Zero's on all sorts of different hardware and compared to the stock non-updated 4.1.0 image it's quite drastic...

Flavor

@Dochartaigh Here's an option you could try. Take an image of your Pi Zero SD card. Put it on a new SD (or just use the same one now that you have a backup image). Use the method in this video, but grab the files from here: https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot.

I don't recall offhand which files you need, but I think it's in the video.

BuZz

@Flavor That isn't needed - can just update via retropie-setup (need to update underlying system packages for zero support) or via sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. No need to manually copy any firmware files.

BuZz

@CKidwell said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@BuZz First I would like to say Thank You! I do have a question for you, I've got an external LED connected to a ground and GPIO14 like I did previously on a Pi Zero and it always worked, however on the Zero W it lights up for a moment and then turns off rather than just staying on to show when it's powered. Any chance there is something I can do in the software on my end to get this working that you would be aware of?

No idea sorry - you could ask over at the raspberrypi.org forums, or if you think it's a bug you could report it to the raspberrypi firmare github.

Flavor

@BuZz But I got the impression that he didn't want to update any other packages. I'm sure he could use apt to select specific ones. I'm not sure, offhand, which ones, though.

Also, the manual copy method is nice if you have access to the SD, but not a terminal/keyboard on the Pi.

Dochartaigh

@BuZz said in Raspberry Pi Zero W?:

@Flavor That isn't needed - can just update via retropie-setup (need to update underlying system packages for zero support) or via sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. No need to manually copy any firmware files.

Thanks, that updates the kernel too though, right? From my past topics I think we couldn't quite find out, if through updating, it was RetroPie itself or the Kernel that is causing my loss of performance.

And that will leave my RetroPie and everything dealing with that BESIDES the wifi/bluetooth drivers themselves alone? ...sorry, I always get worried about updating as I've had all these problems on the Pi Zero whenever I go above 4.1.5 (Pi 3 is always fine though thankfully!).