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DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market - Jeff Geerling (www.jeffgeerling.com)
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[-] InnerScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

In the embedded video he talks about it from 4:40-5, then talks about microcontrollers and mentions used hardware (though says it's also affected by price hike).

[-] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago

"Buried in the video" isn't the same as "talked about in the blog."

[-] InnerScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Well, normally I'd agree but in this case I'd guess that more people have watched the video than read the blog. That's the order in which I stumbled on it too.

Edit: Also:

I'm working more with older SBCs and microcontrollers now, and I think that's the direction many in the hobbyist space are going.

[-] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I didn't watch the video, and I only found out about the blog post through Lemmy.

IMO the blog and video seem a little click-baity. Yes, he technically does acknowledge (in the video, not the blog) that older Pi models are still being produced, but saying the SBC market is dying is crazy. How many projects really need the specs of a Pi 5 in that form factor? If you need that performance, you probably have space for something a little bigger.

Here's the author's own tl;dr:

But if you'd like the tl;dr:

Unless the DRAM pricing situation changes radically, I think the hobbyist SBC market is dying—or at least on life support. And I don't just mean Raspberry Pis, but all SBC vendors. LPDDR chips now account for the majority of board cost from the vendors I've checked with.

Raspberry Pi would have been fine if they stopped at the Pi 3. I'm not saying they shouldn't have made the 4, or even 5... but the Pi 3 and Zero 2 are (IMO) their best products in terms of price-to-value. The SBC market is fine.

this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
156 points (100.0% liked)

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