3 Reasons NOT to use a Raspberry Pi

Published on January 4, 2021

The Raspberry PI has changed the trajectory of embedded electronics.  It has enabled thousands of new applications by providing a low cost embedded platform that is extremely well-supported by a large community of developers.  It has helped fuel the explosion of IoT devices which benefits all embedded electronics manufacturers.  The RPI foundation continues to innovate by:

  • Introducing new products (including a System on Module)
  • Improving the performance with updated CPUs
  • Adding a longevity program for certain product variants 
  • Increasing the number of distributors

Despite all of these benefits, in this video, we discuss 3 reasons NOT to use a Raspberry PI in your commercial product.  These come from our experience in designing out the RPi for other customers. 

  1.  Availability - Raspberry PI is essentially a single sourced product.  What happens if you have a spike in your requirements?  You won't be able to fulfill your orders.  What happens if RPI foundation discontinutes the product?
  2. Software Support - Who provides support?  How much does that cost?
  3. High System Level cost.  Although RPI is low cost by itself, when you add in all of the required daughter boards needed for a typical IoT project, the system level cost is typically much higher than a purpose-built board.

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