From ending battles over the only PC in the house to supporting 3D printing and ventilator projects, the tiny single-board computer is suddenly in great demand.
From ending battles over the only PC in the house to supporting 3D printing and ventilator projects, the tiny single-board computer is suddenly in great demand.
Sales of Raspberry Pi's single-board computers hit 640,000 in March, the second-biggest month for sales since they started selling, as consumers flocked to inexpensive ways to work and learn from home.
While some sales can be attributed to tinkering Pi-hobbyists with a lot more time to fill all of sudden, Eben Upton, the Raspberry Pi's co-creator, told TechRepublic demand is also coming from households that have found themselves in daily battles over use of the family computer.
"It used to be sustainable to have a shared family computer, but now every family member needs to have one to work or learn," said Upton. "Now, everyone is at home competing for the use of one computer."
While sales of Raspberry Pi picked up steadily over the course of March, the latter end of the month is where things really gathered steam, with Upton describing the increase in demand as "turning the dial up from three to 10", with industrial sales staying very stable and Raspberry Pi 4 volumes ramping up very quickly.
"I think what this is telling us is that we're seeing genuine consumer use of the product. It's not like your desktop PC – you're not going to be able play Crysis on it – but if you want a machine you can use to edit documents, use the web, use Gmail and Office 365 and all the baseline use cases of a general purpose computer, the Raspberry Pi 4 is a product we've made to get over that bar."
Other uses of Raspberry Pi computers have been related to the COVID-19 outbreak more directly. In Columbia, for example, efforts are underway to get ventilators running on Pi computers, which – if successful – could help address the shortage of traditional ventilator equipment in the country.
Read more: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/raspberry-pi-why-sales-have-rocketed-in-the-middle-of-the-coronavirus-outbreak/
