Supply chain update – it’s good news!
For the first time in a couple of years of semiconductor supply chain hell, we’ve got some good news for you.
If you’ve tried to buy pretty much anything recently, you’ll realise that we are in the midst of a global supply chain crisis, affecting everything from cement and fenceposts to jewellery and clothing. Various aspects of this crisis have impacted our business, but persistent shortages of the semiconductor devices we use to build Raspberry Pi single-board computers and modules has been particularly challenging for us (and a lot of other tech businesses) to manage.
Happy Christmas
As a thank-you to our army of very patient enthusiast customers in the run-up to the holiday season this year, we’ve been able to set aside a little over a hundred thousand units, split across Zero W, 3A+ and the 2GB and 4GB variants of Raspberry Pi 4, for single-unit sales. These are flowing into the Approved Reseller channel now, and this is already translating into better availability figures on rpilocator. While we’re not quite out of the woods yet, things are certainly improving. For those of you looking to buy a Raspberry Pi for hobby projects or prototyping, the advice we gave back in April still holds: always buy from an Approved Reseller (they’re under contract with us to sell at no more than the RRP); use tools like rpilocator to keep an eye on which resellers have recently received stock; and consider whether your project is a good fit for Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico W, which remain in a strong stock position. And if you’re an industrial or enterprise customer who is experiencing supply issues, and you have not already spoken to us, please get in touch with our commercial team at business@raspberrypi.com.
Recovery ahead
For a variety of reasons, we leave 2022 with much better visibility of our future silicon supply chain than we entered with. As a result, we can say with confidence that, after a lean first quarter, we expect supply to recover to pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2023, and to be unlimited in the second half of the year.
We will continue to actively manage our commercial and industrial customers through 2023, ensuring that they receive the units they need, and we’ve made some changes to make sure that inventory-building behaviour which would otherwise prolong the shortage for everybody else can’t take place.
Increasing single-unit sales
Although we are sitting on substantial order backlogs from commercial customers, we expect to gradually increase the fraction of our output which we dedicate to single-unit sales next year until we’re back in our pre-pandemic situation. The chip allocations we’ve received for next year mean that by the end of the third quarter, the channel will have recovered to its equilibrium stocking level, with hundreds of thousands of units available at any given time. At that point, we will have spent a little over two years in a low-stock position: a measure of the severity and persistence of the shortages.
As we go through the year, it is likely that you’ll see Zero and Zero W come back into general availability first, followed by products like Raspberry Pi 3A+ which do not have an extensive industrial customer base; and, finally, the various versions of Raspberry Pi 4.
Raspberry Pi Zero cost increase
An unpleasant side effect of the supply chain crisis has been an increase in the cost of pretty much every component that goes into a Raspberry Pi, from PCBs to connectors to silicon. We’ve generally absorbed these cost increases ourselves, holding the prices of our products constant, and making less profit on each unit. The exceptions have been the 2GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4, which we returned to its original $45 price point; and Compute Module 4, where we applied an across-the-board $5 price increase to all variants.
Our original Raspberry Pi Zero products have always had very low margins, and after the recent cost increases they are no longer commercially viable at their original price points — if we kept to the old price we’d be making a loss on every single Zero we sell. We have therefore reluctantly decided to increase the price of Zero from $5 to $10, and Zero W from $10 to $15. There is an upside here, though: once Zero products return to volume availability in 2023, we no longer expect to see the single-unit limitations that have been a feature of Zero since its launch in 2015 — you’ll be able to buy as many as you want at a time.
237 comments
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Tyeth Gundry
Wonderful news!
The new price increase on the Zero W’s is a shame, it will encourage a larger <20$ ecosystem, but the price was never $10 unless you already had everything power and converter-wise.
Think it's form factor is brilliant, any chance of another discontinued chip / model with a gig or two of RAM?
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
More RAM is definitely something we’d like to see as an option on a future successor to Zero 2W, but that’s some way off.
M_A_T_T
Hi! I am trilled to see all the exciting moves forward! Keep up the amazing work team!!! 2023 will be your best year yet!
OSoft
I agree it would be interesting for Zero 2 W to have more RAM. As well as better clocking speed. I am 13, not an adult of course, so I do not understand exactly why Zero 2 W should have significantly less power than the Pi 4. I understand that the RAM is inside of the Cortex Processor, would increasing RAM capacity take up more area inside of the chip, as well as an increased clock? What if some of this architecture was based on the Pi 4’s, or the compute module 4 or 4S?
Ray Morris
> I am 13, not an adult of course, so I do not understand exactly why Zero 2 W should have significantly less power than the Pi 4.
Quite simply, if it had the same specs as a Pi 4, it would be a Pi 4, at a Pi 4 price. More RAM does indeed mean more transistors, means bigger chip and therefore higher price.
Pin Pin Poola
Hey Eben,
We are nearly into April and I have not been able to get a sniff of a Pi 4 in the UK at a reasonable price this year.
Today on Amazon a Pi 4b/4Gb is £153 GBP.
Could the next gen Pi have a socketed memory; so that you can produce a single board and allow the separate purchase of the memory across a range of suppliers to prevent this situation repeating?
Is there ANY update on the supply chain situation?
Thanks
Pin
Butch Kemper
Stop whining. Even with the $5 increase, the Pi Zero price is still a really good deal.
Kevin McAleer
This is the best Christmas present you could ask for. Looking forward to filling my boots in 2023!
Steve Cooper
Great news Eben – although i’ve been playing with pico’s recently I could still do with an update to my original Pi Model B though.
David
I’d love to have your early model/s, if when you upgrade.
I try to collect them by year-date on the board(and my mod. number)
whether the board is dead or alive!
Might assemble a Museum, one day!
Ben
To be honest, even the price increase on the zero lines in a win in my book — because we’ll now be able to buy these units in quantity (and hopefully the increased profit allows these units to be manufactured in more bulk, improving availability). I appreciate this comes from a position of privilege, however I’m sure grant or other funding will be available in the instance where the $5 price increase is cost prohibitive.
Matthew Campbell
Images are insanely slow to load on this blog post, either they are enormous or you need a cdn
Ben
Around 15MB of images, most of the data transfer comes from large (2MB+) PNGs… Perhaps they could be re-compressed as JPEGs? I bet that would help, especially if folks are reading the post on a mobile phone with a dodgy 3G or even 2G connection!
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Just fixed: one of us grabbed the images from the “for print” folder rather than the “for web” folder.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
🤦♀️
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
You TOTALLY outed yourself there. Must do better.
UKScone
Never admit anything. The reply is always “You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment”
Bill Melendez
Actually reducing the color depth is a better solution while maintaining the same resolution.
Janghou
Good, there is hope at the horizon!
What about the Zero 2? (the one I’m most interested in)
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Not yet, but it’s on the horizon.
Rodigas
😓
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
This is something else that will improve through 2023. Expecting to receive silicon for 50-100ku of RP3A0 (our system-in-package for Zero 2W) in Q1.
Tom
Is there an outline of what this hopes to offer somewhere?
John S.
” split across Zero W, 3A+ and the 2GB and 4GB variants of Raspberry Pi 4″
… and why not 8GB??
James Hughes
Because its not as popular as the other models, 2 and 4 are the best sellers. For the majority of tasks a 4GB device will be more than adequate.
DDS
Pi 4 with 8GB RAM is usefull as a low-power virtual machine host.
Werdrew
Yes, 8GB is good for VMs, it’s good for container workloads, it’s good for databases, it’s good for ML tasks. There are many more, but those are just the ones I could have made good use of 16GB for.
Nick
They didn’t say it wasn’t useful, they said it wasn’t as popular. Which it isn’t.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Chip allocations are coming in one by one. We know when we’re getting them, so we can be confident that the supply will be there, but we don’t have our hands on everything yet, and as you can see from the post you’re replying to, we won’t until early next year.
Andy Warburton
So excited. I never quite managed to get my hands on a Pi4 but I’m really hoping to get my hands on one next year to build a NAS for my new home!
Fred
Great news, Eben! Thank you for sharing.
I have read with interest about additional capacity being built by major semiconductor fabs to increase capacity to produce 28nm wafers. I am not sure about the other Raspberry Pi products, but this will surely help with the supply of the Raspberry Pi 4B which I suspect is the reason why availability should increase next year as production capacity increases.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
This, and migration of other 28nm customers to newer nodes, is a major contributor to the improvement we’re seeing as 2023 goes on.
Alton
I have heard that one of the world’s biggest wafer fab companies is building a new facility in Texas. Has anyone heard any buzz, rumor, speculation, as to whether they will have 28nm capability, or if it will be smaller geometry to free up 28nm lines elsewhere in the world?
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Also, are there any plans for existing Pi components to migrate to smaller geometry in the forseeable future, or is the present plan to stick with existing wafer masks until higher performance processors, memory, and glue logic appear in the smaller geometries?
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And are there any progress reports on the global effort to move semiconductor fabrication out of Taiwan so the world supply of chips won’t vanish for many years if missiles and artillery from the Chinese mainland start turning Taipei and our current source of wafers into rubble?
Peter Berrett
Its time for a new generation of Raspberry Pis Eben.
Please include some EMMC Flash memory in the next iteration. Booting off USB sticks and SD cards is not ideal
Laurent
You don’t need to wait for a future generation: just use a compute module with one of several existing base boards (some has the same form factor of the regular Pi)!
Hank Barta
In addition, the CM4 brings a PCIe x1 lane to the connecters and some boards put that into a PCIe x1 slot or NVME slot, either of which provides disk connectivity w/out USB.
Paride
And a best power connector, for example a standard barrel connector
Nick
> always buy from an Approved Reseller (they’re under contract with us to sell at no more than the RRP);
Are SB Components approved? They are listed on rpilocator but they charge way over RRP for the boards (Pi 4 4GB was £75.99 most recently) and also very high shipping costs (cheapest is £7+). I am sticking to the other retailers on there.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
No, SB Components are not Approved Resellers. We’ve let rpilocator know that.
David
Hmm… RPishop.cz claims to be approved yet their prices, at least for the 4B, have been steadily climbing thtoughout the shortage. 1GB model went from original 33.34€ to 44.62, 2GB from 46.69€ to 55.58 and so forth (8GB now sits at 91.31€!) – yet all are continuously sold out anyway and the only thing that’s in stock are the (even more overpriced) bundles. If I was willing to pay scalper prices I’d order from a scalper that at least has the product in stock…
S Rose
It would be useful to offer a maintained list of approved resellers in a central location so there is no need for consumers (or API providers) to guess. My search for one failed to hit.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
If you visit the product pages on this website, a dropdown menu there will point you at the ARs who are able to service your geographical area.
Matthew
Yes, but for Czech and Slovak republic is only RPIshop.cz, and farnell… and farnell has awfully high shipping costs. Which means RPIshop has monopoly and can set prices however they like…
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
If they’re an Approved Reseller, they aren’t allowed to sell our boards for more than the prices we set.
Jean Murphy
Hi Liz
What is the process of becoming an approved reseller? Would you be able to assist with guidance?
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
If you want more information, please email business (at) raspberrypi (dot) com. I’m not sure whether the commercial team is accepting new ARs in South Africa right now, but they’ll be happy to talk!
Steve Cooper
Looks as if they’ve listened as they aren’t appearing today :)
Laurent
I’m not sure to understand: the price of Pi Zero W will increase to $15, but you didn’t mention anything about the Pi Zero 2 (W).
Does it mean that they will be sold at the same price ?
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
We’re currently planning to keep Zero 2W at $15, though we have pretty thin margins at that price point. It’s consistent with our historical practice of bringing new products in at the same price as their predecessor (albeit we got there via a round-about route this time).
Matt Eckerle
Is the idea that freeing up bulk sale of the original z-dub against single unit sales of the z2-dub will even out the price anomoly? Love the zero but hard to see buying it when I can get a z2 for the same price.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
We expect most non-industrial Zero W volume to migrate to Zero 2W in due course, and that Zero 2W will be available without constraints. But that will happen later in 2023.
Alan Robertson
Fantastic news, thanks for the update Eben. Great to see the Pi0W coming back, still great value even with the price increase for low power USB-powered requirements, esp with OTG functionality 👍
Fred Cee
It doesn’t seem to have improved supply of the Zero2Ws.
None of the approved seller had any at all since Jun. My preferred supplier hasn’t had any since May, and the 2 main commercial suppliers have never shown any stock since RPiLocator was launched.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Please read the article you’re replying to!
Hebert
Please, tell us that a new Raspberry Pi flagship (Pi 5 maybe?) Is incoming with AV1 hardware decoding playback?
thagrol
I doubt they will as neither products nor specs of them get announced to the public prior to launch day.
thagrol
So what does the $5 price increase on zero(w) mean for zero2w and 3A+?
$15 for a zerow makes it the same price as a zero2w. Adding $5 to the price of a zero2w makes it the same price as a 3A+.
Is something going to be discontinued or will the prices of the zero2w and 3A+ be going up as well?
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
We’re keeping Zero 2W at $15. Note that 3A+ costs $25 (1A+ is $20), so there would be scope to move Zero 2W up if we saw further margin degradation.
thagrol
Thanks for the info and the correction. I hadn’t realised the A+ was still in production.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
We’re still proudly sitting at only five products ever EOL’d (Raspberry Pi 1A and 1B, Camera Module 1 visible and NoIR, and the WiFi dongle).
solar3000
Thanks!
Thank you!
fanoush
Oh,, too bad the list does not include Zero 2W and CM4 -practically the only ones worth getting today for me. CM4 is ultimately versatile with many base boards available (even one with VIA805 imitating Pi4). Zero W2 is not armv6 anymore (and you can turn off cores to save power). And with Zero W increase to $15 they are now the same price. Well unless we get similar price increase once 2W becomes available. Anyway, this is still very good news for anyone wanting listed models, Merry Christmas :-)
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Note BerryBase have done a good job of keeping CM4 variants in stock for single-unit orders this year. And volume commercial/industrial orders can get support via business@raspberrypi.com.
RM
Except Berry Base doesn’t sell to all countries. So where I’m located I can’t get them if they are the only retailer carrying them. If they are going to one retailer maybe it should be someone that sells to any country?
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
I think you’re misunderstanding: Berry Base are not the only retailer, although they do choose to stock more CMs than some other retailers. Please go to rpilocator.com – whenever stock appears in at an AR it’ll get listed there.
Bill Dunn
I cannot honestly believe that there is no retailer in the US that is trying to get their hands on CM4 modules. Yet, there has been basically no stock at any US retailer listed on rpilocator in a VERY long time.
Happy Camper
Thank you! BTW, I am greatly impressed by the cooling metal plate in the Pi 400 (allowing the Pi to run 24/7 full load at 2.2Ghz) and would like to see it used, twisted into shape, as the cooler/enclosure for Pi 4. If you do this, there is every chance you will sell many thousands of units, not only to me but to many others. Thanks again.
Nicklas Chapman
Happy Camper, there are plenty of passive cooling cases on the market if you want to add that.
Danny
How come some approved resellers sell for above MSRP? (Sb components, 330ohms, Welectron, pishop)
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Usually it’s because there will be tax or tariffs to pay; those costs will be folded into the final price. On occasions where ARs have been selling at inflated prices without a reason, we’ve terminated the contract.
Ryan
This is great news!
What about the authorized resellers that have only (or almost only) been selling kits at extreme mark ups. I have seen pishop.ca sell there kits for more than if you bought every component separately from there site!
MW
The Authorised Re-Sellers only have to sell Raspberry Pi Trading Products at the correct price ( all are sold in $ worldwide ).
RPT can not dictate what prices are charged for other products, postage and packing etal, if one feels a Re-Seller is not being fair, do not buy from them.
TCJ
There is a category of customers between commercial and makers. Years ago I standardized our thin clients (computers used to connect to a remote desktop server) on the RPI. It was great until the crash. I really need about 10 units to do some upgrades and expansion. I have two PI4 cases waiting for boards. The only backups I’ve been able to source are 400s which are not great in this application.
With a limit of 1 per person, it’s impossible to do any projects. Glad to hear you are recovering and I get it that all this was way beyond your control. I just wish there was a way that SMB customers could get a bit of allocation.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
This is a very good point. Internally we call this use case “DIY industrial”: people buying small-medium volumes for their own use in a commercial environment. We’ve really struggled to come up with a story for this space, as it’s very labour intensive to detect “true demand”, and to discriminate between legitimate customers and eBay “entrepreneurs”.
Bill Dunn
I suggest telling the corporate customers to hold their horses for a month, and allocate an entire month’s production, maybe January 2023 at this point to the retail/DIY channel. Corporate have had preference long enough.
Valentin
Dear Eben this said in kindness;
Industry-customers getting high-volume I ‘understand’ is a need to keep ’em on the platform future-wise.
BUT the original idea to get children (etc.) into the world of computers (and its science) at a affordable cost in my view clash with letting the big £ get ‘ahead’ in the queue …
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Schools buy from us on the same basis that other businesses do. And remember: every single penny of profit we make goes to the Raspberry Pi Foundation, whose entire mission is educating children and training teachers in computing.
Valentin
Jaer oh well … not wot I meant ;P
(I recon I’m not intelligent enough to explain it)
Tyeth Gundry
Can you do it like multipack crisps in the UK, stamp not for resale loudly on boxes. Then go and stick serilised qr codes (gs1 digitalLink) on box too and get loyal customers to snitch on ebay sellers when they scan the qr code for setup instructions etc.
Alton
Tyeth Gundry said,
“Can you do it like multipack crisps in the UK, stamp not for resale loudly on boxes. Then go and stick serilised qr codes (gs1 digitalLink) on box too and get loyal customers to snitch on ebay sellers when they scan the qr code for setup instructions etc.”
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I *love* this idea.
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But it would probably only catch the least sophisticated. A professional scalper would find it trivial to counterfeit the box with a laser printer and card stock.
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And we advanced hobby / semi-industrial users, who build and deploy everything from remote solar powered ADS-B / UAT aircraft trackers, ham radio digital mode repeaters, weather stations, wildlife cameras, automated asteroid hunting telescopes, high altitude balloon payloads, DIY seismic and vulcanology devices, and other Pi based equipment in the middle of nowhere don’t bother to scan a QR code on a box anyway, as we’ve flashed, installed, and configured quite a few units over the past few years.
And the supply chain issues have impacted all of these, since they run on a shoestring by thankless volunteers who have daytime jobs and do this stuff on weekends and holidays. We don’t have the deep pockets to get scalper inflated units, and the $250 Pi3b+ that someone got from a scalper for emergency replacement because we had exactly 1 day available to go up and change out a failed system before the seasons changed, was much like paying $20 for two naproxen tablets and $15 for a single can of spam, because it’s 300 miles to the nearest WalMart where that amount would get you about 500 pills and 5 or 6 cans of spam, and you are racing against deteriorating weather and sunset to finish deploying the equipment near the summit to gather data all winter with the next opportunity for a servicing expedition is late the next spring, and the tourist trap visitor center at the foot of the mountain is the *only* place to obtain anything you forgot to put in your backpack while still in the city.
John
This is progress and it feels right that some should get in to the hands of future innovators this holiday season. But has anyone at RPi Towers tried doing any secret shopper activity with the independent websites (ie, not Amz or eBay)? Bundling with inflated price accessories seems the norm, if SB Components isn’t an AR, where do they get the stock that pops up on their site so regularly? But the worst is BerryBase who should be politely and very firmly told that having CM4’s lying about on the shelf for weeks whilst cherry picking the countries it feels is most convenient to ship to is just plain rude. Quite why they can’t ship to the UK I can’t imagine. Nor will they ship to an EU address paid for by a UK credit card. To even add a CM4 to basket you have to be in their club and they have some obscure screening mechanism for who they choose to let in. Obscure in that email requests to try to find a way are pretty blunt in response. Meanwhile the carrier boards & accessories we did get for product development before it all went horribly wrong are gathering dust on the shelf for the love of a couple or three mid-range CM4s. Perhaps ARs should be required to enable the taking of single product advanced orders. For us, investing in pre-payment even with no delivery timescales would be better than hammering away at RPiLocator. And as we’d have put our money where our mouth is, the AR can report back what’s actually wanted, you could divert a small amount to fulfil those orders without totally messing up the contracted commercial stuff knowing it’s going to be put to good use by peeps that are watching business development opportunities wither on the vine. I doubt the scalpers would be happy to pay up front for ones or twos with no visible delivery dates. At the very least, perhaps some batch tracing could be employed and find out where they are getting them from.
Bill Dunn
We need some kind of solution for sure.
Alton
Breaking news:
I had pinned rpilocator in my work browser, and last night there apparently has finally been some U.S. stock that existed for a few microseconds between arrival and someone buying it. There was a Pi Zero W by PiShop US, and a Pi 4B+ by AdaFruit US. Alas, they came and went like a gravitational wave from colliding black holes or like a fast radio wave burst.
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There is no stock in the US at the moment I looked while ago, though. It’s like finding sasquatch tracks through your garden one morning, or fresh crop circles one morning in the neighbors’ wheat field. Something made the markings, but there were no eyewitnesses to be sure it wasn’t just an elaborate hoax.
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Is there a way to get something like an SMS text alert or other prompt notification *ONLY* when specific items appear in stock in a specific country or list of countries? I don’t want to get awakened at 3 AM with ping after ping for stock in Japan or Singapore or Britain – just U.S. stock that would be worth getting out of bed and attempt to place an order.
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The same option is needed for a desktop or notebook left on all night to listen for an accessible Pi in stock. I don’t want false alarms going off all night long when stock appears in Germany or Sweden, Eritrea, Ghana, Chile, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, Fiji, Iceland, Uzbekistan, or Costa Rica. Just if stock appears somewhere in the US, because if I have to get out of bed at 3 AM to check the alert and try to place an order, I won’t be happy if I need 6 doses of caffeine to simply stay awake at work because some authorized reseller in Alice Springs got a single Pi Zero W at 07:03 UTC that sold at 07:04 UTC which woke me out of a sound sleep.
Wolfgang
I’m not DIY industrial, more like an enthusiast. So I backed up the Turing Pi 2. Meanwhile I managed to get ONE single CM4. Just 3 more missing… This shortage is really bad for the infrastructure around the Raspberry which makes it ways more valuable than for example Odroid SBCs.
Alton
Me too. They said over a year ago (January 2022) that there should be a few more Pi3 or Pi4 in any configuration available by April or May 2022. Well, it’s nearly May 2023.
I have tried to find any more more using rpifinder, but that experience feels about like being out of toilet paper in early April 2020 or trying to use Ticketmaster to get a Taylor Swift concert ticket – an exercise in frustration that expends a lot of time and energy but results in going away empty-handed again and again.
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We use the Pi(n)B+ family in our research and development department, as an affordable (prior to 2022) replacement for very expensive multilchannel data acquisition and logging devices. The Pi is infintitely more versatile, and with a rich code library to use, I can whip up a fairly sophisticated monitoring system and expand it into a proof of concept process control loop in an hour, rather than days or weeks. And I can quickly modify the code as we learn more about the behavior of the processes we are experimenting with, without tying up a jaw-droppingly expensive bespoke controller to conduct a fairly quick test that needs close monitoring.
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So we also fall between the typical maker / hobbyist and the manufacturer of embedded devices that have a Pi at its core.
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I appreciate the efforts to rein in the scalpers who snap up every kind of Pi offered and then put them on Ebay at 10x the price they should be, but those of us caught in the middle who really need 2, 3, or 4 units per year, it’s like using a tactical nuke to stop someone from shoplifting a TV at the WalMart.
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We need some way to keep our research in these areas going.
Sunny Morgan
Great news. Will that apply to resellers in the Global South too? Places like South Africa for instance?
Official resellers are RS Components and the PiShop
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
It will, yes. RS are not an AR, but The PiShop in SA is.
Brian Beuken
Nice to hear that supplies are coming but very worried not to see Pi400 in that vendor list. We just order 25 units for our university and hope that they get here in a few months, but maybe its going to be longer?
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
We do have components set aside to build Pi400s – there are at least sufficient for some tens of thousands.
Brian Beuken
Thank you Liz, good to hear.
DDS
Let’s hope it will finally be possible to get a Pi 4 without paying 2x MSRP.
MW
Many people have managed to buy at MSRP from AR’s, obviously you have not been active enough to actually achieve a purchase and now complain about Scalpers, which RPT have no control over. This subject has been widely discussed and regurgitated in the Forum’s, which is a better place to discuss your displeasure…
Bill Dunn
This doesn’t seem to make any real comment on CM4, unless that is just lumped in with the RPi4. RPIlocator seems to show the same usual miserable story. I can’t remember the last time I actually saw any actual stock in the USA, Europe (Germany usually) seems to have a few most often.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
BerryBase have been pretty consistently in stock for single-unit orders of at least some SKUs. CM4 is mostly a commercial/industrial product, and this post was aimed mostly at enthusiasts. But yes, we could do with finding a single-unit outlet in North America.
David Clond
You mention in your post,
“BerryBase have been pretty consistently in stock for single-unit orders of at least some SKUs. CM4 is mostly a commercial/industrial product, and this post was aimed mostly at enthusiasts. But yes, we could do with finding a single-unit outlet in North America.”
I understand Turing Pi is seeking to sell CM4 for their cluster board. While they ship internationally, I believe they are based in the USA.
Them and other small form factor cluster board manufactures target the market is the hobbyists, enthusiasts, and developers learning clustering. How do you view resellers selling 1-6 units per customer for this purpose? They are targeting the single user, but due to the nature of the technology multiple CM4 boards are necessary to populate the cluster board.
Bill Dunn
TuringPI is pretty much why I am personally seeking to get ahold of some CM4 boards, but they are nearly impossible to get anywhere near retail in the USA. Very frustrating.
I have a couple of other projects that I want to work on that require the CM4 board as well.
Bill Dunn
I thought a bit about this comment, and I am confused, are these not Adafruit, digi-key, pishop, and sparkfun supposed to be our US sources for PI boards?
Not that any of these seem to have seen any stock, and in particular the kind of stock (CM4/8GB/32GB and PI 4 8GB) I am looking for anytime recently.
DaveK
Thanks for the update, no more driving 2 hours each way to just get one Pico of each flavor. My home hobby room will appreciate the additional stock :)
MW
The Pico is available in multiple quantities from many Authorised Re-Sellers. Maybe try a different Authorised Re-Seller ??
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Where are you seeing Pico unit limits? Let us know and (if it’s an Approved Reseller) we’ll put a stop to it.
Bigtrucker26
A couple weeks ago I stopped in at the local microcenter to try to get a (or 2) pi4, cm4, for backlog projects, and a couple picos to experiment with… well, I don’t think they’ve ever gotten cm4, they sold out the pi4s while I was driving there (it’s a hour and half to 2 hour drive). They also gave me a speal about needing to physically bring people with me to buy more than one pi (including pico) at a time (even when I stated I wanted to drop off half the picos I wanted to buy to my dad, so he could experiment with them too (he’s done far more work towards converting his home into a smart home than I have, and the Pico sounds ideal for that…
BTW, I want the cm4 for a couple boards for router, homeassistant (poe version), maybe even a board with the in/outputs that would be more convenient for a digital dash and stereo project for my truck(s). So, yeah, I’m interested in a couple cm4’s because they can be a better match by getting different boards… There is definitely demand in the maker community for individual cm4 sales, but most of us aren’t willing to consider $150-250 usd for a pi (as advertised on Amazon). Microcenter even has boards for cm4, if by some miracle you somehow managed to get one…
Btw- microcenter has honored the pricing to the best of my knowledge, they just haven’t had inventory to speak of since plague of fear…
JW
This is good news, thanks for the update. The scalpers out there are making a mad profit right now selling the rpi4 at 4x the RRP. The quicker we can crush them the better for everybody.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
We’ve got pretty good at keeping units out of their hands (at least at scale), but I’m hoping we can stick the scalpers with lots of unwanted inventory at the point things turn around. Some losses to make up for the profits they’ve made at our expense during the shortage.
Alton
“I’m hoping we can stick the scalpers with lots of unwanted inventory at the point things turn around. Some losses to make up for the profits they’ve made at our expense during the shortage.”
Same here. I’ve had several projects on indefinite hold and some that were just given up on because we couldn’t even replace the Pi that was dead on arrival, much less get any to use on other R&D instrumentation and logging projects.
Juan Simon
I love and appreciate how both Liz and Eben are both taking the time for replying to many comments/questions for this article. Keep up the good work!
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Thank you! We’re both looking forward to things getting back to normal.
Roberto Previtera
These are good news indeed!
Will there be an A+ 4 in the future? With “Model A” form factor or, perhaps even better, with the Compute Module form factor?
Thanks!
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
We normally like to open up at least a $10 gap between the A and B variants, and for a variety of reasons it’s a little hard to do this in the Raspberry Pi 4 generation. But we’ll come back to this once all our existing products are in a robust stock position.
Ian Farquhar
When are we likely to see CM3?
As someone who took delivery of a Turing Pi just as the supply chain issues hit, my “cluster” consisting of a single CM3 seems a little sad. 🤣 I literally got the very last CM3 in Australia.
Thank you so much for the update, and I know this has been a really challenging issue.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
I think single-unit supply of CM3/3+ is likely to be one of the later things to recover, perhaps in late Q2 or early Q3. For products like this, with a significant industrial customer base, it’s very hard to stop them getting hoovered up into the grey market.
Turing Pi Consumer
Dear Eben,
Would there be any appetite for the rpi foundation / authorized resellers to certify Turing Pi owners to secure compatible Compute Modules.
Similar to OP – I purchased 2x Turing Pi (original), and have a Turing Pi 2 on it’s way. Both my Turing Pi (originals) are out of warranty, but haven’t even been unboxed due to supply issues. And, same as OP – I purchased these before the supply chain issues from an authorized reseller – on backorder since July 2021. (which I can also demonstrate).
Thanks for your time,
Bill Dunn
Kinda feels like getting the compute modules we need is a lost cause. No one seems to take our market segment seriously. My understanding is that the TuringPI project asked for help in getting us CM4 modules and were rebuffed.
David Holman
Will there be Pi 3B or 3B+ models again please? The BATC Portsdown amateur TV transceiver depend on 3Bs for some of the earlier models that are still supported. The later ones use Pi4s. Any way I have had a few electrical accidents and need some replacements!
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Some 3B and 3B+ will make their way into the single-unit market over the next few months, but as I’ve said in response to other posts they’re so popular in industrial applications that it’s hard to keep them from being hoovered up by bots. Doing our best!
Ben
You could try putting a wanted up in the forum (i think there is an area) see if there is anyone close by that now doesn’t use theirs and can donate etc.
Or keep an eye out for reuse/refurb at Okdo, they have cropped up a few times now.
Matthew
Good news, but still – shortage would not be so critical if you stop selling to commercial and industrial customers. Limit them same way as hobbyist. Force a ban to let them resell a Rpi kits – putting a 10euro worth of accesories for twice the price of Rpi board, meanwhile RPI4 boards not available. If there is any kit for Rpi, anyone should buy a Rpi for it separately. Any commercial organization run for profit is able to afford different price range of SBC, that hobbyist usually cannot / don’t want to. All who want to start with programming or projects for IOT or whatever (well there are endless possibilities) are put on hold, imagine how meany people are missing opportunities due to this. And not a better way that during winter break time…
Jony
Hi Eben, thanks for update and good news! Please may I ask if 3B+ will be still in production plan. Thanks.
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
3B+ is in production, and will remain in production until at least January 2026 (and probably much longer). We sold 635k 3B and 3B+ units in the ten months to the end of October, so these are still very popular.
ed street
What would be super good is a base board with user-added eMMC memory and RAM. This would greatly help the 3D printer community, which has been under heavy growth over the past few years.
The cm4 is a step in the right direction, but more is needed. Do these 100k units include CM4 boards as well?
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
A Raspberry Pi SBC with on-board eMMC is a common request: I think it’s fair to say we’d be making one now if we weren’t in a constraint situation on current products, and we’re likely to come back to the idea later in 2023. The 100ku is just Raspberry Pi 3A+, Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi Zero W units. CM4 production is dedicated to the industrial and commercial market, though we’ll continue to get some volume to (e.g.) BerryBase for single-unit sales.
Bill Dunn
As you mention in a different comment we in the USA really need a way to get ahold of some CM4 stock. Ordering from Germany is kind of a pain, and the only stock I can find on these in the USA is generally at extreme markup via Amazon scalpers, or retailers putting them in some kind of kit. It would really help if at least Amazon or Microcenter could get some actual stock themselves to sell at MSRP.
Afreez
Really appreciate your hard work, hope all can own their own Pi board easily as before, thanks!
Raspberry Pi Staff Eben Upton — post author
Thank you! Nearly there now.
TheDiveO
Problem is that RPi 4/8GBs are not very long lived in my experience, with the red LED of death morsing a failed voltage regulator. Life time expectancy seems to be below 2yrs with large passive cooling and mostly idle operation with 24/365 powered on. Maybe the quality of the voltage regs is a weak spot. Definitely not industrial grade.
Jean
Would you say the CM4 with EMMC plugged on the IO Board is a better durable solution?
crumble
I had no problem with long running pis. I killed mine by updating firmware or wrong voltages. Its easy to missplace an GPIO adapter by one row.
A pi out of the box ist not tought at all. If you can deal with downtimes and have a nice environment, then it runs very well. There are better systems if you have to harden him for tough environments. But there are many tasks in more or less clean environments.
Bigtrucker26
Really, your pi4 4/8 gb aren’t lasting?
I have a near launch 8gb that has been plugged in via pi-wall wort running openmediavault since I got it new… I’ve had to swap the memory card once or twice, but it’s the same pi… and I have also recently started running a couple dockers on it as well, since it mostly just sits around waiting for me to want something… and I never added any cooling, just a plastic case to protect it and hold it in place…
Anders
None of my Raspberry Pi 4bs, including the 8GB ones have failed. All have been 100% since launch.
TheDiveO
You lucky one!
James Hughes
Not really; you appear to have been unlucky. The Pi4 is very robust, and we have had very few reports of failures (compared with sales).
TheDiveO
BTW, uses the official 3A USBC power supply and I’m not using mSD but instead have an ATA-SSD with very moderate power consumption but sufficient performance attached via one of the few reliably working SSD enclosures with real Linux support (not just on paper).
Chris Melikian
Which SSD enclosure did you use please?
Matha Goram
Thanks for the detailed explanations. Very few companies provide the details. I’ll keep waiting patiently for a few Zero 2Ws as I have since Aug ’21.
Nhan
CM4 please, I’ve waited for a year for it.
Bill Dunn
They seem to have those earmarked for the commercial/Enterprise sector. I have not seen any comments in this thread about that changing unfortunately.
Ponder Stibbons
I’m having trouble getting hold of a raspberry pi from an approved reseller, two of my friends are also having problems.
My friend Marvin needs a pico for an upgrade, although he may have got around it as he keeps saying ‘what’s the point’. My other very good friend Sauron needs to upgrade the All-seeing-eye which has developed a squint. But Pimoroni won’t ship to Gardens of Isengard, Ankh-Morpork or Magrathea. I’ve got a relative in Narnia who is experiencing issues too.
I’m at a loss what to do. I’ve consulted The HH Guide to the Galaxy and all it says is DON’T PANIC in big friendly letters…
Yours Sincerely
Ponder Stibbons
℅ Lab 6b (Hex), High Energy Magic Building, Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork
Ref : Pimoroni’s shipping info on website…
Konstantin
I live in Ukraine, can I buy a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B for home use?
Lee Boulineau
Good news. Hopefully the 8GB will become less scarce in the coming months!!
Pencoys
Happy noises but I’ll believe it when I see it.
RPi3A+ and possibly RPi0 could do with more memory about 3.5Gb more.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
I could do with a small Mediterranean principality, but the world is the way the world is.
Jerry H.
Hope that the PI 3 A+ continues to be built for years to come. Among them all this is the most functional lowest power consumption board available. We use it in our robots because you can get a 6 hour operation with 2 18650 batteries. We run a logitech webcam with two way audio, tt motors / wheels, and text to speech functions. Perfect for STEM Kits. Controlled over the web!
No way you get more than an hour run time with the 3 or 4 B+ boards. The 3 A+ is perfect for small robots!
Steve
Hooray!
News supply’s, at last, approaching demand (Q3 ’23?) prompts cheeky questions: any upgrades planned for Pi4 or will it be a leap all the way to Pi5? 🤔😉
Dave
Even if the price rose a bit, I’m over the moon! Can’t wait to get my hands on a Raspberry Pi Zero W, and a couple others. During the Pandemic, I’ve just been sitting around, watching technologies advance, and thinking of all the things I could potentially make/deploy for my agency’s research and monitoring tasks.
I know it’s probably not the usual way, but I intend to buy them for myself, create the prototypes, and then apply for grants through my agency for more units’ purchase and deployment.
~Eagerly awaiting 2023 Raspberry Pi Distribution for Purchase!!
Amgine
I didn’t waste my time reading the whole article.
The “supply chain” claim happens to be complete bullshit: the shipping industry has been cutting Atlantic crossings for months to stop losing money on under-full ships. Propping up price – or at least shareholder returns – is the only still-standing reason for supply chain issues, has been since end of 2021.
If your suppliers will not provide the requirements at the price point, find other more-local suppliers, or build it yourself, or build a company to build it locally. Even if the component(s) increase in cost. Because dumping the unreliable/variable priced supplier is insurance against a future circumstance.
Which is what I did.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Thank you for the very helpful advice. We’ll get spinning up our own semiconductor fab right now: I have no idea why that didn’t occur to us earlier. By the way, do you have £20 billion? We’ll need it to build the fab.
Bill Dunn
Good comeback! I fully approve!
Amgine
Well, I have to admit I was surprised I could only find 12 semiconductor manufacturers in the UK, and I think only 4 with 28u capability. You may have to look in the EU.
But then, you already have a corporate market, and it’s huge! So you don’t need little old me, a hobbyist. As you have made abundantly clear.
MW
…are you a professional naysayer ??
Steve
Rubbish. The scarcity of Raspberry Pis is from the over-demand for microchips from manufacturers. Shipping costs, in terms of the value of orders, renain well below 1%.
tom
Great news. It would great to try get a supply of programmed MXL7704`s. When messing around
with gpio pins. Its so easy to kill it. As I found
out. its about 90 euro + for the kit to programme
it at home.
ArKay
With COVID currently on the rise on China, who knows what the future brings?
RM
We really could use some CM4s. It’s really a shame that these are going to commercial customers or someplace like BerryBase that only sells to specific countries. Also think about selling direct. This would allow queues for real people to get some of this product and not end up on eBay for two to three times the retail price.
John Arnold
Delighted to hear that the stock situation will improve soon. I use Raspberry Pis in my business making useful little doo-dads that make our jobs easier. Love what you guys do!
Zed
well, here in mooseland (Canada) we havent seen a single rpi product in almost 2 years now.
i’ve been waiting patiently to get my hands on 2 4b 8gb, one for my 3d printing projects and the other for 3d scanning projects. no luck so far..
hopefully we will get some products before 2024
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
You REALLY need to be checking rpilocator.com – I have it open in a tab all the time and stock regularly comes available in your part of the world.
Zed
The only model that was seen recently was the 4gb model (RPI4-MODBP-4GB), and that was in june. The “last stock” tab doesnt even show a date for the 8gb version (RPI4-MODBP-8GB)
so yeah idk where you get that info.. there is 2 official reseller in canada (only) and only one shows up on rpilocator.com.
i have bookmarks that i check everyday to make sure i dont miss a drop
Bill Dunn
Respectfully, I check RPILocator a lot, but the stock situation has not changed in months. The units I need NOBODY in the US has offered in 4 to 6 months. Even when they were offered they were sniped away before I could buy them (I gotta sleep sometime).
I am really hoping the supply chain works if self out as indicated. I get that allocation to Enterprises needs to take a certain priority, but the smaller community segments are becoming despondent. For some RPI uses, only particular units fit the need. Checking the RPIlocator is not always the answer when no one ever has the stock needed. I can’t make due with a RPI3, when the project needs an RPI4, or a CM4.
Konstantin
What is the difference between the UK and China RPI boards?
Gray
Any word on availability of non-kit pi boards in the Cambridge store? I need something that supports PoE (Preferably a 4B 1GB) for a project where it will be integrated in an old phone – a little tricky when they only have the full PSU+Keyboard etc kits! :)
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
No non-kitted ones there today (I’ve just checked) – but 3A+ is available and works with the PoE HAT.
Gray
Is there a special version of the PoE hat for the 3A+? I didn’t think it had the header or ethernet?
Paul N
“…holiday season”? That’s a summer thing, we’re in the festive season!
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
I, for one, am on holiday in a festive manner, for every moment of every remaining December and early January day when I’m not modding blog comments. Merry Christmas Paul :)
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
I haven’t eaten any food that required cutlery or drunk anything an under 18 would be allowed since my last day in the office. I’m already over it.
Neal Roberts
I’ve had backorders paid for since may 22 which were expected October which just keep moving back here in UK – it’s now end April 23 for pi zero (2), I’ve been having to buy used pi zeros here and there at inflated prices (2-3x cost) for Bluetooth converters I make for fitness bikes which I sell worldwide. I’ve had no choice but to do this as if I have no stock, I loose out on a sale – so profit is down just to keep myself/business afloat – even sold a new pi zero 2 I had ‘spare’ just to try and balance the books as they’re selling for x2 cost (the original zeros are fine for my needs).
I’m disappointed industry has gotten ALL the stock this year – leaving us small users High and Dry!
zouyulin
Thank you for the good news, but as a Chinese user, I only have a PI3B on hand, the performance is completely insufficient, I am very excited to get this news, the price of China’s Raspberry Pi is finally coming down!
Ali Berk
Great news! It will be wonderful to be able to find and use Raspberry Pi products at a reasonable price again.
Ivan
Seems to me that nothing changed. Cannot find a single Pi4 at “human” price.
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
Like Eben says above, try rpilocator, showing plenty of green lines for availability at standard prices from approved resellers right now: https://rpilocator.com/
Jat
Are any rpi4 8gb models restocking?
Sebastiaan
Thanks for the supply chain update.
1 month ago I contacted business@raspberrypi.com to order 800 Raspberry Pi’s. A follow-up email was sent 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately with no response. We need the Raspberry Pi’s in our smart vending. Would love to hear how I can get in touch.
Robert Johnson
if you double price on zero, please also upgrade something.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
We have upgraded our ability to still produce them despite the price of all the components increasing.
Sabine
Hear hear! 🤘
Unlimited Zero is a huge upgrade, even if it’s $5 more. ❤
Albert
rpilocator shows an almost complete lack of SBC. In particular, RPi 4 B is out of stock everywhere.
When will it be manufactured again?
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
If you set up alerts with rpilocator, you’ll have a much better chance. Our Approved Resellers get new stock every week but it sells out very quickly to those who there ready and waiting for it. Bit if you’re able to react as soon as rpilocator pings that your local resellers has new stock, you should get your hands on some 👍
Bill Dunn
I have alerts setup, they have not ever gone off, because the US retailers have never gotten restocked on what I need. OK, 1 in the last 8 months. However it was 3 in the morning, and I have to sleep sometime. I must conclude that either they are not ordering them, or they are not being provided to them. I have no insight as to which it is, however. That precludes that we are talking about completely honest dealing here, and the retailers are not just backdooring them to scalpers. Maybe they have a paid back order list so long that any stock they get is spoken for before ever being listed as well. RPILocator isn’t the answer to all problems, the retailers have to have stock for RPIlocator to be of any use.
Albert
I think it is better to turn to alternative SBCs that are more easily found, besides RPi 4 is now obsolete and suffers from several problems.
Bill Dunn
There are no real replacements for a CM4 8GB/32GB unfortunately which is what I need.
OyWin
What problems do the Pi4 suffer from? (Do you have a link to details?)
Alton
How do you set an alert that will notify me on multiple devices, both personal and work, so if I am away from my desk when product is available I can raise the alarm and see if someone can pounce on it.
.
We have no “local resellers”. The nearest metropolitan area big enough to support a brick and mortar source is about a 5 to 6 hour drive, each way.
Hans
Any update on the Q2 relief? Is this still accurate or will this slip back? Thanks for these updates! Helps give us hobbyists some light at the end of the tunnel.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Still accurate!
Paul L
That’s good news! Does this also mean we’re close to the release of the Pico WH? Still waiting for that one and would love to get a few!
Jacob Havinga
Does this mean that consumers and hobbyists have to wait until 2024 ? (RPI 4) ?
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
No. We expect it will become easy to get your hands on Pi 4 as an individual consumer at some point over this summer, with some improvement likely earlier than that. This isn’t new info – it’s just what Eben says above, about which our expectations haven’t changed.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
No.
Marcin
We, in the Amiga community, are really happy to hear the news above! The Raspberry Pi has done wonders to keep the Amiga a thriving and rewarding hobby even if it’s soon 30 years since it’s demise. Thank you.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
A lot of us – me and Eben included – grew up with Amigas: they’re a regular topic of conversation at Pi Towers, and a lot of us still have hardware!
Daniel Underwood
I noticed there wasn’t much mention of the 8GB variant of the Raspberry Pi 4, what is the outlook on getting one of those?
Bill Dunn
I believe elsewhere in the thread it is mentioned that those are not considered a consumer SKU. So still hard to find for now I guess. Just like CM4 Modules.
David
We are trying to secure some RPi 4 units for a summer camp and are starting to get nervous. Last year we were able to find some RPi400s for our camp but those don’t seem available this year. Hoping that the supply chain improves over the next couple months! Thanks.
Bill Dunn
Are you in the US? Prospects seem grim here.
David T.
Yes, I’m in the US. Can anyone from Raspberry Pi give us an update on the supply chain and whether more units will be available anytime soon? Thanks!
Bill Dunn
Yeah seems like no one wants to answer the hard questions. Or commit to any help for retail customers.
Bork
It really is beyond time to admit that rpilocator, for all it’s value, is no longer a sufficient answer here. Those of us in the anitpodes have zero local CM4 stock, and the alerts are generally for vendors who don’t sell here. It’s just time to bite the bullet and reserve CM4 stock for non-commercial use and get them to retail resellers. How many modberry 500’s does the world need right now?
Bill Dunn
I’d love to see that happen. Be able to stroll in any given store (or Amazon…or any supplier on RPILocator), seem RPI B 8GB, or CM4 practically any SKU (I want several 8/32) at MSRP, the last time RPI locator had anything I wanted was October. I never actually saw it available. just that it had been available.
I really do not think it is much to ask that they dedicate 1 month’s production entirely to retail. Announcing that things will get better and after 2 months of seeing absolutely NO CHANGE, is growing frustrating.
Jarrod Sinclair
Does anyone have any solid sources on CM4 modules(alreadying watching rpilocator)?. I have a project I have been working on the for the last few months and have been able to get by by using a Rpi4b I had laying around but now I am stuck. Everytime I see an instock notice I goto order and they are gone. I am at the point where I might need to switch SBC designs which I hate because I think Rpi is the best there is but after 8 months of not being able to get CM4 (or any) Rpis I am getting concerned that i am just wasting my time. Thanks!
Bill Dunn
I wish there was such a source. None of us would be watching this thread if such existed. They make it clear they do not consider the CM4 to be a Consumer part. Which is IMHO false. It’s very frustrating.
John V
That is.. disturbing. Trying to get my hands on a CM4 for my new HomeAssistant Yellow. Obviously if I had a crystal ball way back when that told me the future would suck, I would have gotten the full kit that included a CM4 but no, I went and got the DIY version that you have to supply your own CM4 because I thought it would give me more flexibility. Now I’m sitting with an HA box that is a paper weight because I can’t get a CM$ of ANY variety anywhere :(
Bill Dunn
Yeah, sometimes I do not think they truly understand their market. I wish they would get a grasp and understand. I wish they would come to terms with the idea of splitting out some of the production of all skus to non-B2B markets.
Gregor Fasching
Any update about the supply chain situation?
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
Eben’s update above remains accurate – that is, we are expecting things to improve in Q2.
Zed
there is absolutely no sign of any improvement whatsoever.
do you expect Q2 to just instantly have stocks in all of your approved major reseller?
here in canada, we havent seen a single rpi since june 2022
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
>do you expect Q2 to just instantly have stocks in all of your approved major reseller?
I’m absolutely not snarking: please read the post. I’m paraphrasing, but it says right there, in big black letters, that the second quarter is a typical pre-pandemic quarter BUT we have a backlog to deal with.
William Dunn
We (or at least I) get that. Still in the 3 months of this thread there are questions and concerns that a number of us at least I think, consider unaddressed.
While inventory seems to popup (mostly in Europe) on a daily basis there are other territories that seem to continue to get basically nothing.
There are SKUs that are scarce, but have huge pent-up demand that are not accounted for in the original post, nor in the thread that many of us want to see addressed. CM4 Modules (and not the wimpy ones 8/32 type), P4 8GB boards.
The initial post got us all excited, and I think we are all expecting a ramp up, but with no changes in inventory over the last 3 months, so no visible ramp up there is concern.
KC
Hi : We are not getting Raspberry pi in India for a very long time. The authorized resellers’ website is constantly saying “Out of stock” – any help?
AussiePi
I can only hope that by Q4 2023 stock (and prices) return to normality so that the educators that have put all RPi based projects/education on hold can once again prepare to include RPi as part of the syllabus. Hobbyists have additional options in this space, whereas Education needs the robust community, support and polish that is RPi.
Marco Griep
Happy to hear that, currently rasperries are very low on stock over here
Jqw767
TSMC, GloFo, Samsung Foundries have capacities at their disposal, as do PCB manufacturers who were also a bottleneck, same is true for OSATs. I would expect your assessments from end of last year should see a pull in of timeline, as the slowing economy, inflation and reduction of covid impacts all come together which reduced demands and the allocation-demand-bubble burst we saw in our part of the semiconductor business end of Dec/beginning of Jan.
Ramping your own production to peak capacity again with skilled operators will likely be more challenging than sourcing the components now. Wish you and the team the best of success :).
Keeping my fingers crossed for anything equal or better than Pi3 for my Voron2.4. Might have to scavenge my RetroPi Arcade Cabinet in the meantime…
Bruno GASC
Is it reasonable to wait raspberry pi 4 for future industrial projects.
When will it be possible to order raspberry-pi 4b 8Go?
Bill Dunn
Unknown. If I remember correctly they commented somewhere in the thread that 8GB is included in the SKUs they have reserved for Enterprise. So unless you want a lot of them and are a legitimate BIG business until things further normalize in Q3/4 you might be out of luck.
FredC
Just found Raspberry Pi 400’s on sale at amazon for the “bargain” price of £129 (bare unit only). They’re hosting a “Raspberrry Pi Store” designed with text and images taken directly from your site. It says “Sold by MACnificent and Fulfilled by Amazon”.
They’ve got a few other items at VERY inflated prices.
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
Thanks for the heads-up – my colleague who looks after all things Amazon is taking a look at this.
FredC
Helen, the pages on Amazon are STILL there.
All you’ve got to do is search Raspberry Pi and click through one of the recommended products. That takes you to the Amazon Raspberry Pi Store where the price gouging is taking place (£119 for RPi 400, £158.99 for RPi 400 Desktop kit, £11.99 for PicoH, £10.49 for PicoW, £50.90 for a Sense Hat, everything else seem to have a 25% markup).
Surely this can be taken down.
Kevin
Well, we are into the second quarter of 2023. I still cannot find a raspberry pi at non price gouging prices.
I can honestly say that I really do not want to try any other RPi projects any more since we never get updated on the status and feel completely unsupported by the company. Although I appreciate rpilocator, I cannot camp out there all day long. I have a job.
Please do better to update the status. It may be too late for me though.
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
We understand that the wait is super frustrating. One week into Q2, we’re beginning to see what Eben describes above: “you’ll see Zero and Zero W come back into general availability first, followed by products like Raspberry Pi 3A+ which do not have an extensive industrial customer base; and, finally, the various versions of Raspberry Pi 4.” As I’ve checked rpilocator from time to time over the last week, I’ve seen that various different models have remained in stock at the RRP with various approved resellers in Europe and north America, although not yet Pi 4, which as Eben says is expected to become readily available later than other products.
Bill Dunn
Are we looking at the same RPI Locator? There is NOTHING in stock in North America. In stock would be waking up in the morning and actually seeing something, and even better something I actually want in stock.
In stock would be I take a drive to my local Microcenter and they have things on their shelves. PIshop getting a tiny order and selling out before anyone even sees it go in stock is not in stock. What is frustrating is avoiding the simple expedience of directing some stock away from enterprise. In particular the high-end stuff some of us need like CM4 modules and RPI 4 8GB models
John Ellenberger
Like he says there is no inventory in the US. I was looking for an RP4 and the trolls are selling them for $170 on Amazon. Feels like we are months away from normal across the pond.
Zed
the problem is that the little stock that could be seen as useful by the hobbyists are bundled up by your resellers as (extreme kits) and they sell those kits at 260$ a pop instead of the usual 105$ (moose dollars)
i tried to give some feedback on this, even linked to the store with the actual bundle, but someone decided to remove my post from this forum.
Alton
Kevin said, “I can honestly say that I really do not want to try any other RPi projects any more since we never get updated on the status and feel completely unsupported by the company. Although I appreciate rpilocator, I cannot camp out there all day long. I have a job.”
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Same here. Not to mention the need to sleep, eat, and other domestic chores.
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There is a charity bicycle event coming up in a little under 3 months. Several Raspberry Pi based systems are deployed along the route to support safety communication and logistics in “dead zones” where there is no functioning internet connectivity. These help quickly find distressed and lost riders, and dispatch supplies up and down the route as needed. Due to terrain we can’t just leave gaps if we can’t build enough units in time for the event, and entropy has claimed some units that were used in prior years, so they need to be replaced.
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Again it’s the dilemna of the “DIY Industrial” and assorted advanced hobby volunteer infrastructure that is heavily impacted by only Big Megacorp availability of Pi motherboards. In the military we call that “collateral damage”.
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Another semi-industrial casualty has been the ability to maintain and expand parts of the aviation ADS-B monitoring network around the world. There are also countless amateur weather stations, many in very remote locations, based on the Pi. I know of several that have gone silent because no one can get a replacement Pi to fix them. This puts some holes in our meteorological monitoring infrastructure, especially in sparsely populated areas that depend on volunteers to observe and log weather conditions to better improve forecasts as well as better characterize severe weather events. Since tornado season is already underway again, these blind spots can cost lives.
Bill Dunn
Extreme cases but it does make the point.
I’ve said it since the original post of this announcement in December that I simply do not understand why they cannot divert some allocation to the retail market. I get it that they have obligations to corporate partners. However I don’t understand why they don’t feel some obligation to the community that got them off the ground. It is ridiculous that NO CM4/PI4 (4+GB) seem to be reaching the retail market in any sort of volume. We are punished for not wanting buy 10000’s of units. I’m also convinced that some of these corporate partners are selling stock on to “scalpers” or even have scalper shell companies. The Scalpers never seem to lack for stock, they are getting it somehow, purchase sniping cannot be the only way.
Bill Dunn
There was a glimmer of hope this morning. Digi-Key is showing CM4 in stock. Going to there site showed it in stock (250) Ready to ship. However that hope ends at the adding to the basket, where it says back ordered.
I ordered anyway just to see what happens.
Alton
and success! The (weekly, monthly, annual, lifetime?) ration of Pi motherboards, a Pi Zero W with header, was successfully ordered from Adafruit a few minutes ago. Freight and all made it a bit steep but Paypal said the order did actually go through.
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There was a bit of a learning curve figuring out the Google 2 factor authentication. I’d have inserted a couple of key clarifying words in the procedure instructions, as there were multiple possible interpretations of some steps.
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But, limited stock is starting to flow after the 2 year drought. Maybe some scalpers will end up like the villain in the the movie “Trading Places” when the true orange futures forecast was released.
John Johnson
I am teaching a college course on IoT in the fall and we are biting our fingernails in worry that the Raspberry Pi won’t yet be generally available by that point. We are halfway through Q2 with a supposed return to pre-pandemic levels going on, but it doesn’t feel like it. And unlimited supply next quarter doesn’t seem feasible yet…hope I am wrong.
Bill Dunn
What model(s) are you hoping for?
Simon Beaumont
Sadly we have decided to retool our development away from Raspberry PI and look at RiscV; during the “crisis” we did some fpga based soft core work with riscV and now there are some SoCs coming on stream which look really good against Pi Zero for example which was always the sweet spot for our navigation systems work. I think everyone has re-learned to second and third source everything. There are even some nice arm64 alternatives about now but riscV is a great architecture and open as well – I’m sure volume tapeouts are on their way.
Jeff Orig
Hi Eben,
Any chance you folks can do another post with an update on the supply chain? We are midway through Q2. Still seeing if your earlier estimates are still on track. Thank you.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
Hello! Yep, Eben’s predictions for the rest of 2023 are still on track based on this post from him.
Sam Wainwright
Well this aged poorly. Halfway through 2023 and it’s still impossible to get anything at all. What exactly are we supposed to do?
Raspberry Pi Staff Helen Lynn
We’re just shy of two thirds of the way through Q2, and supply is indeed recovering, which corresponds exactly to the outlook Eben gave above back in December; we do understand that it’s frustrating that it’s “recovering” and not “recovered”, but the situation is very much what he set out. The first products to come back into stock, again as Eben predicted, have been Zero and 3A+, which as rpilocator.com has shown have had decent availability at least across Europe and North America for a while now. Raspberry Pi 4 has been slower to come back into stock as we expected – we are just seeing the beginnings of improved availability for it now. We’re on track for recovery to pre-pandemic levels of stock in the second half of this year, as Eben says above.
Bill Dunn
I’m really not trying to be the voice of doom here, but I have to ask is this a matter of prioritization or supply of components? Because I am really confused it would seem to me that the standard PI4 model and perhaps the CM4 SKUs would be one of the first in priority if possible. I just watched two different videos from smaller makers posted just today explaining why they are going to be switching away from RPI because they just cannot get stock at all to support their businesses. Is the limiting factor here the processor? There are so many “Pi alikes” out there that are shipping in volume, but use a different processor. I have to ask is the real limitation that Broadcom is failing you?
Maddox McLoughlin
Will the Rasp pi 5 release in the near future or is that distant?
Bill Dunn
Somewhat distant based on current information.
RU Kidding
So sorry to hear about the 3B & 3B+. They are so useful for 3D printing.
jake
“As a result, we can say with confidence that, after a lean first quarter, we expect supply to recover to pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of 2023, and to be unlimited in the second half of the year.”
I mean, was this only for units that nobody is interested in buying? Seems like we all want the Pi4 8GB models… And they are pretty much impossible to get. We are already almost through the 2 quarter and there hasn’t been anything more than a trickle of stock, and certainly nothing in the 8gig range.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
We’ve been seeing 8GB units pop up regularly on rpilocator for a few months now but you do have to be very quick to get those as the stock is snapped up soon after it is announced. Zero W is in free flow (rpilocator has stopped even bothering to announce when these come in stock because it’s so regular) and lots of nice Compute Modules are popping up all over the world.