9$ computer

[anujdeshpande]

There was a pretty interesting discussion about the BOM costs for this on G+

https://plus.google.com/+ArndBergmann/posts/Mt61RznVrpm
Check out the comments.

Bottomline is that they can barely attain that price based on publicly available prices for bulk.

[coppice]

There was a pretty interesting discussion about the BOM costs for this on G+

https://plus.google.com/+ArndBergmann/posts/Mt61RznVrpm
Check out the comments.

Bottomline is that they can barely attain that price based on publicly available prices for bulk.

When did real bulk semiconductor prices ever become public?

[edy]

Hi guys,

I'm a sucker for this stuff. I bought an Arduino a while ago and also the first batch of RasPi when they announced it.

So I went on Kickstarter and expected to buy a CHIP for $9. But then shipping to Canada is $20! So minimum would be $29. Then I noticed you only have a crappy low-res composite video output. So I looked at getting the package with a VGA or HDMI adapter board which adds another $10 and $15 respectively.

So to get a CHIP to plug into an HDMI monitor or TV, like RaspBerry Pi, costs a minimum of $9+15+20 shipping = $44.

Then I saw the Pocket CHIP and was liking the fact that I could take it with me. But that was $49 and did not include any battery or VGA/HDMI adapter so if I wanted to use it on a TV I would still need that, and I would have to get a battery still. Add shipping and that option would have been I think about $74 because shipping goes up.

Finally I settled on "All The Things" which includes 2 CHIP boards, a VGA and HDMI adapters and a battery and a Pocket CHIP for $93, and shipping goes up to $30 so in the end I pay $123 US which in Canadian is $150-something! And with the VISA exchange and other ripoff practices they will likely overcharge on conversion fees too and foreign currency. I originally was planning to use my PayPal US account.

So at the end of a day, a $9 computer ended up costing me $150+ dollars. Go figure! And I won't get anything for 1 year! Geez!

So did I get suckered or what? 

Ok so apparently the BOM for the $9 CHIP is supposed to  be more than $9 according to many who have analyzed this. Many speculate that the shipping fee ($20 to Canada) is "padded" so they can make up some of the money in shipping. But also, the $9 CHIP is bare-bones and most anticipate that the accessories (like the VGA and HDMI adapter boards) actually are over-priced based on their BOM so it evens out. Most people will have to buy one of those boards or else they will be stuck on a low-resolution composite video out. Plus the "PocketCHIP" is also a popular addition and there is more room to pad the cost on that item as well.

So all-in-all I believe the "$9" was a marketing tactic in order to generate as much hype as possible. And yes, while you can technically function on the $9 CHIP (using composite video and some USB or Bluetooth keyboard/mice you need to buy separately anyways), most people will likely not be stopping at just the bare-bones CHIP. There may also be some corporate subsidizing going on here but it probably isn't all that much. I'm sure most of the profit-making will be on the add-ons to make the CHIP actually more usable... bringing up the price as you can see to the cost of RasPi's, although CHIP does have integrated memory and also Bluetooth/WiFi which is an advantage over the RasPi (at least the first version). The processor may be a bit under-powered but good enough for basic tasks..... You are not likely going to make a media-box out of it.

[edy]

The pledge I understand is also a support for a project but this one was decided long ago that it was going to happen, with or without my money. And since the CHIP project is way over-funded... I thought more about my pledge and decided to cancel it before it was too late.

I felt like it was too much of an impulse buy on my part... especially when after shipping and conversion rates to $CAN it was over $150+ for a product coming to me in over 1 year away. A lot can happen in that time.

So if anything, this CHIP Kickstarter just got me more interested in using what I already have.... my Arduino and RasPi. I don't want yet another board sitting collecting dust in the basement.

[madires]

Some interesting news: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-people-that-you-will-make-and-sell-something-which-cost-you-20-for-9/

So the actual price is 39$ and the 9$ kickstarter is just a promo to get media attention.

[janoc]

I do wonder how they will handle the bad press that will inevitably follow once people learn that they have been duped.

These sort of campaigns sound like something a fly by night outfit that will be gone tomorrow will do, not a company that plans on actually staying around for a while.

[Marco]

You aren't really duped ... they never promised continued availability at that price, or continued availability at all.

[Rasz]

I do wonder how they will handle the bad press that will inevitably follow once people learn that they have been duped.

they will be very very sad on their walk to the bank

[edavid]

Some interesting news: https://olimex.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/how-to-get-in-the-news-tell-people-that-you-will-make-and-sell-something-which-cost-you-20-for-9/

So the actual price is 39$ and the 9$ kickstarter is just a promo to get media attention.

That is not news, it's just FUD.  They may screw up and not deliver, but the actual price is $9 plus shipping ($14 in the US).

BTW, they have said that the post-Kickstarter pre-order price will be the same.

[madires]

That is not news, it's just FUD.  They may screw up and not deliver, but the actual price is $9 plus shipping ($14 in the US).

BTW, they have said that the post-Kickstarter pre-order price will be the same.

I think that $9 is simply too inexpensive. And we've read too much false promises on kickstarter. Until they deliver and don't increase the price later on I'll stay sceptical.

[Howardlong]

Work the figures for yourselves, if you've ever brought a product to market you will know that this smells. The more I look at this the more I think either, at best, it's a bunch of naive hipsters with an awful lot of time and spare philanthropy on their hands, or it's a scam. Either way, it's not a $9 computer.

If it looks too good to be true etc.

[ez24]

seems to me you can do a lot with

39,560 backers pledged $2,071,927 ($50,000 goal) to help bring this project to life (dated June 6 '15).

like really make 40,000 units ?

They got 41 times the goal - maybe they can start their own company in China.   I wonder how much someone could raise with a $1.00 computer?

[miguelvp]

On my count it's 48,519 units for a total of $436,671, the rest ($1,635,256) for paying kickstarter and the other peripherals that seems to have a high profit margin.

$10 LiPO Battery
$10 VGA Adapter
$15 HDMI Adapter
$40 PocketC.H.I.P.

They should be able to reach their goal even if they sold 14,623 units at a lost.

Take into account that the lost leaders where capped at 5000 units, so they decided to offer another 5000 units when the first ones were all gone, and then a third offer after that.

So they probably where running the numbers to make sure they could still offer another 5000 lost leader batches.

[Howardlong]

seems to me you can do a lot with

39,560 backers pledged $2,071,927 ($50,000 goal) to help bring this project to life (dated June 6 '15).

like really make 40,000 units ?

They got 41 times the goal - maybe they can start their own company in China.   I wonder how much someone could raise with a $1.00 computer?

Because, with your figures, each backer had pledged $52, not $9? None of them will be receiving a $9 computer.

[edavid]

Because, with your figures, each backer had pledged $52, not $9? None of them will be receiving a $9 computer.

I guess you don't understand what an average is.

[Howardlong]

Because, with your figures, each backer had pledged $52, not $9? None of them will be receiving a $9 computer.

I guess you don't understand what an average is.

I re-worked ez24's own figures. What did I get wrong?

seems to me you can do a lot with

39,560 backers pledged $2,071,927 ($50,000 goal) to help bring this project to life (dated June 6 '15).

like really make 40,000 units ?

Edit to add: for the proponents of this alleged $9 computer, please feel free to show what you believe to be the cost breakdown and biz model.

[edavid]

Because, with your figures, each backer had pledged $52, not $9? None of them will be receiving a $9 computer.

I guess you don't understand what an average is.

I re-worked ez24's own figures. What did I get wrong?

The higher margin items like the battery may well be subsidizing the CPU boards.  That doesn't mean that some people didn't buy just a CPU.  For example, I did, so I will be receiving a $14 CPU, unless they fail to deliver.

Edit to add: for the proponents of this alleged $9 computer, please feel free to show what you believe to be the cost breakdown and biz model.

It seems a little cheaper than the Raspberry Pi 1 A+, so maybe $15 cost for the CPU?  No idea of the biz model, but I don't know that for Raspberry Pi either (nor do I particularly care).

[miguelvp]

Yup,  14,623 got the CHIP by itself, but international shipping was a bit high and probably they still make a profit out of the S&H for each of those boards, they were able to reduce shipping but there might still break even for customers outside of the US.

But for the rest there is a catch, they can't refund the extra money for the shipping meaning that the 44% "savings" in shipping might end up in their pockets unless the customer does one of the following:

A) A fresh pledge reward tier for 5,000 C.H.I.P.s shipping in March with the new reduced shipping costs. To join this new tier, please click *MANAGE MY PLEDGE* on the campaign page and select the March C.H.I.P. tier.

B) Special treats and accessories only available via BACKERKIT post-campaign for backers who wind up with a little extra left on their pledge.

Only 627 backers chose option A, so they do keep the change

[bakerts]

So at the end of a day, a $9 computer ended up costing me $150+ dollars. Go figure! And I won't get anything for 1 year! Geez!

So did I get suckered or what? 

I felt the same way. I went in wanting a cheap and fun new toy, but left $74 in the hole. I got the pocket chip and HDMI adapter. Also, the base level pocket chip does come with it's own battery installed.

[edy]

I'm glad I got out. I'm the sucker that got excited about getting a Pocket CHIP and by the time I was done pledged >$150 Canadian for it. Thankfully as a first time Kickstarter user I learned you can still back out if the campaign isn't over yet.

They are not shipping anything for at least a year...a lot can happen. I would rather sit on the sidelines and wait.

If I do get anything, I would rather pay for a RaspBerry Pi 2 where I know it is an organization that has helped educational goals and has some charitable projects...

[ranch varment]

well if its $9 for a gig.

if you want a terrahert computer costs you $9000 and a shitload of wireless networking.

[hamster_nz]

well if its $9 for a gig.

if you want a terrahert computer costs you $9000 and a shitload of wireless networking.

Strangely enough, I've just finished off a 1/8th TFPOP (Fixed Point Operations Per Second - I'm using 35-bit numbers) computer, and it cost me nothing close to that.

Since a 32-bit multiply on an ARM takes 4 cycles and the mix of math operations I use it performs in the ball-park of 1 THz of ARM cores (which would be slowed down by code jumps and load/store cycles).

It is also run by a single 36W plug pack and needs no networking 8-)

What do you want to compute that needs a THz of CPUs?

[Mr.B]

sounds really good doesnt it,  terrahert!

well, by being that wasteful and not using custom ttl,  I guess it actually even wouldnt be that fast.  its only a 1000 times 1 gig,  so its not much.
I think my gtx980 (64x32 stream processors -2048!!!!) would beat it anyway, and it only cost $800, and only worth about $350 today.

20c cores. hehehe

WTF... 
I am at a complete loss...

[hamster_nz]

oh im sorry, you better go network a 1000 cpus at 1ghz when ive already got 2048 cuda cores at 3ghz on my little ordinary seeming little graphics card.

its just true man,  im sorry if its just too hard to understand... 

Man its consumer equipment but I do work on the best.  I forked out $800!!!! when it just came out,  im sorry that it wasnt price performance and its only worth about $350 now - you can get a 40x40 system for that much now the price functions rolled over, its just the truth.


Its just too hard to know that 1000 pieces of shit, cant even match one video card....

Wow man! Turn down the dial down a little!

There are definitely use-cases where 1000 small computers is better than your video card.

Easy ones:

1) Driving video wall of 30 by 30 displays (57,600 x 32,400 pixels). You could do that with 1000 little ARM boards,one strapped to each monitor. No video card would have the 4Tb/s of video bandwidth required for the screens :-)

2) With 512MB of RAM each, that gives about 0.5TB of memory which can be accessed almost instantly. This would allow you to do map-reduce queries much quicker than you could on a PC with video cards - assume that the memory bandwidth on a board is approximately the same as that of a SSD disk (see http://www.roylongbottom.org.uk/Raspberry%20Pi%20Benchmarks.htm#anchor9 for actual numbers for an actual board), this would be able to process data 1000x quicker than any SSD equipped PC could.

3) Particle simulations, where different nodes could manage the life of different sets of particles.

4) Monte carlo simulations

5) Combined I/O - As each of these boards has 4GB of NAND. On other boards NAND has around 20MB/s of bandwidth so a cluster of 1000 of these would have about 20GB/s of bandwidth from a pool of 4TB.

As an example application, a cluster of 1000 would be perfect to hold a 2TB database with the genomes of a 1000 people, and to be able to pattern match against it in under a minute.... it would be about 100x faster than a PC.

[edy]

So after I backed out of this $9 computer (which came closer to $50 once you get all the bits you need to actually plug it into an HDMI TV and the high cost of shipping)... I got more interested in my Rasberry Pi sitting in my basement (which cost less). I downloaded all the main SD card images they promote and made up SD's....  NOOBS, Raspian, OpenELEC, OSMC, Pidora, RISC OS... and "rediscovered" all the fun I can have with it.

One thing I didn't know is you can use OpenELEC and OSMC to make it into a media-player that will support MP4, MKV, AVI.... all up to 1080p resolution played fine on my 40" TV! I just plugged a USB stick with movies on it and it played all the formats no problem, with fast seeking! It was faster and easier to use than my WDTV player!

This is a great substitute if I need to buy any more players to use in various installations. I can't wait to try other things with it. I imagine they will try to port stuff to the "$9" Banana computer too but will they have a big enough support community and easy images to download and run?