The Raspberry Pi SBCs have been in short supply for a couple of years, especially for individual buyers since Raspberry Pi Trading prioritizes commercial customers, but Eben Upton has just announced some good news with over 100,000 boards comprised of a mix of Raspberry Pi Zero W, Pi 3A+, and Raspberry Pi 4 2GB and 4GB variants being made available for single-unit sales through approved resellers.
Eben however notes there’s more to do, and recommends buying from an approved reseller to get the boards at the recommended retail price (RRP), checking rpilocator to check for availability, and potentially considering switching to the Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico W if the project allows it as there’s plenty of stock for the MCU boards. Industrial and enterprise customers who still have issues can get in touch with the company by email using business <at> raspberrypi.com. But based on some feedback I received, it does not necessarily help if your product ships in really low volumes (< 100 pieces).
Going forward, Raspberry Pi Trading expects supplies to recover to pre-pandemic levels in Q2 2023, and the availability issue should be fully resolved sometime in H2 2023 with “unlimited supplies” (later clarified as “hundreds of thousands of units available at any given time”), even for individual customers and single-unit orders. The Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W should come back into general availability first, followed by the Raspberry Pi 3A+, and finally Raspberry Pi 4 boards and CM4 modules.
The not-so-good news is that after the earlier price increase for the Raspberry Pi 4 2GB to $45 and all CM4 modules costing $5 more, the price for the Raspberry Pi Zero boards will have to be increased as well. Specifically, the price of Raspberry Pi Zero will go from $5 to $10, and Zero W from $10 to $15. One silver lining is that there shouldn’t be any single-unit limitations when purchasing a Pi Zero, something that was implemented since its launch in 2015.
I can see some Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ boards and Raspberry Pi CM4 1GB RAM modules in Rpilocator, but when I filter results for Raspberry Pi 4 there’s absolutely nothing in stock. That means you’d have to look for alternative (non-approved) resellers, such as RAKwireless who is currently selling a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB kit with a heatsink and thermal plate for $79, or pay big bucks on Amazon or eBay.
Via the Raspberry Pi Blog
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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