I don't see anything about Ethernet/Wi-Fi. Am I missing something?
I understand they had to cut some features to reduce the prize. But networking is such a fundamental requirement for these types of systems, you'd think that it would be the last feature to be excluded.
Can the HDMI port be abused for some kind of networking?
There are a whole bunch of extra features tucked away inside HDMI. I know the Pi doesn't support Ethernet-over-HDMI, because it's missing the necessary PHY, but apparently it does support I2C-over-HDMI. I2C isn't very fast (tops out at 3.4Mbit, if you're lucky); is there anything else which could be used hidden inside somewhere?
One interesting thing about I2C, though, is that it would be cheap and easy to build a chassis with a whole bunch of these $5 modules wired together via I2C. It's almost certainly not cost effective in any way, but would be interesting, particularly if you could get useful work out of it...
Still, I for one would be more than willing to pay a few extra bucks for a stripped-down version of the Pi with wireless included.
Actually, all I'm looking for in this type of machine is Linux, Wi-Fi and GPIO, in a reasonably compact format. Maybe the Pi isn't a good fit, since it is more about "teaching computing" than "building your IoT stuff".
I agree, if this would include an ethernet port it would be the cheapest embedded linux board with wired networking. I would really like such a device and am kinda sad it doesn't exist. Like a ESP8266 but wired.
I understand they had to cut some features to reduce the prize. But networking is such a fundamental requirement for these types of systems, you'd think that it would be the last feature to be excluded.