True, but also consider you still need to add a radio and then run it all on batteries. There are much better solutions that still cost less. Not to mention, having to rely on Raspberry Pi of any kind for commercial use is tough in large quantities (speaking from direct experience).
As a hobbyist tool, this is great and nothing wrong with it. But in the traditional IoT sense, we are usually talking large volumes of cheap devices running on batteries.
While i agree that products shouldn't ship on raspberry pi, it's not as nonviable as you might think.
> Not to mention, having to rely on Raspberry Pi of any kind for commercial use is tough in large quantities
Maybe you weren't talking to the right people? I've shipped two products using raspberry pi and getting them in quantity was never a problem for me. we could easily get them in quantities of 500-1000 at a time for the RPI0W models and the RPI3B+ models.
> True, but also consider you still need to add a radio and then run it all on batteries
I don't think Nerves is a great fit for battery power, but RPI0W comes with a BLE and WiFi radio built in. It's also easy to add LORA or other sub ghz radios.
Didn't say Raspberry products aren't viable. I have shipped over 50k units with Raspberry Pi across three products. But the margins are terrible and many times a loss when you factor in user acquisition costs.
RPI0W is now double the price at $10. You still need to add power (lipo and/or charger), enclosure.
With Raspberry Pi stuff
1.) There is nearly 0 (max I have seen is $2 off) price break at volume.
2.) You have essentially one vendor (that uses distributors)
3.) When a new version launches, the older version inventory gets very constrained.
4.) You can't customize the PCB
5.) You can't get any support from Broadcom
I mean a lot IoT problems/solutions seems all about tiny things running on coin-cell batteries for years.
I guess the point is that there is a huge difference between hobbyist and commercial viability. It is a significant gap in terms of engineering effort and target BOM costs between the two. Have seen countless products fail because people with no commercial hardware experience tried to launch a product with hobbyist tools and components.
But, again, as a hobbyist it is fine. If you are considering commercializing your hobby project one day, then I would think about it differently. At least consider Rockchip. You can get a Raspi clone for less money and can work with them to customize if needed. If it runs on batteries in a small form factor, would reconsider using linux.
A recent episode of the Smartlogic podcast[^1] interviewed the Nerves team and discussed this a bit. Their example was something like: you wouldn't build a smart lightbulb with nerves, but you might build the smart bulb hub with it. I think that makes a lot of sense and still fits a very good use case: something low power, but internet connected and possibly serving a UI over a browser or an API to a mobile app. There are a great number of IOT or IOT-adjacent projects that are a good fit for something like this, even if it isn't necessarily appropriate for everything.
As a hobbyist tool, this is great and nothing wrong with it. But in the traditional IoT sense, we are usually talking large volumes of cheap devices running on batteries.