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    Hosting a website on a disposable vape

    (bogdanthegeek.github.io)
    1386 points BogdanTheGeek | 12 comments | 15 Sep 25 17:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    SXX ◴[15 Sep 25 15:17 UTC] No.45250676[source]▶
    Talking of cheap and powerful devices one can also look at Chinese UZ801 4G LTE (Qualcomm MSM8916) dongles. They cost like only $4-5 and pack quite impressive HW: 4GB eMMC, 512MB RAM, actual 4G modem sometimes with 2 sim switching support. Since it's actually old Android SOC there is even GPU and GPS in there. And a lot of work was already done on supporting them:

    https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Zhihe_series_LTE_dongles_...

    https://github.com/OpenStick/OpenStick

    So yeah if you looking for hardware platform for weird homelab projects that's can be it.

    replies(13): >>45251087 #>>45251521 #>>45251613 #>>45252249 #>>45252358 #>>45253076 #>>45253803 #>>45254159 #>>45254425 #>>45256355 #>>45256875 #>>45259550 #>>45264049 #
    happyhardcore ◴[15 Sep 25 15:44 UTC] No.45251087[source]▶
    I've found [1] to be the best guide for getting started with them; you need to make a copy of the firmware partitions that you re-flash after installing Linux onto it in order to get the 4G modem working. It's honestly absurd how much you're getting for a fiver with it; add a power bank (or make your own from scavenged vape batteries in the spirit of this post) and you have a full Linux machine with WiFi and 4G that can work almost anywhere.

    [1] https://wvthoog.nl/openstick/

    replies(2): >>45251247 #>>45260486 #
    motorest ◴[15 Sep 25 15:56 UTC] No.45251247[source]▶
    What an interesting gadget! It looks like it has most of the features of an Orange Pi Zero, but at around 1/5th of the price.
    replies(1): >>45251359 #
    1. sitzkrieg ◴[15 Sep 25 16:04 UTC] No.45251359[source]▶
    it's almost like everything matching the pi footprint is severely overpriced!
    replies(6): >>45252959 #>>45255944 #>>45256329 #>>45256414 #>>45256542 #>>45259329 #
    2. motorest ◴[15 Sep 25 18:04 UTC] No.45252959[source]▶
    There's a silver lining in raspberry pi and it's clones being so relatively expensive: they create a market and demand for hackable devices. In an age with so much pressure to plug every single digital hole, these devices bring some much needed market pressure to the opposite direction.
    replies(1): >>45259095 #
    3. bigiain ◴[15 Sep 25 22:51 UTC] No.45255944[source]▶
    Gotta pay for the cop doing surveillance device r&d somehow...

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/rpi_maker_in_residenc...

    4. tkfoss ◴[15 Sep 25 23:47 UTC] No.45256329[source]▶
    Isn't Orange Pi Zero already sold at cost of material & labor?
    5. DrewADesign ◴[15 Sep 25 23:59 UTC] No.45256414[source]▶
    I like the picos. I think there’s a lot of bang for your buck in there for making little devices and prototyping.
    6. cultofmetatron ◴[16 Sep 25 00:16 UTC] No.45256542[source]▶
    what you're generally paying for is support and community. havin people you can ask questions and knowing there's a good chance that soneone out there has both seen your issue and knows a fix is extremely valuable and worth the money if you're just trying to put together a small one off project.
    7. TeMPOraL ◴[16 Sep 25 07:23 UTC] No.45259095[source]▶
    Or, put another way: to have electronics so cheap today, we're sacrificing empowerment technology could give us. We have dirt cheap supercomputers in our pocket, but what for? They're just overspecced entertainment machines.
    8. Tepix ◴[16 Sep 25 07:56 UTC] No.45259329[source]▶
    The original Raspberry Pi Zero was a good deal at $5 or even at $10. Too bad it was always poorly available and mostly bundled with overpriced dongles, power supplies, SD cards etc.
    replies(2): >>45260158 #>>45263285 #
    9. dspillett ◴[16 Sep 25 09:55 UTC] No.45260158[source]▶
    The poor avaialbility was largely due to the great pricing: small commercial users scooped them up in the largest quanitites that they could because they were so competative against other options both in terms of pricce and having the advantage of decent support¹ unlike other inexpensive SoCs. Max-per-customer limits imposed by some distributors were not hard to get around. That meant it was difficult for the individual tinkerers that they were aimed at to get hold of them. And once an availability gap was spotted in the market the scalpers crowded in, so even those commercial users had trouble getting them at RRP.

    If the current models were any cheaper, that might happen again. It is one of those places where the infamous “what the market will bare” works against us: unless you are buying in bulk you have the choice between paying more or having no availability at all.

    People are willing to pay more the rPi units because of the support¹ and reliability². I know I am, last time I wanted a small unit like that I went straight for an rPi without even looking at the other options that might have been cheaper.

    --------

    [1] official + community

    [2] While not perfect in that regard, no supplier is, and the Pis do seem to do better than others in that regard, especially when compared to anything noticable less expensive.

    replies(1): >>45260628 #
    10. skeezyjefferson ◴[16 Sep 25 11:04 UTC] No.45260628{3}[source]▶
    > The poor avaialbility was largely due to the great pricing:

    the poor availability was because they didnt make enough. they blame supply chain issues around covid. in the time they were complaining that it wasnt their fault, competitors like the esp32 started appearing and taking market share. i was totally put off the rpi because of that saga. its no longer a good deal, there are better options in either direction (more microcontrollery or more power)

    replies(1): >>45273680 #
    11. numpad0 ◴[16 Sep 25 15:03 UTC] No.45263285[source]▶
    From what I've read online somewhere, Zero was a loss leader product made with input from Eric Schmidt, intended to be sold along attractive accessories. The Pi Foundation did try briefly but wasn't able to come up with the accessories, leading to that poor availability and WH variants that made little sense.
    12. dspillett ◴[17 Sep 25 09:35 UTC] No.45273680{4}[source]▶
    > the poor availability was because they didnt make enough.

    I mean, yeah, that is obvious. But for early products, especially when the level of demand is greater than expectations as it was for both the early Pi and PiZero variants, it is sometimes impractical to ramp up production and supply chains fast enough. If they had made a pile more before release and demand hadn't been that high they would have gone bust with a load of stock in warehouses.

    > they blame supply chain issues around covid

    You've got your timeline very compressed there. The first couple of Pi Zero variants (this thread started with “The original Raspberry Pi Zero was…”) and supply issues associated with them, were around quite a bit before the effects of C19 and the associated supply chain problems. The Pi Zero 2 was released during the time when the chip shortage and related problems were biting, but the previous version was released a couple of years before 2020 and the first version a couple of years before that.