What Do You Want To See Out Of The Redesigned, Next-Gen Raspberry Pi?

[jacob]

risc-v processor would be cool, but i guess that wont happen anytime soon.

No chance. Even assuming that there actually was a cost- and performance-competitive RISC-V chip on the market (which there isn't), they still wouldn't use it because it would break binary compatibility. Heck, their official Raspbian distro still runs in ARM6 mode even on Aarch64-capable models.

[caligula]

Suggestion #1: stop, please, STOP with that moronic "squared" form factor.
You were able to shrink the Pi to Zero, then you can do it: a 1"x3" board, or at most a 1.2"x4", and all connectors on one side. C'mon, realize at once you will enable a huge lot of new projects with bizarre space constraints.

Suggestion #2: start saving on less used peripherals.
Raspberries could easily produce cheaper models featuring *unpopulated* camera/video outputs. Not everyone needs HDMI. Not every embedded project needs audio and extras. And -believe me- a very few projects need both ethernet and wifi/bluetooth.

Suggestion #3: stop demanding 5V input.
Some ten years ago, in the epic times of the first Beagleboards, I humbly asked for a board having some step-down converter to accept anything between 6 and 30V input. You can get a good 3A rated ones from Pololu and others for a reasonable price; I guess mass production would keep the price down and allow for a very low-ripple design. This would allow using any sort of battery packs - from 6 AAA to your 24V-rated large truck one - and a whole lot of 9V or 12V adapters/sources, plus solar panels, etc.
Countless times I unsuccessfully asked again.

Suggestion #4: power saving is more important than powerful CPUs.
With the exceptions of signal/video processing and a very few other applications, you won't notice a board being 20-30% faster than the previous model (also:how many currently published projects would actually benefit from a 64 bit ARM instead of a 32 bit one?).
Yet your battery-powered project will perform a lot better if the new board is designed to save 10-15% under the very same CPU load.

Suggestion #5: the faster the boot, the better.
Yes, there's quite a difference between a 30-seconds "power on to actually logging data" time and a 40-seconds one. A small NAND block could allow loading uBoot, kernel and DTBs as soon as possible, without having to wait for all USB and memorydevices to get ready and scannable. An on-board jumper would select "normal (debugging) boot" and "fast (pre-populated and pre-configured NAND things)".

TL;DR: stop being obsessed with filling a large "Specifications" sheet. Do a few things, do them very well. Don't waste milliamperes and don't make the user software wait a millisecond more than strictly needed.

I have to say you're a genius, dear sir (?). Those are exactly the problems with RPi and many clones. I don't really get why people insist on adding more RAM and faster CPU/GPU. Those are not real problems unless you're trying to use it as a desktop computer. Without proper disk bandwidth (that is, m.2 / sata ssd), it wouldn't work as a server even with those beefed-up specs.

My experience with #5 is that it's mainly a software issue. You can boot stuff much faster if you want. What's missing from the list is IMO, the 'hats' could be more modular. I don't like the idea that a single hat only uses say I2S or I2C, but reserves all the pins. Many of the designs are also braindead. For example the keyboard+lcd hat does not have enough support in the back so you can accidently short things when pressing buttons and the chip on the hat breaks. Yay. How about measuring things so that you can install screws in all screw holes.

[GraysonPeddie]

PoE-enabled Raspberry Pi, with PoE built-in.

I plan to get an Ubiquiti PoE switch in the near future.

Why PoE? No extra cable for power a HASS.io home automation server (Home Assistant).

[caligula]

PoE-enabled Raspberry Pi, with PoE built-in.

I plan to get an Ubiquiti PoE switch in the near future.

Why PoE? No extra cable for power a HASS.io home automation server (Home Assistant).

I think the main problem with PoE is, you either get PoE or gigabit ethernet. Some users want the latter (or both).

[Terrablit]

1. Boot with U-boot or UEFI without going through the GPU. Keeps the bootloader entirely open-source.
2. SATA/M.2/PCI-E connector for decent storage. SD is terrible, and USB-everything means network FS isn't attractive.
3. Rethink PSU. Needs power switch, shutdown via OS, higher amperage or additional power supply for peripherals
4. Ethernet/Wifi without going through USB. Makes network IO more feasible with additional peripherals
5. Fix thermal issues
6. USB 3
7. DDR4
8. GPU that supports Vulkan
9. PoE for the low-end models like the A that don't need peripherals.
10. Consider designing a PSU/case for ARM devices that helps solve power issues

#1 Makes it a lot easier to customize the device without mucking around with VC nonsense. Easier to change what it boots from, too.
#2 Fixes the storage IO bottleneck that plagues the RPI. And the trashed SD cards.
#3 Fixes the power on/off issue and starts them thinking about peripheral power needs.
#4 Fixes network IO bottleneck. Less important if local storage isn't via USB.
#5 Limits the usage with current performance, Gonna be hard to improve performance if we still got throttled because of heat.
#6-8 are about performance/utility improvements
#9 isn't that important, but for small models, it makes sense. Probably could just make an adapter
#10 Moving people away from trashy DC adapters might make a huge difference in the quality of ARM boards being made. Related to #3.

[skeetre]

If they can give us at least 2GB of RAM, USB 3.0 and still sell it for $35, I would be awesome.

You said it exactly... some people on here have pipe dreams for they expect out of a Pi. I mean, the idea is to keep it at $35. I just want more ram. I can live with a 300mb/s ethernet, with the AC wifi. But I'd love some more/faster ram. A bump in the cpu would be expected, but more than anything, more ram.

USB 3 would be good for booting/reading from usb, and maybe other devices.

[Dav_Daddy]

I'd love to see expansion ports. Something like the ability to add RAM and a video card if you so desire.

That way it should be easy to upgrade the processor, RAM, etc and keep the basic board at the $35 price point. While leaving the option open to those who wish to, to spend more and expand what their Pi is capable of.

[pal666]

there's also Allwinner and Rockchip...

none of them provides open graphics driver. none of them employs mesa devs

RISC-V is cheaper if you're building your own chip. the only reason ARM chips are cheaper is that buying an existing mass-produced chip is cheaper than making a new one.

well, i was not discussing theoretical cost savings, i've just pointed out that you can't compare core prices to board prices and that arm cores are cheaper than $7.5

[pal666]

Dunno what your angle is but RPi has always been a shitty low end ARM core... even the newer ones. At $7.5 for a large and competitive with the best in the industry microcontroller core...

rpi's "shitty low end" core is much faster than $7.50 "large and competitive" riscv. and last time i've heard board price for riscv was around $1000, so you have to compare that number to $35rpi (or $5 for rpi zero btw)

RISC-V is not far at all from completely eclisping ARM at the low end of things like the RPi which is failing to innovate.

there is no risc-v in the wild yet, so it can only eclipse something in your imagination

The RISC-V Kendryte boards are $50 including LCD and a camera for running AI demos...

that's much better than $1000, though feature-wise that board has hard time to compete against $5 rpi zero

you can just get a bare kendryte demo board for about $10-15 and the bare module to integrate into your own designs for $7.50

which is many times more costly than much more powerful arm boards

I would happily accept a slightly slower board that is 100% documented and functional out of the gate instead of the mess that has been dealt with on the RPi.

that's valid priority, but you seemed to require some additional imaginary benefits like lower price for more power

[wolrah]

I think the main problem with PoE is, you either get PoE or gigabit ethernet. Some users want the latter (or both).

That is not the case and has never been with standards-based (803.2af/at/bt) PoE. The current Pi 3B+ optionally supports 802.3af on its gigabit (but bottlenecked by USB 2.0) ethernet port. Any 802.11ac access point has at least gigabit to be useful, and higher speed APs are the main reason that 2.5/5 gigabit ethernet became a thing. They're all PoE as well, no one serious is running power cords to their APs.

Passive PoE solutions do not support gigabit because they just put DC power on the four wires that 100mbit doesn't use. One of many reasons passive PoE should be avoided these days.