this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
166 points (97.7% liked)
Technology
80859 readers
2813 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don’t know what people would need a Pi 5 16gb for other than using it as a low-powered PC alternative. I’ve got a bunch of 4’s and 3’s doing utilitarian tasks, from running an older 3D printer to PiHole. One I’m using as a budget PC in the garage to listen to music and look up how-to videos if I get stumped on something.
A $200+ 5 seems outside the needs of the users who have viewed Pi’s as relatively inexpensive hobbyist devices, but below the needs of people needing to do the work of desktop PCs.
I’m sure there’s niche uses for them, but is there actual demand for them?
There is a whole lot of demand from industrial equipment manufacturers. When you attach a computer to your twenty thousand bucks robot arm or CNC drill, you need it small, reliable, readily-available, and brand-new, so you slightly overpay for Pi 5 for $200 and an SSD drive for another $200 to not rely on faulty SD cards, and if it breaks you can buy and replace it in 15 minutes, and future Raspberry Pi 6 will most probably boot from the same SSD and work with zero modifications, even contacts placement will be the same. Does it need 16 GB? Probably not.
Also, drone manifacturers. 16 GB RAM is just enough to run a computer vision AI model, and you won't haul a used HP laptop on a drone.
Do you have any evidence that industrial manufacturers are sourcing Pi 5’s as controllers of choice? I think most manufacturers would use proprietary or purpose built controllers meeting required durability needs.