CHIP - The World's First Nine Dollar Computer


Wow, they must've made a pretty good deal. Usually, PCB and production without parts is more expensive. I wonder if they really get it done for that price or are sponsored by AllWinner or similar.
 
mmmm

....free applications from the open source community. 
That should be Free Software community since most of the apps shown in there are actually under GPL licenses... Free Software is the only correct term, Open Source is just vague and misleading, even software that cannot be distributed can be called Open SOurce. 
 
mmmm

....free applications from the open source community. 
That should be Free Software community since most of the apps shown in there are actually under GPL licenses... Free Software is the only correct term, Open Source is just vague and misleading, even software that cannot be distributed can be called Open SOurce. 
I wish I could "like this" a whole lot more.  I just wish people understood what I meant when I ask if something is Free Software.  Sometimes even those that know me reply with things like "yeah, I just told you it is free".  It isn't one of my requirements, but I strongly prefer supporting such projects and using software made/released with such a mindset.
 
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Wow, they must've made a pretty good deal. Usually, PCB and production without parts is more expensive. I wonder if they really get it done for that price or are sponsored by AllWinner or similar.
Find out their (dirty?) secrets and use it for your own advantage! ;)
 
Wow, they must've made a pretty good deal. Usually, PCB and production without parts is more expensive. I wonder if they really get it done for that price or are sponsored by AllWinner or similar.
Find out their (dirty?) secrets and use it for your own advantage! ;)
An obvious option is to wait for this kickstarter to be done then pitch the idea for a Pyra SoC board to them again, and maybe mention crowdfunding it.  I don't follow their product line, but if there is something more powerful that might be a good option a year or so after launch it would be nice to get them on board now, if they have already announced it.  If there isn't anything specific that would be good for us, just pitch it and keep in touch until funds are available and there is greater demand for more than the OMAP5 (although I think many of us would be very happy for something vastly more powerful if we can retain decent battery life, and no fan...Steve Jobs must have crawled into my brain on that last one).
 
Wow, they must've made a pretty good deal. Usually, PCB and production without parts is more expensive. I wonder if they really get it done for that price or are sponsored by AllWinner or similar.
Find out their (dirty?) secrets and use it for your own advantage! ;)
One of their "secret" is to make people pay for something that will be delivered in 2017, so prices should go way down for this kind of equipment by then (basically commodity price). 
 
another one is that while their som is pretty cheap, when adding a breakout board or even a pocketC.H.I.P it's way less cheaper...
 
From the FAQ..

Our partners at Allwinner worked hard to help us find how to reduce costs, so that we could introduce C.H.I.P. to EVERYBODY. To sell C.H.I.P. for $9, we need to order tens of thousands of chips.
So how was a $50,000 goal deemed appropriate? That's enough for at best 5555 CHIPs (no way am I going to put in those periods every time) at $9; in practice it'd be less since they have pledges going to other stuff too.

Pocket CHIP looks pretty cool though. At least they're doing something different beyond the race to the bottom in pricing little SoCs on a PCB.
 
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Damn, with the portable thing it costs less than an ebook reader !! O_O
 
One of their "secret" is to make people pay for something that will be delivered in 2017, so prices should go way down for this kind of equipment by then (basically commodity price).
Hm, "usual" pricedrop over time didn't helped much to make the Pandora actualy cheaper. ^^" Of course this CHIP will have a much larger quantity compared to the pandora but the low price is still impressive.What's known about the Allwinner CPU and the Mali GPU in relation to price/performance? 1GHz CPU for less than 9$ is actualy a strong argument (what does the OMAP 5 cost, again?)
 
One of their "secret" is to make people pay for something that will be delivered in 2017, so prices should go way down for this kind of equipment by then (basically commodity price).
Hm, "usual" pricedrop over time didn't helped much to make the Pandora actualy cheaper. ^^" Of course this CHIP will have a much larger quantity compared to the pandora but the low price is still impressive.
What's known about the Allwinner CPU and the Mali GPU in relation to price/performance? 1GHz CPU for less than 9$ is actualy a strong argument (what does the OMAP 5 cost, again?)
OMAP was never a massively used chip, unlike this allwinner CPU, which is already being replaced by newer ones... seen the number of these in cheap phones I can really see big stock sales in the coming month/years
 
On the one hand I'm like "how long have I been saying I need to replace my BeagleBoard" but then I'm like "is it *really* that much of an upgrade?"

Even for $9, but then there's shipping... or I can just get a Raspberry Pi 2 for $20 more.
 
One of their "secret" is to make people pay for something that will be delivered in 2017, so prices should go way down for this kind of equipment by then (basically commodity price).
Hm, "usual" pricedrop over time didn't helped much to make the Pandora actualy cheaper. ^^" Of course this CHIP will have a much larger quantity compared to the pandora but the low price is still impressive.What's known about the Allwinner CPU and the Mali GPU in relation to price/performance? 1GHz CPU for less than 9$ is actualy a strong argument (what does the OMAP 5 cost, again?)
The Allwinner is an A13, which is based on an A8.

So the CHIP is about as fast as a 1GHz Pandora.

(OMAP5 is 46 EUR, BTW)

EDIT: Ah, found some caveats.

The CHIP only has analog video output - the A13 doesn't have HDMI, so it seems their HDMI and VGA adapters are using Composite Video for video output...

Unless they use the LCD RGB video output, that is.

But yeah, the CHIP + HDMI adaptor is 24 USD... so a Pi2 which has 4 1GHz cores should be better suited ;)
 
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Well if you can actually hammer them together at 5$ a piece, selling at 9$ is very lucrative. The market is virtually endless, so if you just sell enough its equivalent to the same markup on each more expencive device.

I imagine they make a hidden profits on the shipping too, havent checked.  At this price its basically a commodity. They dont have to/cant do repairs, so they can just send out replacements by letter-mail.

Will be interesting to see if they can deliver.
 
But yeah, the CHIP + HDMI adaptor is 24 USD... so a Pi2 which has 4 1GHz cores should be better suited
On the other hand, if you want to hack something together that needs smarts but can be headless, you really can't beat $9. It it doesn't need a screen you don't need to worry about it.I'm thinking 3D printer controller with built in slicer, simple file server, home automation system... oooo, at $9 you could put a unit in every room for decentralized control. A wifi enabled switch costs $50, and here you can build one for $14 ($9 plus a $5 relay, only $5 for each additional thing you want to switch) that can do so much more than just turn a light on or off.
 
For $20, the Spark Photon has WiFi and remote firmware updates in a smaller package if you're building something to bolt to a relay.
 
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