I come bearing great news for everyone waiting for Star64 – the SBC will be available for purchase on April 4th. Due to some last-minute logistics issues we failed to make the March launch date announced in February – our apologies for the slight delay. The boards have now finally been delivered and getting packaged and ready for dispatch. Let me just quickly reiterate the Star64 features: Quad core 64bit RISC-V, HDMI video output, 4x DSI and 4x CSI lates, i2c touch panel connector, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth, as well as 1x native USB3.0 port, 3x shared USB2.0 ports, PCIe x1 open-ended slot and GPIO bus pins (i2c, SPI and UART). The board also features 128M QSPI flash and eMMC and microSD card slots. The board will be available in two different RAM configurations – with 4GB and 8GB LPDDR4 memory for $69.99 and $89.99 respectively.
I’ll await some reviews first, but this seems like a very obvious buy if performance is at least reasonable. I really want to support RISC-V hardware, but so far, it’s been rather slim pickings. Here’s top hoping it gets better soon.
Performance is probably going to stink, since there aren’t any RISC-V cores that are very performant, but this does have a PCI-E slot, and that alone really interests me…
It will be significantly slower than RP 4, but I still plan to buy one.
According to
https://www.techspot.com/news/98170-star64-new-risc-v-single-board-computer-developers.html
The chip should have similar performance to Rockchip rk3566, which is beaten by the RPi 4’s Broadcomm bcm2711 by a wide margin:
https://gadgetversus.com/processor/rockchip-rk3566-vs-broadcom-bcm2711/
Another estimate is from https://www.makeuseof.com/will-the-pine-star64-risc-v-sbc-be-the-raspberry-pis-biggest-challenge/, which expects a 20% slower performance.
Either way, it is nice to see RISC-V at least getting something useful. If I can find it at retail price, I plan buy one just to support and play with the platform.
sukru,
I recently bought an old rock64 SBC. The decision to buy that one was easy: the only criteria that mattered was that it was available for purchase, haha. The performance (and even list price) advantage of RP4 is irrelevant when you can’t buy it.
Logistical considerations aside, I also hope RISCV does well. And I’m wishing so hard that RISCV does NOT fall victim to the issues plaguing ARM in terms of FOSS support. Honestly I would see myself buying RISCV SBCs almost exclusively assuming RISCV could actually deliver a great FOSS experience, I not getting my hopes up yet, but I’m so ready to ditch ARM in favor of something that’s much easier for FOSS users to work with. I’ll take the performance hit for that benefit.
Important question, at least for some spots, will be is it more power efficient for the performance? And will all the features/video/etc blocks have F/OSS drivers, or at least quality, maintained blobs? And if the boot/change using non-official boot images is closer in ease to x86?
I’m actually potentially more enthusiastic for the lower power embedded, like the newer low cost ESP RISC-V with Thread/Matter support. Once projects like Tasmota/ESPHome and the like get up and running well on them.
After supporting Raspberry Pi for a couple of years i decided to only support such boards with full upstream GNU/Linux support. So basically that is my criteria on if i will or will not buy it. I don’t feel comfortable anymore to give money to projects that i can’t after use upstream GNU/Linux on it.
Geck,
I understand the value in that. This is why I keep buying x86 hardware for network appliances I plan to use long term. It’s so much easier to support random hardware without worrying about not being able to run latest kernels or manufacturer EOL.
With ARM it’s been so much harder to source products that don’t have these issues. What ARM devices have you found that you can buy today and can be supported using strictly non-proprietary upstream kernels and drivers? Please do let me know.
There are some boards that are closer to that goal then others. For example some Rockchip based ARM boards do tend to have a rather good upstream GNU/Linux support. ARM in general is improving in this regard. And the promise for RISC-V Star64 is for end users to be able to install Debian and Fedora on it. I guess some day. Personally i am prepared to give money to a project with only a promise at beginning. As long as they deliver in lets say next five to ten years. With Raspberry Pi, although things are improving, they never delivered that. The ultimate goal for me hence is using official Debian on such board. The rest is less important for me. Hence the next board i will buy will need to meet such criteria. Or i am simply not interested in it. Being ARM based Raspberry Pi, RISC-V based Star64 or something entirely else.
Geck,
Well, it’s easy not to buy it if you didn’t really need it in the first place. But that’s not a realistic approach when you’re actually in need to of something. There’s not much I can do when I’m forced to buy products that don’t meet my FOSS requirements. I look for FOSS for pretty much 100% of my hardware purchases, but very frequently I end up empty handed because the market just hasn’t produced open source alternatives.
Speaking of this, I’m in need of a new wifi thermostat and I’d be very happy if anyone could point me to one that is a ready to use project (not DIY) with FOSS software. As much as I strongly want to avoid proprietary IOT software and services, I’m just not sure any FOSS thermostats exist for sale.
Alfman,
Not the most straightforward project, not it looks pretty, but someone built a working thermostat from scratch:
https://opensource.com/article/21/3/thermostat-raspberry-pi
Or, you can try to buy a preassembled kit: https://hestiapi.com/shop/
(Like everything else Raspberry, it is already out of stock).
Speaking of out of stock, I think we missed Star64, too:
https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-4gb-single-board-computer/
https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-8gb-single-board-computer/
(Or, integrate a commercial IoT ecosystem with Home Assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nest/)
If you want it to run (mostly) FOSS, to have root access and not to be considered a DIY project. Without the need for you to actually build it yourself. Then HestiaPi Touch meets such criteria. It can serve as a basis for building a smart home. Otherwise exploring openHAB and connecting a thermostat using Wi-Fi or Zigbee protocol can offer a private solution to smart home. Especially if you are considering to connect all sorts of devices. Without the need of 3rd party being involved.
Geck,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I appreciate their moto:
“If you don’t have root access to your thermostat, someone else does”
It’s based on RPI, which is bad news for anyone who actually wants to buy one though. None of their products are in stock…
https://hestiapi.com/shop/
RPI has been out of stock for so long that I no longer consider it viable for anything whatsoever, unfortunately.
I really just wanted a smart thermostat and not a zigbee network, alas product logistics might force me to take a different route.
(ah… seems like my comment above got stuck in moderation)
sukru,
No wonder I didn’t remember seeing it
The rock64 SBC I bought this year is probably even slower than the RISC-V star64, haha.
https://gadgetversus.com/processor/rockchip-rk3566-vs-rockchip-rk3328/
Rock64 wasn’t great, but good enough and not as bulky as the SFF PCs we were looking at before.
Yeah, everyone is selling proprietary hardware and services. Google nest comes up a lot but honestly proprietary products like that are exactly what I wanted to avoid. I don’t feel that I should need a google account or google’s permission to access my own hardware. As the owner I feel I should be entitled to make the decision to grant google access to my hardware or not! It’s not good enough that google offers an API to access my hardware through them (for a fee no less). Sure things can technically be done that way, but this conflicts with the notion of owner rights and control at a fundamental level. I don’t want to be dependent on hardware that requires a middle man to access it.
“Finally! A WORKING NEST Integration with Home Assistant using Oauth!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwZmQ7QfhsM&t=24s
I know you’re trying to be pragmatic and helpful… but google nest is antithetical to FOSS and it makes me uncomfortable for this reason.
Minor update:
Both the 4GB and 8GB versions are now available for order.
I will try the 4GB one, let’s see how it goes.
sukru,
They’re out of stock for me right now.
For a glass half full perspective: selling too fast is a “good” problem to have. I’m ok with it being out of stock short term, but it will be discouraging if shortages go on for months/years. The past couple of years have been painful for consumers.
Alfman,
Yes, it seems like they sold out so far.
Btw, if you need a Raspberry Pi at retail price, there is the PI 400 kit: https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-400-desktop-computer-kit.html
It is $100, but at least you’d be paying for the actual product, rather than the scalpers.
That’s more or less what I’m in the process of doing. I picked up an Emerson Sensi WiFi thermostat, on the basis of the assumption that since it supports HomeKit, my Home Assistant installation will support it via its HomeKit Controller integration. Of course, I’ll be locking it down tightly in the IoT firewall jail, to which I only allow incoming connections from Home Assistant