When I built the world's fastest Raspberry Pi NAS, I said what I really wanted was native
SATA, 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, and integrated power in one CM4 board.
And wouldn't you know? Radxa just sent me this in the mail! And it's got all that, plus
a bonus fifth SATA slot, a slot for an NVMe drive, and not one but two Ethernet ports!
You could throw more than 40 terabytes of storage on a Pi!
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm gonna do a full video on this board soon, so subscribe!
On the topic of storage, though, maybe you haven't seen 45 Drives' Storinator Junior—remember
that insane enterprise storage array I built in my 16 Drives, 1 Pi video? Well, Josh from
45 Drives turned that into a sexy little mini storinator, and he even got ZFS compiled on
the thing!
Go check out their video for more details. No word yet on whether it'll turn into a real
product, but I know I'd love one.
For today, I have a bunch of other Compute Module 4 boards to talk about. Like the smallest
IO board yet—the MinCab, by Uptime Lab, who also made the Pi Blade servers I featured
in an earlier video.
I'm also gonna talk about Home Assistant's new Amber, the reTerminal, and a whole lot
more!
But before that, let's talk Compute Modules. Specifically, getting one.
Eben Upton, founder of Raspberry Pi, recently gave an interview to The Register.
In that interview, he mentioned 650,000 Raspberry Pis were shipped in July, and earlier in the
year, 800,000 a month. That's record demand for these computers, and the demand is far
outstripping supply.
He said, and I quote, "what's stopping us is basically everything... everything is on
fire. It's unlikely to end until 2023."
Of the 650,000 units in July, 100,000 of them were Compute Modules. And the Pico is also
backordered to the tune of 600,000 units.
And if you ask ANYONE, and I mean anyone, about building computer hardware this year,
you'll get the same answer: unless you're one of the top manufacturers with billions
of dollars to spend, and have existing long-term contracts, there are certain chips and components
you just can't get.
Network chips. CPUs. USB controllers. Hardware's just not available.
It's to the point some people are taking used gear and desoldering chips since there's literally
no other way to get them!
So to see any of these CM4 projects even in the prototype stage is a bit of a miracle.
And it's not that I love showing things that aren't on the market on this channel, it's
just that many projects just can't be made until things cool off.
And it's unfortunate. But some things can be made. And I'll talk about those now!
The first one is the MinCab. This is by far the tiniest CM4 carrier I've held. There's
actually one board that's even smaller, called 'The Stick', but the thing you might be wondering
is who the heck needs one of these. And how is it so small?!
Well, the answer to the second question is easier:
The Compute Module 4 has two 100 pin 'board to board' connectors on the bottom. One side
has the 'low speed' connections, like power and GPIO, and the other side has 'high speed',
like Ethernet, HDMI, and PCI Express.
To boot up an eMMC version of the Compute Module, all you need to do is supply it power.
And you can still get access to some GPIO pins if you want.
And that's what tiny boards like the MinCab do; it takes USB-C power, provides it to the
Pi, then breaks out a few IO pins so you can still interact with hardware, at least minimally,
using SPI or I-squared-C, or just digital control.
Who's it for? Well that's a harder question to answer. The MinCab doesn't have an HDMI
port or USB plug, so the only real use case is to power up a CM4 for headless usage over
WiFi or bluetooth. And there are some people who just need to power up a Pi and can do
everything they need to do over WiFi.
And having some GPIO pins available is also convenient for super simple projects.
But I don't think people will be knocking down the doors at Micro Center trying to buy
a MinCab.
Something that has a lot more utility, though, is Home Assistant's new 'Amber'.
The Amber is powered by a Compute Module 4 and incorporates Zigbee, an M.2 slot, RTC,
and optionally Power over Ethernet, to make the ideal Home Assistant setup.
It's currently on Crowd Supply, and the basic version costs $150, and includes a Compute
Module 4.
I haven't started using Home Assistant yet, but with the number of projects I'm starting
to incorporate for power and environment monitoring, and the fact that I use some Phillips Hue
bulbs in my house... I'm thinking about testing it out soon. Let me know if you'd me to do
some videos on Home Assistant on the Pi!
On the theme of utility, there's another CM4-based product I received a couple weeks ago, and
I've been testing it quite a bit, most recently in my AI Powered Blower video. It's the reTerminal,
from Seeed Studios.
This all-in-one is meant for building custom HMI, or Human Machine Interfaces. Think factories
or warehouses, where you have a process happening, and you need a screen to display information
like gauge readings and graphs, and also some buttons to control the process.
The reTerminal comes with a demo app to show off some of the built-in sensors, like a light
sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, and touch panel, and there's already a huge library of guides
for building your own custom interfaces on Seeed Studios' Wiki.
The reTerminal has all of its regular IO on the left side, including USB-C power input,
micro HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 2. Then on the left side there's a 40 pin GPIO header.
The bottom has a standard tripod screw for easy mounting, and the back has a giant heat
sink to dissipate heat so the Pi processor stays cool.
The back also has a hole for a camera ribbon cable if you wanna attach a Pi Camera, and
there's a 'high speed expansion interface' hidden underneath a rubber cover.
That interface uses a custom connector to supply PCI Express and other high speed IO
to planned 'expansion modules' like 5G wireless, an Ethernet switch, or Industrial IO. None
of those modules exist yet, but hopefully they will soon!
There are a number of other handy features on the reTerminal that I won't get into in
this video, but I think it's really cool to see a complete industrial HMI product built
around the Raspberry Pi for under $200.
The main downside I see is the screen is a little less vibrant than I'd like, but touch
accuracy was great out of the box. I think the first expansion module I'd like to see
is a battery pack so you could use this thing completely wireless!
There are a LOT more projects I'm tracking currently, and you can browse the whole list
on my CM4 Board database, but here are a few more you might like:
The Chipsee AIO CM4-156 is an oddly-named all-in-one Raspberry Pi computer, complete
with NVMe storage, USB 3, and a touchscreen. The cost is a bit steep for the specs, but
it's the first iMac-like Raspberry Pi I've seen on the market using the Compute Module
4 for a slim form factor.
The CM4 TV Stick is a Pi HDMI stick that plugs directly into a TV or monitor, like a Chromecast
or Fire TV stick. It'd be great for Kodi or RetroPie, and I could imagine popping one
on a TV in a hotel room when I'm travelling.
Someday. Maybe in a few more years... But no matter, if you're stuck inside, or just
about anywhere, you could pull out the Zega Mame Gear II, and play some fun old games.
It's a CM4-powered Game Gear replacement board from Zarcade, and it looks like a lot of fun.
But what if fun isn't in your vocabulary, and you're all about using Pis for serious
business? Well, there are some new industrial boards you might like, too:
The EDATEC CM4 has a metal enclosure and a ton of built-in industrial IO, two Ethernet
ports, and a PCIe slot for a cellular modem.
Revolution Pi is working on a RevPi 4, a new version of their popular DIN rail industrial
PC with a Compute Module 4 at its heart, and it looks like it'll fit right into their ecosystem.
Lincoln Binns is working on the CM4Box-Pro, which is an industrial carrier board with
options for surface mount, DIN rails, rack, or even VESA mount!
And finally Techbase is working on their Modberry, Clusberry, and AI Gateway DIN rail Pis. I
like the idea of an out-of-the-box Pi cluster, though I imagine it's a bit more expensive
than building one on your own!
These are just a few, but there are a LOT of Compute Module 4 boards coming out, and
I couldn't be happier to see the creativity people have with this modular Raspberry Pi.
Like I said earlier, I'm planning on a full video on Radxa's NAS board. I'm also hoping
to get an Over:Board—the first Raspberry Pi in ITX form factor—and CutiePie—a truly
portable Pi tablet—soon. So make sure you subscribe to be the first to find out when
I review them!
Until next time, I'm Jeff Geerling.