+EyesofNova No problems, mate! I have a strict schedule, but move things around as needed. Let me know if you need any more questions answered. BTW I'll be doing a "running on battery" series on a lot of the SBCs soon.
MickMake you answered a lot of questions. I'm going to give this a pass for a bit until they get it worked out a bit. The lack of support from the dev is kind of dumb. Also can't wait to see the running on battery series.
EyesofNova no they won't fix all the issues, because you already bought it and they don't give a fuk. software support on the banana anything has been banana
Great video! I usually put a thermal pad or even thermal paste between the heatsink for better performance. The support from Orange pi really sucks but at least there community provides decent support.
+bonnome2 Yup, these heatsinks have the black adhesive thermal gunk which seems to do a good job of conducting heat. But yes good that there's support there from the community, maybe the company should start paying those people? ;-)
My concern regarding the OPi boards is that lack of image support from the company. One has to go to this forum, www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=342&extra=page%3D1 in order to retrieve working images. I'm running 3 RPi-3 boards as cable boxes at home but would like to compare them to the OPi+2 board...soon I'll have one to test.
Even if the Orange Zero is better in every way than the Raspberry version, the simple support and overall user happiness will always make the raspberry the winner in my book.
+Richard T True true. But out of a lot of knockoffs this one seems to be the better supported and since it cheap as chips it can be shoved into so many places. The big issue with this board is the lack of MIPI. Man it'd be a killer if the included that and what about all those other GPIOs? Just routing a bunch of tracks out isn't that hard!
MickMake I honestly suspect this board was released due to some corporate mandate rather than, as you had said, when the board was ready. It could indeed be a killer piece of hardware ... if only ... BTW What is this nonsense about 30C+ in Dec? It is currently -8C here in Vancouver, with a big snowstorm coming! :)
+Richard T Yes I agree with you. It could have been so much more. Companies like this have to stop being "better" and be "different". It'd be nice if it was -8C down under for Christmas. The coldest it's been during Christmas was 16.
yeah I got an OrangePi PC a while back and it barely worked, after the hassle of finding a working image on the forums (a very awesome guy put a lot of effort into providing some that work, strange the people at OrangePi couldn't have done the same..) after a few weeks it just started freezing on start up and nothing I tried ever fixed it. Meanwhile my RasPi3 has worked beautifully the for months. the difference of £20 between them still doesn't make a product that was hassle from the start and fails in a month worth the money to me so I just avoid OrangePi in general now.
The one thing that keeps me from buying this one over the Raspberry Pi Zero is the tremendous amount of support the RPZ has, in terms of hardware add-ons, software and community. Still, for certain types of tasks, this is definitely the way to go for "bang for the buck"! Keep in mind that, although it is certainly a tremendous deal, it's about 40% more expensive than the Pi Zero (Around $7 instead of $5 for the RPZ). JW3HH
+JustWasted3HoursHere That's true. Nothing beats the support within the Pi community, but the OPiZ has a large community behind it on the Armbian forums and the company even supports Armbian development. It depends on your use case: if you want better support, then the RPi. If you want more bang for your buck, then OPiZ.
I did actually manage to find a version/port of Retro-Pi for the OPiZ, so that changes a few things for me, since retro-gaming was the main thing I wanted to do with it. Still, I will weigh the differences carefully before I buy either one. JW3HH
I also take issue with companies that are developing and selling these hardware products and expecting the users to fend for themselves on the software side. I AM LOOKING AT YOU PINE64 -- I BACKED YOUR KICKSTARTER LIKE AN IDIOT, AND THERE IS *ONE* GUY COMPILING KERNEL MODULES AND PUTTING OUT O/S BUILDS 'N SHIT, AND HE DOESN'T EVEN WORK FOR YOU! (honestly, all of them are the Chinese companies pushing this crap out). Come on, at least provide some form of operating system, or a ready-made Linux distro ISO with pre-compiled binaries. They are taking people's money and basically exploiting the maker market boom. I really hate that shit, it's starting to be absolutely flooded with them.
+stryk187 Yes there's a heck a lot of duds around. This is one of the reasons why I started up MickMake. Just wasn't enough information around to really decide if I could use a particular product or not.
That was brilliant, but most of it went right over my head :D I've got an Orange Pi PC and would love to learn a bit more beyond just installing images and playing emulated games. I had a look at your other videos, but couldn't find anything "to start off" my learning journey so I can understand the things you talk about in this video?
MickMake I better subscribe then :D I must say the docs and guides with the Raspberry Pi are awesome. The Orange seems like the Pro version, assuming a lot of knowledge and having to figure things out yourself.
Another great review. I am really not sure how many people would have got the joke about the VB ad. I am also glad to see the number of views on some of your review videos are starting to look really healthy. I hope they aren't like Google Analytics spam. You could always re-edit some of your reviews to make some click bait titled videos like "5 Boards that smoked the RPi 3". Judging by how hot some of these boards are getting, may be they are the ones getting smoked. I think it is really great how you are exposing the very basic limitations of the software/OS available for this and similar boards.
Thanks mate. It's a long road to success on TH-cam. I have a few comparison videos planned for next year along the lines of: "If I want to do THIS, then what's the best board to use."
+JUL IEN Anything is possible, but the question is "Is it worth it?" and also "How much time do you have?" The easiest way is to look for a USB to SCSI adaptor. A quick google search shows up some possibilities, but then you'd have the issue of driver support. You'd have to do some research on chipset support in Armbian.
This is a nice thorough review, covering things I didn't think of. I believe these guys were at World Maker Faire in NYC at the beginning of October. I was going to buy their product then and there, but they weren't selling. There were too many products there that were not for sale that I would have bought because they were cheap, but when you have to order online and pay for shipping, I'm not so interested. It's probably good that I didn't buy it, as it doesn't seem well supported.
+J.L.M. Thanks! Glad you got something out of it. Yup, like a lot of boards there's some good and bad points. It's still pretty decent even without the SPI and I2C busses going. A nice tiny quad core board is attractive for some people.
Yup, orange Crush modified label but on top of some horrible copy of a copy rubbish that was bought on the cheap in the hopes that it would be nice. We often use it as paint stripper.
+MickMake USB OTG isn't enabled in Armbian-images by default, so that's probably why you weren't seeing it as a USB-device. Adding g_serial to /etc/modules should've fixed that. There is an open issue on Armbian's github about this, but I don't know if there are any decisions made, yet. As for missing I2C and SPI: did you check if i2cdev-l and spidev-kernel modules were loaded? About the pin-headers...stuff like this is what I've been raging about several times. Many SoCs used by these various kinds of SBCs actually have way more useable pins and buses than what gets brought out on headers, and that means there's a lot of wasted potential. Sure, 200+ GPIO-pins might be a bit of an overkill on an SBC in general, but why not e.g. put out 40 or 60 of them on the board and then bring the rest out on a ZIF-connector? Those people who want/need more than what's on the board by default would then only need to make/buy a daughter-board and connect it to the ZIF-connector with a FFC-cable and POOF -- hundreds more GPIO. I think it'd be a reasonably elegant way of keeping the main SBC-board from being bloated with billions of pins, while not preventing you from using it to its fullest when needed.
+Nita Vesa Hi Nita, yup all modules were loaded up. I could have spent more time on getting it going, and really wouldn't have taken much effort, but that wasn't the goal of the review. Getting into kernel rebuilds isn't for everyone. Although I should do a video on that! I agree with the GPIOs. Such a waste and gets my goat every time I see these boards being released with a piddley amount of them. Such a brain-dead decision. It's like buying a Porsche and having only one cylinder running. There needs to be a new standard, something like Uber Raspberry Pi GPIO header.
The Up^2 and some/most of the 96Boards SBCs bring out a bunch of GPIOs out, but offer a whole lot of additional pins via a separate header. I think it's a good idea in general, though I think the connector they use on the 96Boards SBCs might be more robust. Makes me wonder if the Up^2-people are going to be selling a daughter-board to connect to that, or if they'll just leave the design and manufacturing of such to individuals from the community. In fact, I think I'll just ask them!
They mentioned to me that they weren't going to provide access to the FPGA, which is a shame. Hopefully I can convince them to do otherwise, but I can understand from their perspective; someone can really stuff it up as a lot of the core depends on that FPGA.
I don't know if you really care, but I got a response today from them and they did confirm that they will sell a daughter-board for use with the exHAT-connector.
Very very nice review. Surprising SBC packing cpu punch for less than 10$. Are you still trying to get a 4.x kernel fully working ? BTW, I wonder if there are attempts at a hat with full 300+ GPIO lines. That could be fun ;) PS: do you know if the separate 2$ hat with IR has bidirectional IR ? merry holidays sir
+agu monkey Thanks! Yes, there is a "hat" which pushes out all the extra pins to proper connectors. It's actually a good thing to minimise components on the board, it means it can really cut down the overall footprint. All you have to do is remove the Ethernet port and it's really tiny. As for all the other GPIO lines? Well alas they can't be used as they're not even connected anywhere in the PCB. Since it's a BGA you won't ever be able to get to them.
That was a solid and unbiased review. I "collect" SBCs and poke around on them and I still have to say my favorite is still the Raspberry Pi flavors. The alternatives just seem to try to emulate and not innovate. Thumbs up to you, I look forward to checking out your other videos.
Thanks mate. I plan to review all the SBCs eventually. It's a very long list! But yup the RPi is my favourite still for most of my projects.
7 ปีที่แล้ว +1
I know armbian developer fine bloke, support him if you can. I do not see any problem for company to sell its goods without software. But if they offer Linux images, they should offer used code as well.
Yup, I've spent many years in the OSS community supporting many projects. It's great when a project gets to the level that Armbian is at. Lots of dedicated hours. I don't mind companies producing hardware without software. As long as the expectation is: "This is a Maker product". But *please* companies! Recognize all the hard work that developers put in to the software side. If you're not going to do the work yourself, then build up the community around your product. This means creating the tools and atmosphere where people *want* to contribute.
I'd say the lack of software support and relative obscurity of the board cancels the Orange Pi's hardware superiority myself. I'd consider it equal at best.
Orange pi zero is finally a very nice board with armbian. Updating to the kernel 5.3 will also help a lot with all h2+, h3, h5 chips as we're finally getting GPU decoding etc.
I love the Orange Pi Zero. Its has 3 serial ports, which I am going to use for out of band management for network equipment. Armbian is way better than Raspbian, if you just want a clean Debian with great kernel support.
+Per Mejdal Rasmussen Nice! Yup those extra serial ports are great to have. I have a bunch of equipment that I'll be hooking up as well. I quite like Armbian and it'll probably end up being the de facto standard I reckon.
I Picked up one of these last summer. Could not get it running, had all sorts of emails back and forth with the support folks, they finally sent me a new board, that one worked. Well I was a bit torqued off about this, so I took a hot soldering iron and resoldered the board since it looked like some nine year old kid with a torch and a hot nail did the factory solder job. After redoing all the joints, I got the first board up and running as well, the quality control just isn't there on these as far as I could tell, however the replacement board did look a lot better so perhaps my first board was a quirk.
For the price, this thing is amazing if you only need basic GPIO or USB support and wifi. I use mine as a portable Music Player Daemon box that I can use with any speaker or pair of headphone (with the help of a USB sound card) that is controlled by a smartphone and streams files over the air from my NAS or a thumb drive. Maybe one day the chipset will have mainline support like the A10 and 20's have today... The power consumption can be adjusted by disabling cores you don't need and adjusting clocks and voltages, I'm pretty sure that Sunxi wiki has more info on that.
many thanks for this superb and informative video: overwhelming: i love your work - keep it up. Can t wait to see more of your great tutorials and videos!!
Dear Mick... Just one thing - It is "Wi-Fi"... as in 'Wireless Fidelity', 'Wireless Internet', so the resulting contraction is pronounced "Why-Figh" and not "Wiff-eee" - bless you for your dedication and your awesome dedication to analysis of some awesome and some less than awesome tech.
How does the performance of this SBC compare to the orange pi lite? I'm looking to build a robot where every millimeter counts, but can't sacrifice performance either.
This is a review I am really glad to see, I am always ordering off brand electronic good and it is aways so hard to find media, but this is AWESOME! great video and looking forward to more information about the board, by the way, is there any chance I can expect a review of the onion omega 2?
Question: I bought an Orange Pi One, when you try to plug it into a 5V, 3A adapter you get the see the LAN port lights up. I was told that by the seller that this is an indicator that the SBC is powering up correctly? Is it true with all orange pi boards?
+MickMake would you like to show code in GPIO.sh file (5:15)? How do you access gpio pin? I tried with pyA20 python library and wiringPy but with no success. Thank you in advance! :)
I used the Linux /sys interface to access the GPIOs. It's pretty simple. # Create a GPIO reference for pin3. echo "3" > /sys/class/gpio/export # List the newly created reference. ls -l gpio3/ total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 active_low lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 29 14:59 device -> ../../../up-pinctrl -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 direction -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 edge drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 29 14:59 power lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 29 14:59 subsystem -> ../../../../../class/gpio -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:58 uevent -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 value # Set the direction of the pin. echo out > gpio3/direction # Set it to HIGH. echo 1 > gpio3/value # Set it to LOW. echo 0 > gpio3/value # Remove the GPIO reference. echo "3" > /sys/class/gpio/unexport Also checkout my GPIO mapping perl script which shows which pin correlates to which GPIO. github.com/MickMakes/GPIOmapping
Does the OPI Zero reboot with the same MAC address? I set up a bunch of OPI PC as Octoprint servers, but they would reboot with a different MAC address as the router would not give them the same ip address. That is an issue for a headless server.
I'm curious to know about the audio out. On the 13 pin header, it seems like there's an audio left/right channel. From a hookup perspect, could i just get a two pin dupont header and wire the other end directly to a passive speaker? Actually now that i think of it, if i'm just using a singular mono speaker, just bridging the two channels should have the same effect with a little more amperage i'd assume? Fault logic on my part?
+Victor Hogarth Technically you could, but a more appropriate method would be to use an audio amplifier on the speakers. Also you should mix the left and right channel instead of "bridging", that'll give you some funny results and cause one channel to drive into the other channel. Essentially not what you want. You can pick up a cheap PAM2802 breakout from AdaFruit and SparkFun. A single channel amp, or use a stereo amp with two speakers.
I am thinking of making a NAS with worldwide access using one of the orange pi boards. I want to use nextcloud. Is that a good idea? Or is there a better cheap alternative?
1.3 billion people, but only 0.003 billion are somewhat educated with 0.000003 billion educated and having an EE degree. Then there are 0.000000030 people designing these things and not just stealing and copying the designs from us (read US), and 0% of these (30 people) are interested in anything but profit and being first to market. Also, exactly 0% of the designers speak (proper or dare I say any) English, to boot. There you have it.
SteelBlueVision Made me laugh. First the joke about americans being educated and then the scientific numbers taken straight from your extensive studies in mainland China.
This is not the issue, the issue is that you are trying to clone a project(rpi0) but you also wanted to add your own twist to it, i.e. Wifi...etc. So, it ended up neither being a clone nor unique. But I hope there will be an Orange Pi community to deal with these things. Check this out it might offer some good help: www.reddit.com/r/OrangePI/
+SteelBlueVision We are talking about Raspberry PI clones here and you say and i quote: "... stealing and copying the designs from us (read US), ". You do know that Raspberry PI foundation is UK based, right?
this should be interesting to watch, could be a pretty nice solution for small handheld portable gaming emulators if it can be made to work with something like emulation-station and the Adafruit piTFT series.
that is a good news. although i am interested in buying orange pi pc plus. I have been doing linux kernel programming since 3 months and i think it would be great for my learning to start hacking orange pi. btw, i would still like orange pi to work flawlessly on mainline linux kernel. I heard allwinner company has been accused quite a few times for violating GPL license. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology#Linux_controversies Also there has been backdoor controversy too. these were reasons for me earlier not to try orange pi.
thats true, there are other displays like MCUFriend which has parallel 8/16 bits bus which can work with gpio drivers only. Recently i wrote a driver for parallel 8 bits bus 3.5" display(ili9481) (similar to mcu friend) which works well with raspberry pi 2. twitter.com/amitesh_singh/status/810209555049304064 18bit color mode (RGB666) github.com/amitesh-singh/ldd/blob/master/tfts/tftframework/4dtftrgb666.c 16 bit color mode (RGB565) github.com/amitesh-singh/ldd/blob/master/tfts/tftframework/4dtft.c
sound's an bloody attractive hardware (but sh*tty official software support except armbian's community's help) i kinda interested after your brief review :P btw, a silly question: what's the size of the the heat sink you've use?
+PROPHECY It's actually a nice little board. Once the SPI/I2C issues are solved it'll be really nice. However I'm considering using a couple of these as a DNS/DHCP cluster.
The PoE isn't really PoE. It's more of a "place holder". You can provide your own PoE module which will make it fully compliant, or just use the onboard regulators which will be a "hack job" but functional. The onboard regulators can't handle the input voltages of true PoE.
+Johannes Yde Well it's slightly better. The OPiZ has the ability to breakout the PoE lines on the PCB, so you can have more of a complete PoE setup than wiring it up before the RJ45 plug.
Everyone mentions the support of the Raspberry compared to the Orange Pi, I have to disagree. I owned both SBCs, I built a headless server with the Orange Pi running Boinc client, an ADS-B base, samba file server, and lighttpd web server, all of them well documented in the internet, things related to OC are also well explained in sunxi website.
Yup I agree. The Pi has been the winner for many years, but other SBCs are starting to etch away at that crown. It won't be long before they make an impact. If you're a beginner, then non-Pi SBCs will be tricky, but if you've been around for a while, then they're starting to be a viable alternative.
Nice review. But ... I played with that little piece of hardware extensively for 3 weeks now. 1st - use Armbian. 2nd - to use SPI1.0 (on header) you have to unlock it in config. SPI0.0 is available right from the start (that's for not populated SO8 at the back). SD Sandisk class 10 4-16GB should work quite allright. But not all microSD would start up with OPi Zero. Both i2c (twi) are available right away... check i2c-tools package. So... there are things which are tricky to get working but once you're through it you can enjoy and use it one widely available hw unlike rpi zero :) I've just recommended OPi to replace RPi in some places those were used in my company. Not because they're better overall... I'd say better suited for our needs. And cheaper too. And yes, fully loaded 4 cores do heat up silicon die drastically - additional cooling is required for heavy computing tasks (or plenty interrupt routines handling... in case of some python scripts like MFRC522 from github).
+Przemysław Stalmach Great to hear your experiences on it. My initial reviews that I do I try to approach them from someone who doesn't want to spend much time getting the thing they just bought going. I then run a review update a while later covering the product more deeply as often things change. I actually quite like the OPiZ, but It has a lot more potential than is currently available. A real shame they only provided standard RPi headers. Real shame.
I understand you. I just wanted to give some hints for those trying to get it working. People just expected it to be cheaper RPi direct replacement. It is not. It can do very same things but due to lack of proper support most work "to get things running" is done by users themselves. Basically this rules out beginners, real shame because hardware is quite ok.
The Orange Pi Zero is limited as a general purpose computer (it only has one usable USB port and no video output, unless you want to solder and are happy with SDTV), and is limited as an IoT device, too (its 26-pin GPIO header and its power and heat problems make it undesirable). The only area where it shines is as a headless server (web, file, media, eDonkey, etc.), or maybe as a wireless access point or 3G/4G router. Given its size, it would make a nice pocket server (interesting if you are a developer, or if you want to use OwnCloud on the go). But its power consumption, again, is a barrier for battery powered applications. In short, it's a nice idea blunted by its limitations.
+ajgelado The CPU vs power consumption is actually pretty decent 400mA peak is great for a quad core. Compare that to something like the UpBoard or LattePanda it's very lean.
I'm not talking about power/consumption ratio, but of raw consumption. The ratio, as you say, is nice, and even more if you consider the price. But an average consumption of 250-300 mA under load means that an small 300 mAh battery will not last more than an hour per charge - and what's the point on a tiny 46x48 mm board if you need to have it tied to a three cell power bank or a power supply? Also, take into account that the Orange Pi Zero and the LattePanda are in opposite ends of the SBC spectrum, both in features and price. The LattePanda is almost a desktop computer (it is more powerful in every aspect than almost all ARM boards, and it even runs x86 software directly), while the Orange Pi Zero (and the Raspberry Pi Zero) are more alike to an Arduino, with the added advantage of running a general purpose OS. But the Orange Pi Zero consumes three to four times more power than the Raspberry Pi Zero (250-300 mA vs. 80 mA). And this without taking into account that people have managed to get the Raspberry Pi Zero down to 15-20 mA, with the help of an amazing documentation and community.
+ajgelado Yup, the x86 SBCs are very different to the ARM SBCs and really aren't in the same category. The price you pay for an MCU that isn't really designed for mobile devices.
Hi, has the situation re software improved for the Orange Pi Zero? Raspberry Pi Zero is practically not available in India, whereas the Orange Pi Zero is. Please advise.
+Steven Sexton One thing that affects my ratings is whether or not it meets the advertised abilities. Yup, I was a bit generous, but I wouldn't have gone below the threes. It does do a lot of what it says.
Best power supply adapter for zero? I think smartphone chargers doesn't give us stable power for power it on right!? someone in forums told PSP adapters have stable 5V 2A power but I should convert to OTG microUSB first. any ideas?
+charlie brownau No, I actually don't have a RPiZ, but they're similar to a first gen RPi which I have. I haven't planned to review one as... well... everyone knows about them, but I have some comparison videos coming up.
Hey m9, im from across the ditch in NZ, where the site you downloaded the image from (mega) is based. You don't have to download the extension, as (at least in Chrome) there is a small grey button to just download. And can you put the mega link in the description? Cheers m9
Hi, I am trying to create a headless out of this mcu So loaded armbian's ubuntu as you suggested but not able to setup the wifi in the supplicant. Is it possible to do so with this mcu?
+MickMake from what you've seen could this be made into an ethernet cabled FTP server which uses USB storage? I'm looking for something to extend the storage capability of a cctv encoder and this could be a really neat option.
+Simon Merrett Absolutely! I was running a 500G hard disk off this. Which was strange as it was 20 times the size of the Zero. I don't think it'd be able to power a laptop hard disk from the USB port. I used a 3.5" powered disk.
+MickMake Thanks! A usb flash stick should be fine, power-wise? Going for small form factor and the ability to swap drives out, so unlikely to opt for spinning disks. Which distribution/OS would you try first for this kind of application: Armbian or another?
+Simon Merrett USB flash should be OK, but YMMV with those. Some pull a lot of juice so it can be a bit of trial and error. Use Armbian, far better support on that for ARM than any other dist I've seen.
Since this little guy has been out for a bit longer, has anything improved on the software side? I'm looking to make a tiny handheld emulation platform, but only the power use seems to be friendly.
![ว้าว!ลุงบีมแบกทองมารับขวัญหลานกันยกบ้าน [cc] แดนแพทตี้ SS2 | EP.49 |](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Osihq1OAs-4/mqdefault.jpg)
"Now with zero support" OMFG I died xdddddddd
Ha ha!
As it turns out there is actually some support. So you have to still watch those calories.
MickMake i want a zero support edition!
xDDDDD
Really good review ! It's really nice that you point out all the potential pain points so that it doesn't come as a surprise for future buyers.
+Nicolas Marshall
Thanks mate. Yup, that’s one of the goals of this channel, give people a good heads up on what they are thinking of buying.
That intro and the style of your video man you deserve a sub
Thanks mate!
I did not expect this video to be out so fast. Thanks for the in depth test on it. Here is hoping they fix all the issues.
+EyesofNova
No problems, mate! I have a strict schedule, but move things around as needed. Let me know if you need any more questions answered.
BTW I'll be doing a "running on battery" series on a lot of the SBCs soon.
MickMake you answered a lot of questions. I'm going to give this a pass for a bit until they get it worked out a bit. The lack of support from the dev is kind of dumb. Also can't wait to see the running on battery series.
EyesofNova no they won't fix all the issues, because you already bought it and they don't give a fuk. software support on the banana anything has been banana
Moes This is the Orange Pi, not the Banana Pi
"Let's see how far across the room we can lose your SD card"
+Sachin Ganpat
Must be!
Great video! I usually put a thermal pad or even thermal paste between the heatsink for better performance.
The support from Orange pi really sucks but at least there community provides decent support.
+bonnome2
Yup, these heatsinks have the black adhesive thermal gunk which seems to do a good job of conducting heat.
But yes good that there's support there from the community, maybe the company should start paying those people? ;-)
My concern regarding the OPi boards is that lack of image support from the company.
One has to go to this forum,
www.orangepi.org/orangepibbsen/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=342&extra=page%3D1
in order to retrieve working images. I'm running 3 RPi-3 boards as cable boxes at home but would like to compare them
to the OPi+2 board...soon I'll have one to test.
Even if the Orange Zero is better in every way than the Raspberry version, the simple support and overall user happiness will always make the raspberry the winner in my book.
+Richard T
True true. But out of a lot of knockoffs this one seems to be the better supported and since it cheap as chips it can be shoved into so many places.
The big issue with this board is the lack of MIPI. Man it'd be a killer if the included that and what about all those other GPIOs?
Just routing a bunch of tracks out isn't that hard!
MickMake I honestly suspect this board was released due to some corporate mandate rather than, as you had said, when the board was ready. It could indeed be a killer piece of hardware ... if only ...
BTW What is this nonsense about 30C+ in Dec? It is currently -8C here in Vancouver, with a big snowstorm coming! :)
+Richard T
Yes I agree with you. It could have been so much more. Companies like this have to stop being "better" and be "different".
It'd be nice if it was -8C down under for Christmas. The coldest it's been during Christmas was 16.
yeah I got an OrangePi PC a while back and it barely worked, after the hassle of finding a working image on the forums (a very awesome guy put a lot of effort into providing some that work, strange the people at OrangePi couldn't have done the same..) after a few weeks it just started freezing on start up and nothing I tried ever fixed it. Meanwhile my RasPi3 has worked beautifully the for months.
the difference of £20 between them still doesn't make a product that was hassle from the start and fails in a month worth the money to me so I just avoid OrangePi in general now.
Yup, the Pi design is rock solid. You gotta hand it to them for creating a nice stable product.
The one thing that keeps me from buying this one over the Raspberry Pi Zero is the tremendous amount of support the RPZ has, in terms of hardware add-ons, software and community. Still, for certain types of tasks, this is definitely the way to go for "bang for the buck"! Keep in mind that, although it is certainly a tremendous deal, it's about 40% more expensive than the Pi Zero (Around $7 instead of $5 for the RPZ).
JW3HH
+JustWasted3HoursHere
That's true. Nothing beats the support within the Pi community, but the OPiZ has a large community behind it on the Armbian forums and the company even supports Armbian development.
It depends on your use case: if you want better support, then the RPi. If you want more bang for your buck, then OPiZ.
I did actually manage to find a version/port of Retro-Pi for the OPiZ, so that changes a few things for me, since retro-gaming was the main thing I wanted to do with it. Still, I will weigh the differences carefully before I buy either one.
JW3HH
I also take issue with companies that are developing and selling these hardware products and expecting the users to fend for themselves on the software side. I AM LOOKING AT YOU PINE64 -- I BACKED YOUR KICKSTARTER LIKE AN IDIOT, AND THERE IS *ONE* GUY COMPILING KERNEL MODULES AND PUTTING OUT O/S BUILDS 'N SHIT, AND HE DOESN'T EVEN WORK FOR YOU! (honestly, all of them are the Chinese companies pushing this crap out). Come on, at least provide some form of operating system, or a ready-made Linux distro ISO with pre-compiled binaries. They are taking people's money and basically exploiting the maker market boom. I really hate that shit, it's starting to be absolutely flooded with them.
+stryk187
Yes there's a heck a lot of duds around. This is one of the reasons why I started up MickMake. Just wasn't enough information around to really decide if I could use a particular product or not.
yeah i am thinking getting a banana pi m3 but might learn more about it
That was brilliant, but most of it went right over my head :D I've got an Orange Pi PC and would love to learn a bit more beyond just installing images and playing emulated games. I had a look at your other videos, but couldn't find anything "to start off" my learning journey so I can understand the things you talk about in this video?
Hmmmm. Better start creating some beginner videos on that then!
MickMake I better subscribe then :D I must say the docs and guides with the Raspberry Pi are awesome. The Orange seems like the Pro version, assuming a lot of knowledge and having to figure things out yourself.
Yes that's true. The OPiZ is really something for an intermediate to pro maker.
The way you say WiFi holy frick
+Rushur
Yes, it’s a looong story and worth a video of its own.
Superb analysis mate! Appreciate your work.
Another great review. I am really not sure how many people would have got the joke about the VB ad.
I am also glad to see the number of views on some of your review videos are starting to look really healthy. I hope they aren't like Google Analytics spam.
You could always re-edit some of your reviews to make some click bait titled videos like "5 Boards that smoked the RPi 3". Judging by how hot some of these boards are getting, may be they are the ones getting smoked.
I think it is really great how you are exposing the very basic limitations of the software/OS available for this and similar boards.
Thanks mate. It's a long road to success on TH-cam.
I have a few comparison videos planned for next year along the lines of: "If I want to do THIS, then what's the best board to use."
The review is great and top notch. I am looking for your next review on Orange pi pc plus :)
+Amitesh Singh
That'll be in a couple of weeks.
hello i would like to connect my scsi disk drive on it is it possible please help me
+JUL IEN
Anything is possible, but the question is "Is it worth it?" and also "How much time do you have?"
The easiest way is to look for a USB to SCSI adaptor. A quick google search shows up some possibilities, but then you'd have the issue of driver support. You'd have to do some research on chipset support in Armbian.
This is a nice thorough review, covering things I didn't think of. I believe these guys were at World Maker Faire in NYC at the beginning of October. I was going to buy their product then and there, but they weren't selling. There were too many products there that were not for sale that I would have bought because they were cheap, but when you have to order online and pay for shipping, I'm not so interested. It's probably good that I didn't buy it, as it doesn't seem well supported.
+J.L.M.
Thanks! Glad you got something out of it.
Yup, like a lot of boards there's some good and bad points. It's still pretty decent even without the SPI and I2C busses going.
A nice tiny quad core board is attractive for some people.
Oh gawds, the gag is priceless.... Especially the Orange Crush-esque label on top of what looks like a Coke Zero ^_^
Yup, orange Crush modified label but on top of some horrible copy of a copy rubbish that was bought on the cheap in the hopes that it would be nice.
We often use it as paint stripper.
The data lines may only be used for power supply communication.
Mega doesn't force you to install an extension. It's optional.
+Maliza
That's good to know. I must have been too annoyed to notice it was optional.
Yeah the addons just to make the process quicker and better down speed i think.
Slick review - love the intro!
Thanks mate. The Intro had to be done. :-D
i2c is working in the stable armbian now
Nice! Yup saw that. I think it’s about time I did a review update.
MickMake i managed to solder on pins without breaking it because of overheating, im screwing around with it, it works with my 128x64 oled
Nice.
+MickMake USB OTG isn't enabled in Armbian-images by default, so that's probably why you weren't seeing it as a USB-device. Adding g_serial to /etc/modules should've fixed that. There is an open issue on Armbian's github about this, but I don't know if there are any decisions made, yet. As for missing I2C and SPI: did you check if i2cdev-l and spidev-kernel modules were loaded?
About the pin-headers...stuff like this is what I've been raging about several times. Many SoCs used by these various kinds of SBCs actually have way more useable pins and buses than what gets brought out on headers, and that means there's a lot of wasted potential. Sure, 200+ GPIO-pins might be a bit of an overkill on an SBC in general, but why not e.g. put out 40 or 60 of them on the board and then bring the rest out on a ZIF-connector? Those people who want/need more than what's on the board by default would then only need to make/buy a daughter-board and connect it to the ZIF-connector with a FFC-cable and POOF -- hundreds more GPIO. I think it'd be a reasonably elegant way of keeping the main SBC-board from being bloated with billions of pins, while not preventing you from using it to its fullest when needed.
+Nita Vesa
Hi Nita, yup all modules were loaded up. I could have spent more time on getting it going, and really wouldn't have taken much effort, but that wasn't the goal of the review. Getting into kernel rebuilds isn't for everyone. Although I should do a video on that!
I agree with the GPIOs. Such a waste and gets my goat every time I see these boards being released with a piddley amount of them. Such a brain-dead decision. It's like buying a Porsche and having only one cylinder running.
There needs to be a new standard, something like Uber Raspberry Pi GPIO header.
The Up^2 and some/most of the 96Boards SBCs bring out a bunch of GPIOs out, but offer a whole lot of additional pins via a separate header. I think it's a good idea in general, though I think the connector they use on the 96Boards SBCs might be more robust.
Makes me wonder if the Up^2-people are going to be selling a daughter-board to connect to that, or if they'll just leave the design and manufacturing of such to individuals from the community. In fact, I think I'll just ask them!
They mentioned to me that they weren't going to provide access to the FPGA, which is a shame. Hopefully I can convince them to do otherwise, but I can understand from their perspective; someone can really stuff it up as a lot of the core depends on that FPGA.
I don't know if you really care, but I got a response today from them and they did confirm that they will sell a daughter-board for use with the exHAT-connector.
Excellent! Thanks for chasing that up.
Wait... You're saying it was 102f IN your LAB???
+Do R/C!
Yes indeed. It hit 46C the other day. Had to shut off all the computers as they were overheating.
love this video, fast simple and to the point
Thanks!
Very very nice review. Surprising SBC packing cpu punch for less than 10$. Are you still trying to get a 4.x kernel fully working ? BTW, I wonder if there are attempts at a hat with full 300+ GPIO lines. That could be fun ;) PS: do you know if the separate 2$ hat with IR has bidirectional IR ? merry holidays sir
+agu monkey
Thanks!
Yes, there is a "hat" which pushes out all the extra pins to proper connectors.
It's actually a good thing to minimise components on the board, it means it can really cut down the overall footprint. All you have to do is remove the Ethernet port and it's really tiny.
As for all the other GPIO lines? Well alas they can't be used as they're not even connected anywhere in the PCB. Since it's a BGA you won't ever be able to get to them.
That was a solid and unbiased review. I "collect" SBCs and poke around on them and I still have to say my favorite is still the Raspberry Pi flavors. The alternatives just seem to try to emulate and not innovate. Thumbs up to you, I look forward to checking out your other videos.
Thanks mate. I plan to review all the SBCs eventually. It's a very long list!
But yup the RPi is my favourite still for most of my projects.
I know armbian developer fine bloke, support him if you can. I do not see any problem for company to sell its goods without software. But if they offer Linux images, they should offer used code as well.
Yup, I've spent many years in the OSS community supporting many projects. It's great when a project gets to the level that Armbian is at. Lots of dedicated hours.
I don't mind companies producing hardware without software. As long as the expectation is: "This is a Maker product".
But *please* companies! Recognize all the hard work that developers put in to the software side. If you're not going to do the work yourself, then build up the community around your product. This means creating the tools and atmosphere where people *want* to contribute.
no doubt about it . it's much better than raspberry pi zero
+Trollers gonna troll
Both better and worse - depends on your goals.
I'd say the lack of software support and relative obscurity of the board cancels the Orange Pi's hardware superiority myself. I'd consider it equal at best.
Orange pi zero is finally a very nice board with armbian. Updating to the kernel 5.3 will also help a lot with all h2+, h3, h5 chips as we're finally getting GPU decoding etc.
I love the Orange Pi Zero. Its has 3 serial ports, which I am going to use for out of band management for network equipment. Armbian is way better than Raspbian, if you just want a clean Debian with great kernel support.
+Per Mejdal Rasmussen
Nice! Yup those extra serial ports are great to have. I have a bunch of equipment that I'll be hooking up as well.
I quite like Armbian and it'll probably end up being the de facto standard I reckon.
I Picked up one of these last summer. Could not get it running, had all sorts of emails back and forth with the support folks, they finally sent me a new board, that one worked. Well I was a bit torqued off about this, so I took a hot soldering iron and resoldered the board since it looked like some nine year old kid with a torch and a hot nail did the factory solder job. After redoing all the joints, I got the first board up and running as well, the quality control just isn't there on these as far as I could tell, however the replacement board did look a lot better so perhaps my first board was a quirk.
Possibly. I haven't had any issues so far with my boards.
Hi there ! Great video with really usefull information and product info. Cool stuff, made my decision taking more easy ! Keep it coming !
+Philip Gevaert
Thanks! Glad you got a lot out of it.
For the price, this thing is amazing if you only need basic GPIO or USB support and wifi. I use mine as a portable Music Player Daemon box that I can use with any speaker or pair of headphone (with the help of a USB sound card) that is controlled by a smartphone and streams files over the air from my NAS or a thumb drive. Maybe one day the chipset will have mainline support like the A10 and 20's have today...
The power consumption can be adjusted by disabling cores you don't need and adjusting clocks and voltages, I'm pretty sure that Sunxi wiki has more info on that.
+ZLau13
Nice! Yup it'd also be a great MAME box. Even without SPI it can be put to a lot of uses.
hello , why doesn't the video output of my Orange pi zero h2 work?
lol, the way he says WiFi
+Copetekk
I've given up trying to say it the right way,. I've been saying that way for too long.
Looking forward to your review update with SPI and I2C
Yup, unfortunately that'll be after Christmas.
many thanks for this superb and informative video: overwhelming: i love your work - keep it up. Can t wait to see more of your great tutorials and videos!!
Thanks mate. Glad you enjoyed it
I've been running Retropie on this board. It handles 3D content very well. PS1 games run very smooth. Very hard to get an image going though.
+DOPPELgameplayVIDEOS
That's good to hear that it can keep up.
Dear Mick... Just one thing - It is "Wi-Fi"... as in 'Wireless Fidelity', 'Wireless Internet', so the resulting contraction is pronounced "Why-Figh" and not "Wiff-eee" - bless you for your dedication and your awesome dedication to analysis of some awesome and some less than awesome tech.
+TheOakRoom
Thanks, yes I gave up trying to change. It all started out as a joke 20 odd years ago and it's been difficult to shake.
haha, OMG I know the feeling. Keep up the great work. May all your Wi-Fi be High fidelity.
+TheOakRoom
Thanks mate!
How does the performance of this SBC compare to the orange pi lite? I'm looking to build a robot where every millimeter counts, but can't sacrifice performance either.
Hmmm. Haven't tried the lite yet.
It's the same as the One I think.
Their website _claims_ it runs Android. Have you attempted that? How well does it run (if at all)?
+jarodboyd72
Sorry, mate, didn't do it this time, but will be doing it in the update.
h3droid.com/
could you make a cluster of these with the Ethernet port?
Really enjoy your videos!
+DrSpeed007
Thanks!
Using this as owncloud server. No problems whatsoever. I dont care about spi and all tat stuff so this board suits my needs perfectly
+PCBart321
Yes true. Or as a small cluster. A dozen of these would be a nice cluster.
LOL owncloud is in PHP
This is a review I am really glad to see, I am always ordering off brand electronic good and it is aways so hard to find media, but this is AWESOME! great video and looking forward to more information about the board, by the way, is there any chance I can expect a review of the onion omega 2?
+Matthew Hartsuch
Thanks very much!
I was one of the Kickstarter backers of the Omega2, so waiting to get my hands on it.
Can't wait!
Question: I bought an Orange Pi One, when you try to plug it into a 5V, 3A adapter you get the see the LAN port lights up. I was told that by the seller that this is an indicator that the SBC is powering up correctly? Is it true with all orange pi boards?
2020 and still no quick start for the orange pi zero
+MickMake would you like to show code in GPIO.sh file (5:15)? How do you access gpio pin? I tried with pyA20 python library and wiringPy but with no success.
Thank you in advance! :)
I used the Linux /sys interface to access the GPIOs. It's pretty simple.
# Create a GPIO reference for pin3.
echo "3" > /sys/class/gpio/export
# List the newly created reference.
ls -l gpio3/
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 active_low
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 29 14:59 device -> ../../../up-pinctrl
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 direction
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 edge
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jun 29 14:59 power
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 29 14:59 subsystem -> ../../../../../class/gpio
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:58 uevent
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Jun 29 14:59 value
# Set the direction of the pin.
echo out > gpio3/direction
# Set it to HIGH.
echo 1 > gpio3/value
# Set it to LOW.
echo 0 > gpio3/value
# Remove the GPIO reference.
echo "3" > /sys/class/gpio/unexport
Also checkout my GPIO mapping perl script which shows which pin correlates to which GPIO.
github.com/MickMakes/GPIOmapping
Thank you very much! :)
2:56 you don't have to download the extension.. It's only for faster and more reliable downloads..
Yup, some others have commented on that as well.
Does the OPI Zero reboot with the same MAC address? I set up a bunch of OPI PC as Octoprint servers, but they would reboot with a different MAC address as the router would not give them the same ip address. That is an issue for a headless server.
+Andrew Hasara
Yup they came up with the same MAC.
Thanks for checking that. This may become my new favorite Octoprint board.
I'm curious to know about the audio out. On the 13 pin header, it seems like there's an audio left/right channel. From a hookup perspect, could i just get a two pin dupont header and wire the other end directly to a passive speaker? Actually now that i think of it, if i'm just using a singular mono speaker, just bridging the two channels should have the same effect with a little more amperage i'd assume? Fault logic on my part?
+Victor Hogarth
Technically you could, but a more appropriate method would be to use an audio amplifier on the speakers.
Also you should mix the left and right channel instead of "bridging", that'll give you some funny results and cause one channel to drive into the other channel. Essentially not what you want.
You can pick up a cheap PAM2802 breakout from AdaFruit and SparkFun. A single channel amp, or use a stereo amp with two speakers.
I am thinking of making a NAS with worldwide access using one of the orange pi boards. I want to use nextcloud. Is that a good idea? Or is there a better cheap alternative?
I understand you can also reach it through "serialport" with a 3.3V FTDI USB converter
In a country of 1.3 billion people, is _proper_ initial software support for a hardware project so difficult to provide? Apparently.
1.3 billion people, but only 0.003 billion are somewhat educated with 0.000003 billion educated and having an EE degree. Then there are 0.000000030 people designing these things and not just stealing and copying the designs from us (read US), and 0% of these (30 people) are interested in anything but profit and being first to market. Also, exactly 0% of the designers speak (proper or dare I say any) English, to boot. There you have it.
SteelBlueVision That's more than a bit of exaggeration.
SteelBlueVision Made me laugh. First the joke about americans being educated and then the scientific numbers taken straight from your extensive studies in mainland China.
This is not the issue, the issue is that you are trying to clone a project(rpi0) but you also wanted to add your own twist to it, i.e. Wifi...etc. So, it ended up neither being a clone nor unique. But I hope there will be an Orange Pi community to deal with these things. Check this out it might offer some good help: www.reddit.com/r/OrangePI/
+SteelBlueVision
We are talking about Raspberry PI clones here and you say and i quote: "... stealing and copying the designs from us (read US), ". You do know that Raspberry PI foundation is UK based, right?
One of points that made the OPiZ unique is on-board PoE (requires some soldering). Not covered in review:(
+Pavel Gorbanj
Yup, I saved that for a review update.
Wow thanks for this pretty cool review =D
No problem.
this should be interesting to watch, could be a pretty nice solution for small handheld portable gaming emulators if it can be made to work with something like emulation-station and the Adafruit piTFT series.
Skwisgar2322 if spi does not work, then how spi tft would work?
Amitesh Singh assuming they get spi to work, hense why I said worth watching.
+Skwisgar2322
I think it's pretty close to someone fixing up the SPI/I2C issues. It's not particularly hard to get it going.
that is a good news. although i am interested in buying orange pi pc plus. I have been doing linux kernel programming since 3 months and i think it would be great for my learning to start hacking orange pi.
btw, i would still like orange pi to work flawlessly on mainline linux kernel. I heard allwinner company has been accused quite a few times for violating GPL license. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology#Linux_controversies
Also there has been backdoor controversy too. these were reasons for me earlier not to try orange pi.
thats true, there are other displays like MCUFriend which has parallel 8/16 bits bus which can work with gpio drivers only.
Recently i wrote a driver for parallel 8 bits bus 3.5" display(ili9481) (similar to mcu friend) which works well with raspberry pi 2.
twitter.com/amitesh_singh/status/810209555049304064
18bit color mode (RGB666)
github.com/amitesh-singh/ldd/blob/master/tfts/tftframework/4dtftrgb666.c
16 bit color mode (RGB565)
github.com/amitesh-singh/ldd/blob/master/tfts/tftframework/4dtft.c
Looks like they gave us a v 8 engine with a slipping transmission and through some brake fluid to tighten up the bands
Yeah, was a little dubious.
Thanks for the review! Gonna order one
+Artem unknown
Excellent! What are you going to use it for?
Home automation, I think
Nice use for that board. A real shame, though, they didn't push out the 1wire GPIO. Would be good to have connected up a bunch of 1wire sensors to it.
Yep, thinking about Raspberry, too :) Nice channel, pal!
Thanks!
sound's an bloody attractive hardware
(but sh*tty official software support except armbian's community's help)
i kinda interested after your brief review :P
btw, a silly question: what's the size of the the heat sink you've use?
The SD card slot is the best feature! XD
might just purchase one
+PROPHECY
It's actually a nice little board. Once the SPI/I2C issues are solved it'll be really nice.
However I'm considering using a couple of these as a DNS/DHCP cluster.
MickMake I am gonna try and make this a mini file server I'll just hook up some hard drives via USB using a USB hub
+PROPHECY yup that'd be a great use of it.
Hi Mick, can you give some info on the PoE capabilities of this little thing?
The PoE isn't really PoE. It's more of a "place holder". You can provide your own PoE module which will make it fully compliant, or just use the onboard regulators which will be a "hack job" but functional. The onboard regulators can't handle the input voltages of true PoE.
So it does not have any better PoE functionality than any other of the other single board computers?
+Johannes Yde
Well it's slightly better. The OPiZ has the ability to breakout the PoE lines on the PCB, so you can have more of a complete PoE setup than wiring it up before the RJ45 plug.
Everyone mentions the support of the Raspberry compared to the Orange Pi, I have to disagree. I owned both SBCs, I built a headless server with the Orange Pi running Boinc client, an ADS-B base, samba file server, and lighttpd web server, all of them well documented in the internet, things related to OC are also well explained in sunxi website.
Yup I agree. The Pi has been the winner for many years, but other SBCs are starting to etch away at that crown. It won't be long before they make an impact. If you're a beginner, then non-Pi SBCs will be tricky, but if you've been around for a while, then they're starting to be a viable alternative.
Nice review. But ... I played with that little piece of hardware extensively for 3 weeks now. 1st - use Armbian. 2nd - to use SPI1.0 (on header) you have to unlock it in config. SPI0.0 is available right from the start (that's for not populated SO8 at the back). SD Sandisk class 10 4-16GB should work quite allright. But not all microSD would start up with OPi Zero. Both i2c (twi) are available right away... check i2c-tools package. So... there are things which are tricky to get working but once you're through it you can enjoy and use it one widely available hw unlike rpi zero :) I've just recommended OPi to replace RPi in some places those were used in my company. Not because they're better overall... I'd say better suited for our needs. And cheaper too.
And yes, fully loaded 4 cores do heat up silicon die drastically - additional cooling is required for heavy computing tasks (or plenty interrupt routines handling... in case of some python scripts like MFRC522 from github).
+Przemysław Stalmach
Great to hear your experiences on it.
My initial reviews that I do I try to approach them from someone who doesn't want to spend much time getting the thing they just bought going.
I then run a review update a while later covering the product more deeply as often things change.
I actually quite like the OPiZ, but It has a lot more potential than is currently available. A real shame they only provided standard RPi headers. Real shame.
I understand you. I just wanted to give some hints for those trying to get it working. People just expected it to be cheaper RPi direct replacement. It is not. It can do very same things but due to lack of proper support most work "to get things running" is done by users themselves. Basically this rules out beginners, real shame because hardware is quite ok.
so in terms of retro gaming is this better than pi 1,2,&Zero?
Haven't tried retro gaming on it yet!
Orange Pi Zero Plus 2 H5
Can you review new upgraded board?
+falconidaes
Yup, it's on my list.
What is the voltage and amperage of the power supply?
Love your videos.
I want an orange pi zero soda
Ha ha. Great drink!
The Orange Pi Zero is limited as a general purpose computer (it only has one usable USB port and no video output, unless you want to solder and are happy with SDTV), and is limited as an IoT device, too (its 26-pin GPIO header and its power and heat problems make it undesirable). The only area where it shines is as a headless server (web, file, media, eDonkey, etc.), or maybe as a wireless access point or 3G/4G router. Given its size, it would make a nice pocket server (interesting if you are a developer, or if you want to use OwnCloud on the go). But its power consumption, again, is a barrier for battery powered applications. In short, it's a nice idea blunted by its limitations.
+ajgelado
The CPU vs power consumption is actually pretty decent 400mA peak is great for a quad core.
Compare that to something like the UpBoard or LattePanda it's very lean.
I'm not talking about power/consumption ratio, but of raw consumption.
The ratio, as you say, is nice, and even more if you consider the price. But an average consumption of 250-300 mA under load means that an small 300 mAh battery will not last more than an hour per charge - and what's the point on a tiny 46x48 mm board if you need to have it tied to a three cell power bank or a power supply?
Also, take into account that the Orange Pi Zero and the LattePanda are in opposite ends of the SBC spectrum, both in features and price. The LattePanda is almost a desktop computer (it is more powerful in every aspect than almost all ARM boards, and it even runs x86 software directly), while the Orange Pi Zero (and the Raspberry Pi Zero) are more alike to an Arduino, with the added advantage of running a general purpose OS. But the Orange Pi Zero consumes three to four times more power than the Raspberry Pi Zero (250-300 mA vs. 80 mA). And this without taking into account that people have managed to get the Raspberry Pi Zero down to 15-20 mA, with the help of an amazing documentation and community.
+ajgelado
Yup, the x86 SBCs are very different to the ARM SBCs and really aren't in the same category. The price you pay for an MCU that isn't really designed for mobile devices.
hello i need my pi zero for mining with baikal giant + how can i flash it?
Hi, has the situation re software improved for the Orange Pi Zero? Raspberry Pi Zero is practically not available in India, whereas the Orange Pi Zero is. Please advise.
+sudeep64ify
On the Armbian side it has. Although I haven't tried it recently.
so which the winner one ?
+Illuminate S
Well, that's all up to the viewer!
I quite like it, but others may find it useless for what they want.
My orange pi's red led is only blinking can anyone help me
This usually means you have a corrupt SD card, not enough power or the SD card isn't supported.
thx going out to buy a new one
Yea it fixed the issue but how do I update the Kernel 3.4 is way old
I think you were too generous on you rating. No support and nonworking buses = 0 stars.
+Steven Sexton
One thing that affects my ratings is whether or not it meets the advertised abilities. Yup, I was a bit generous, but I wouldn't have gone below the threes. It does do a lot of what it says.
Thank you for sharing this video.
how do I update the kernel?
Orange PI Zero, now with no support.
I died
Best power supply adapter for zero? I think smartphone chargers doesn't give us stable power for power it on right!? someone in forums told PSP adapters have stable 5V 2A power but I should convert to OTG microUSB first. any ideas?
+Pouria Rezaee
I managed to power it from an Apple wallwart without issue. Worked well enough.
Did you happen to try the rasp pi zero with pfsense and kodi?
+charlie brownau
No, I actually don't have a RPiZ, but they're similar to a first gen RPi which I have. I haven't planned to review one as... well... everyone knows about them, but I have some comparison videos coming up.
Sorry I meant this orgANGE pi zero with pfsense/kodi
+charlie brownau
Ah no, but this test will be covered in my comparison tests.
to MikeMake or anyone, how do you plug video out?
40 degrees celcius is normal in Australia?
Yes, often. It's not so good when there's high humidity.
good lord that is just overkill heat. I've only seen 40 degree heat 1 time in Canada in more than 20 years
Hey m9, im from across the ditch in NZ, where the site you downloaded the image from (mega) is based. You don't have to download the extension, as (at least in Chrome) there is a small grey button to just download. And can you put the mega link in the description? Cheers m9
+Aidan Homewood
Yup, I found that out later.
The link? Yup, I thought I'd done that, but missed that one out. I'll update it now.
What the hell is "whiffy"? I can't see one of those on mine.
Whiffy is the type of WiFi that isn't so good.
it's not supposed to be a comparison with rpi zero which is much more powerful.
Some promising uses for these with the PoE, I looked into these but as you say there is still some immaturity in the ecosystem.
+Darren Tarbard
Yup still a way to go but it looks promising.
Can the Orange Pi Zero be powered through a pin? If so which one and how much Volts and Amps does it accept?
+Mateusz Wiater
It would be possible. You night have to cut a few tracks though.
>that ambient temperature
crikey!
+Riku Torenius
It's a stinker today as well. It hit the low 40s. I think peaking at 43C.
Gday First time to channel , love the review . Its a shame a lot of the places in AU sell the ras pi zero for AUD$35-AUD$40
+charlie brownau
Yes, unfortunately that's the exchange rate for you.
MickMake
Sorry but USD$5 does NOT = AUD$35 .. see - www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=5&From=USD&To=AUD ... AUD$15 would be more fair
+charlie brownau
Yes true, but then there's shipping and the margin for the importer. It all adds up to that amount, sadly.
Hi, I am trying to create a headless out of this mcu
So loaded armbian's ubuntu as you suggested but not able to setup the wifi in the supplicant. Is it possible to do so with this mcu?
+Raad Yacu
Yup, it's possible. What errors did you see?
Good review. I like mine.
How did you do that trick with the display redirection with wpa_gui?
That was just using SSH X11 redirects. Most X11 SSHDs will redirect X11 traffic to your PC, but only if you have an Xserver running!
@MickMake : Can Orange Pi Zero uses IR transmitter to transmit data signal ?
+John Doe
Yes it can, but I didn't test this out. I'll have this in a review update.
Will it be ok to power a usb camera in the usb port 24/7?
+Allen W
I'm pretty sure it can, although I haven't tried it. When I get back to my Mac I'll check out the schematics again.
I think your 'decent antenna' and the stock antenna are the same thing.
+MickMake from what you've seen could this be made into an ethernet cabled FTP server which uses USB storage? I'm looking for something to extend the storage capability of a cctv encoder and this could be a really neat option.
+Simon Merrett
Absolutely! I was running a 500G hard disk off this. Which was strange as it was 20 times the size of the Zero. I don't think it'd be able to power a laptop hard disk from the USB port. I used a 3.5" powered disk.
+MickMake Thanks! A usb flash stick should be fine, power-wise? Going for small form factor and the ability to swap drives out, so unlikely to opt for spinning disks. Which distribution/OS would you try first for this kind of application: Armbian or another?
+Simon Merrett
USB flash should be OK, but YMMV with those. Some pull a lot of juice so it can be a bit of trial and error.
Use Armbian, far better support on that for ARM than any other dist I've seen.
Since this little guy has been out for a bit longer, has anything improved on the software side? I'm looking to make a tiny handheld emulation platform, but only the power use seems to be friendly.
+CheffBryan
It's getting better and better. It's actually fairly complete already. Someone else has commented that it keeps up with PS1 games.
MickMake Fantastic, then a MAME machine that fits in your pocket sounds like a solid goal.
+CheffBryan
It certainly looks promising, except for the HDMI out problem.
MickMake Thus why emulation would be fine; only need to hit that high-quality 144p!
+CheffBryan
True!
its possible to make a router with this board, where you received the internet sign in RJ45 and send this sinal from WiFi?
+Tales Cembraneli Dantas
Absolutely!
Is the OS download information in this video still valid?
I purchased an orange pi zero and waiting for the shipment to arrived.
They often change. I usually come back to old videos every so often to update and check the content. So check my website.