Raspberry Pi is about to wrap up its biggest, busiest year to date. The company launched a ton of new products, overhauled the Pi OS operating system, and went public on the London Stock Exchange. It’s an exciting time to be a Pi fan.
The Year That Raspberry Pi Became “Real” Again
We live in a decade of hobbyist escapism. As things get tougher, and as we recover from the scars of social distancing, we’re more likely to sink time and money into our interests.
Raspberry Pi plays a big part in this hobbyist revolution. But, for many enthusiasts, Raspberry Pi was practically absent from 2020 to 2023. Supply shortages, combined with increased demand, made it almost impossible to buy a Raspberry Pi computer. A handful of new Pi SBCs launched during these years, but very few of them were exciting, compelling, or easy to purchase.
As a hobbyist, 2024 feels like the year that Raspberry Pi became “real” again. Supply and demand are back in balance, of course, but there’s also a slew of exciting new Pi products and software improvements. We finally got a forward-thinking RISC-V Pi board, plus, Raspberry Pi is now a publicly-traded company.
All-New Pi Hardware and RISC-V
Raspberry Pi introduced at least 13 new hardware products in 2024, making it the company’s most prolific year of hardware releases to date. I say “at least 13” because, frankly, I’m having trouble keeping track of Raspberry Pi’s peripherals and accessories.
Of these new products, the Pi Pico 2 is arguably the most innovative and interesting. It’s the first Pi computer to feature a dual-architecture design with ARM and, importantly, RISC-V. Like ARM, the RISC-V architecture uses a reduced instruction set for extreme power efficiency and simplified software development. It’s an immature architecture, but it’s open-source, meaning that RISC-V should be able to avoid the stagnation-inducing patent hell that looms over x86 and ARM.
Adding a RISC-V processor to one of the world’s most popular microcontrollers is a bold, future-forward maneuver. It gives the hobbyist community a reason to contribute to RISC-V, and it places Raspberry Pi at the cutting edge of what might be the next game-changing CPU architecture.
Here’s all the new Pi products of 2024:
Other notable new Pi computers include the Compute Module 500, which is essentially a stripped-down Pi 5 for industrial or embedded applications, plus the ZX Spectrum-like Pi 500. I favor the Pi 500, as it’s clearly designed for students and has the potential to replace a desktop computer, though it’s obviously a lot less powerful than a cheap mini PC.
There are also a slew of new HATs and accessories, such as the HAT+ M.2 module that adds SSD connectivity to the Raspberry Pi. However, many of these smaller products are just Pi-branded versions of common accessories—SSDs, SD cards, monitors, and so on.
Some enthusiasts may feel that small Pi-branded accessories are boring or superfluous, and I generally agree. That said, the Raspberry Pi Monitor is an interesting product. It can be powered by a Pi SBC, it has some neat aesthetic quirks, and it only costs $100. The Pi Monitor proves that “boring” accessories can be innovative.
Pi OS Lept Into the Future
Along with its flurry of hardware releases, Raspberry Pi made some serious strides in software. Pi OS is more compelling than ever before, and it finally caught up with other Linux distros by implementing Wayland.
Wayland is a windowing system that has replaced X11 on Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and other major distros. It resolves longstanding bugs and security vulnerabilities that existed in X11, improves multi-monitor support, and allows developers to implement some modern GUI elements, such as rounded corners, window animations, and transparency effects.
Pi OS began using the Wayland compositor with the “Bookworm” upgrade in late 2023, though this implementation was limited to the Pi 4 and Pi 5 SBCs. Thankfully, Wayland support trickled down to all other Pi OS-compatible computers in October 2024.
The road to Wayland has been a bit rocky. Some tools that were designed to manipulate X11, including remote desktop clients, screen recorders, and obscure input devices, aren’t compatible with the new compositor. However, these challenges presented an interesting opportunity for Raspberry Pi. The company stepped up, contributed to Wayland development, and created first-party replacements for some X11-dependent software.
Raspberry Pi built a native remote desktop client for Pi OS. It contributed to Wayland-compatible drivers for Broadcom GPUs, it optimized the XWayland compatibility layer for Pi OS, and it ensured that first-party input devices like the 7″ Pi Touchscreen are compatible with the community-made Wayland libinput library.
Interestingly, the official Raspberry Pi remote desktop client also laid the groundwork for Steam Link on Pi OS. You can now use a Raspberry Pi computer to wirelessly stream video games from your PC—an overdue but useful feature.
Pi Went Public, for Better or Worse
Most schools now use Chromebooks or iPads in their curriculum. These devices give children an essential introduction to computing, but they fail to supply the classic, hands-on experience of taking apart dad’s radio or building a simple circuit. In other words, an iPad won’t encourage a kid to become a programmer or an engineer. Minecraft might lay the foundation for such interests, but the iPad itself is an immovable obelisk.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation aims to rectify this problem by giving kids the hands-on, build-destroy-rebuild experience that common PCs and tablets cannot deliver. It teams up with schools, Coding Clubs, and space agencies to encourage STEM learning. Now that the Foundation is over 15 years old, some adults point to Raspberry Pi as the thing that pushed them toward a career in STEM.
But Raspberry Pi isn’t just a charity. The Foundation owns a commercial subsidiary, called Raspberry Pi Ltd, which sells Pi SBCs to both industrial manufacturers and hobbyists (the industrial customers are a much larger source of profit). This commercial subsidiary was supposed to go public in 2021, but the IPO was delayed due to Raspberry Pi’s supply chain difficulties. Now, in 2024, it’s a done deal.
Raspberry Pi Holdings was listed on the London Stock Exchange on June 11th, 2024. It achieved a near billion-dollar valuation during its IPO, signaling confidence from both investors and lenders. The Raspberry Pi Foundation still stands as a charitable entitiy, but it can now pull investments through Raspberry Pi Ltd or sell shares of the company.
Public investment may accelerate Raspberry Pi’s product development. If 2024 is any indication, we may get over a dozen new first-party Pi products every year, which is an interesting prospect. I’m particularly excited about the software side of things. If Raspberry Pi can buckle down and inspire the community, it could lay a strong foundation for RISC-V that breeds real competition and innovation—two things that the x86 and ARM paradigm actively discourage.
That said, some hobbyists worry that investors will ruin Raspberry Pi. And it’s not hard to understand why this concern exists. Most of Raspberry Pi’s revenue comes from industrial customers, yet enthusiasts and open-source communities are the number-one reason for Pi’s success. The company needs to serve both industrialists and hobbyists, especially if it believes that RISC-V is the way forward. Investors may not have the patience for such nuance.
Thankfully, Raspberry Pi hasn’t been thrown to the wolves. The charitable Raspberry Pi Foundation still owns a majority of this commercial enterprise. And many of the company’s pursuits in 2024, including new products and OS improvements, are hobbyist-focused or student-focused.
