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Would you find it useful to have a 'kit' of accessories or products for and with the Raspberry Pi?

cstanton

We're discussing some ideas for products for the online store, and something we come back to is the idea of 'kits' including collections of products.

These could be focused on the industry, education, a home hobbyist, electrical engineer, or design engineer... but we're curious about what you would expect to see in a kit.

You could inform us with links to actual products, or be abstract about it.

Would you expect to see the single board computer itself in there, such as the Raspberry Pi 5? Or would you want to look for a kit of accessories, based upon already owning the base single board?

And would you want to be able to pick them up at scale, like a classroom amount, or higher?

You have the opportunity here to steer what's available from the online stores Slight smile We might follow up with specifics of what the teams have in mind to stock in the future.

  • Czech official B2C distributor offers them. For example, https://rpishop.cz/startovaci-sady/6507-oficialni-sada-s-raspberry-pi-5-4gb-ram-krabicka-32gb-microsd-prislusenstvi.html

    In stock availability shortage they stocked only these (more expensive) kits which forced customers to buy whole kit even they needed only Raspberry Pi from the kit.

  • in reply to misaz

    nice kit. I have a comment though Slight smile

    • If the target are school kits, a "visible PCB with components" is more techy attractive than a Pi in a housing.
    • the housing doesn't add functionality, could be replaced by "anything else that does add functionality"

    They can then  design and 3d-print a housing in the 3d arts class ;)

  • I hate it when there's useless add-ons like cases, and cheap SD cards. I would rather buy my own high quality SD card.

    How about a performance pack, i.e. 8GB RAM, high-power capable supply, and fan bundle. Optionally purchaseable add-on (e.g. in a recommendations inset box) could be PoE module.

    Also, a Pi Hardware Development pack, which could be a more normal 2GB or 4GB Pi, plus 40-way GPIO extender (to stack HATs), plus a short 40-way ribbon extender (to be able to attach the Pi header pins to a custom board. It would make life simpler, because currently one always has to do mental gymnastics to figure out the orientation with the various ribbon cables etc. Optional purcheasable add-ons could be a perfboard (e.g. eurocard), or breadboard.

    The school kits pack sounds neat too. Obviously, Farnell ought to talk to teachers to hear their pain points too; it could be (say) power supply related, or micro-HDMI to HDMI related.

    Also, it has to offer things the customer will actually use (or are highly likely to use over time). It leaves a bad taste when one realizes that the kit the experts put together was not for the benefit of the customer, and then it's much harder to trust the supplier for future advice.

    A bundle has to offer genuine value for today or for the future.

    No-one wants to pay for stuff they will never use, which is the whole point of bundles done right, i.e. you buy the bundle of things you know or are being advised you will use, or will become useful for you as you continue to use the product.

  • ClapClapClap
    In my opinion, and for a general case, the combination would be something like this: novice + kit + hardware or software examples. I still think that this thing is still valid.
    A novice obviously doesn't know much (that's why there are forums, to ask), so he buys a kit (I notice that there are also confusions about a "kit") for which he has 99.99% accurate information (he knows everything about what he gets) and to which are added H/S examples that should match 99.99% with the component kit he has.
    I started with a kit, later (after a quite long time) I realized that I paid a little bit too much (but I really don't regret it) and that I could get components from other sources. Anyway, I'm the type who has the idea "recover and reuse".

  • Most of my projects involve sensors and I recently ordered the kit below, https://www.tindie.com/products/52pi/52pi-deskpi-picomate-for-raspberry-pi-picopico-w/, for use as a teaching aid with for my grandson. 
    image
    This is for a pico but something similar could be done for a Pi5, perhaps with a jumper from the Pi header.  All of the sensors are connected to the pico through traces on the PCB so it is quick and easy to test. Libraries and examples are provided for micro python and Arduino. Grove connectors are also provided to allow sensors to be snapped off and placed elsewhere on a robot or enclosure. 

    Other sensor kits are available but I like how this one is bundled. I’ve taught him to solder but that takes time and we can get this going quickly and the parts won’t be scattered around in boxes like the rest of my stuff. 

  • IMHO -

    A "Power Kit" consisting of 1- 4

    1) A kit needs to include a beefy power supply with proper connector.

    Not these mamby pamby power supplies that almost barely meet minimum requirements, but one that has enough headroom for a significant option cards, video, and wireless & bluetooth at the same time.  

    2) The HMDI video cable needed for the SBC - in the case of RPi5 , 2 HDMI cables.

    3) A cable adapter that can be used to connect to a battery pack. 

    4) some sort of expansion card converting the pin headers to screw terminals or push in terminals ( lever unlock) 

    A "video kit" 

    5) a camera 

    6) an adapter for those camera flex ribbon cables for longer runs 

    7) a color hi rez OLED 

    8) small 1/2 inch X 1 inch OLED  SSD1306 size  

    9) OLED 

    An Audio kit with small 5W stereo amp 

  • When I start with a new system, I usually look for a kit.

    The CanaKit for the RPI is very good. You get everything you need to quickly get up and running.

  • in reply to DAB

    It would be excellent with a 3A power supply rather than 2.5A

  • There are already a number of basic kits that will get the beginner up and running in the world of Pi

       Raspberry Pi 4 Desktop Kit
       https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-desktop-kit/

    so you probably don't want to reinvent the wheel. 

    I think that one area to explore is the one that answers the question of 'what next ?'.

    For that I think you need a combination of quality instruction material and supporting example projects which can be completed using only the parts supplied in the kit, but with suggestions of other related areas to continue exploring beyond the kit.

    Kits could be themed as people tend to have different interests and it's a way to keep the costs down.

    For formal education then it always helps if educational kits are supplied with sample learning plans that are aligned with the current curriculum.

    Perhaps there is an opportunity to tie kits in with element14 presents channels along with the competitions.

    After a certain level of experience, I suspect makers will tend to become very focused on their needs and select specific components for their their project rather than look at a kit.