I got my last two Pi Zero units from Vilros[1], they have the Zero W for $10 which is the intended price from the RPi Foundation. To me, it's worth the extra $5 for WiFi/BT with no dongles.
Pi Zero is $5 but it doesn't have blue tooth, or Wifi and you're probably going to need a dongle to use an HDMI cable and a dongle to convert the micro USB to a usable real USB. The CHIP is pretty much a cheaper Pi Zero.
The Raspberry Pi Zero's are ridiculously affordable. For the cost of a regular Pi 3 you can get one thats wireless with a case with 3 covers for the case (1 for the Raspberry Pi camera). So maybe the Zero W's are more of what you might want. If you dont need them all to have wireless then you can just get the Zero's instead.
Pi Zero W includes wlan and bluetooth, and the kit that includes PSU and SD card cost around ~$35.
Stil I agree, its not really comparable. The Pis is mostly learning/teaching tool. I can see using this in a product directly. Something I would grab when I needed something more than an ESP.
Pi Zero W is $10 including wifi. Even if you don't want to hook it up to house wifi, the zero can run its own hotspot so there's no need to connect/disconnect cables/sd cards to update programming. (Personally, I hate having to deal w/ microsd cards while I'm also repotting plants.)
The new Pi Zero W's are $9 and the include wifi. I used to use arduinios or MSPs for things because i didnt want to "waste" a full pi. But I mean, $4 savings with these NodeMCUs? vs. the platform I already know how to use that's a normal computer that happens to have trivially easy to use IO pins? For one-off type projects i just don't see how it's worth it for me. I'd rather spend the four bucks and skip ahead to the interesting part of the project.
Imho the better thing to consider w/ pi is that even the Pi Zero W consumes a decent amount of power. So for some projects, that really matters.
Anybody know any awesome cheap Raspberry Pi Zero W alternatives? Primarily looking for something ultra cheap, tiny form factor, not especially power-hungry, able to run not-too-weird flavors of linux, and preferably with (wireless) networking.
Mine runs on a years-old Raspberry Pi Model B Rev 2. A Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (which has an ethernet port), SD Card and case is about £40 at pihut, that's CAD70
A Zero 2 W with wireless is half that or less including the case, SD Card and power supply.
I have a CHIP, from the Kickstarter campaign. It really is a better deal than the Pi Zero, unless you have Pi-specific needs. It's much more powerful than the Zero in my testing (though not quite as powerful as the Pi 2) and the built in Wi-Fi/BT is awesome. The fact you can attach a LiPo battery and have it managed by an onboard power regulator is worth the whole $9 as far as I'm concerned.
The only downside is no HDMI or even VGA until the respective adapters come out...in June. I currently only have one screen in the house with a composite input and it's not always available for tinkering.
It's more than $20 for everything but you can buy extension PCBs that more or less turn the Pi Zero 2W into a full-size Raspberry Pi with USB-A and Ethernet ports, also making it compatible with some full-size Pi cases.
[1] https://www.vilros.com/shop/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-zero-w...
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