Is the Orange Pi Zero3 Better Than the Raspberry Pi?
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
- The Orange Pi Zero3 is a relatively low priced SBC with a quad-core Cortex-A53 processor. It supports up to 4GB of RAM and can run Arch Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and Android. There is also built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Gigabit Ethernet. Could this be a viable alternative to the Raspberry Pi?
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I purchased an Orange Pi Zero (original model) with 512 Mb ram with case and USB expansion board for $20 in May 2018. It has been running ever since with pihole for my network this entire time. I can't remember having any down time, it's been rock solid.
Having all connectors on the same edge is actually pretty useful if you intend to panel-mount or embed it
Indeed, normally considered good practice
Ordered a 4 GB version
from Amazon for $40 with power supply
free shipping in the US. Im ordered yesterday and it arrived today . thanks for your contributions.
Great review with at the end a no-nonsence and straight forward advice! Awesome!
Thanks Gary, Nice review - I have been getting excited with using the base Orange Pi Zero LTS (Not 3) and been really impressed. I ended up finding Armbian worked best for me, and was only running the board in headless mode so didn't have to worry about hdmi and drivers. It took a while but was able to find libraries that worked with python and the hardware (OPi.GPIO, luma for Oled and I2c, and could also get rtmidi going that use the uart). Maybe I will try a zero 3 to see how it compares.
+1 on that, David. I've been using Armbian's 23.05.1 Bookworm on an Orange-Pi Zero 2 and it has been absolutely solid. I've also been running Armbian for roughly 5 years on a Nano-Pi Neo 2, which I've also just updated to 23.05.1.
Although many of these alternative boards could be contenders to the Raspberry Pi, they just don't have any community support and the board manufacturers never bother supporting them with new Linux builds or drivers, as they're more interested in just selling new boards. So often the video and other hardware is barely supported, or doesn't use any acceleration, and trying to write code for these boards (in C/C++) is almost impossible as header files etc are missing or incompatible. They're fine for basic stuff like running a file server, web server, or blinking an LED, but outside that they're basically abandonware.
Ive been running Armbian on Orange Pi (one) since 2017 and routinely get uptimes of 300+ days. Header files are available and remote coding & debugging with with C/C++ using Visual Studio worked just fine. The support for OS on SSD means that I've never had storage corruption that I've heard is common with Raspberry Pi. Edit: they cost £12 in 2017.
As an LED blinking student, and semi still new to sbc and mc's, I think they are for people like me, who will only buy one, maybe two, to play with for personal educational reasons. At the price, it is hard to say no. Though right now I am looking forward to riskV mc's to come out, hopefully with micropython support 😄👍 it seems there are enough hobbyists around the world that support should improve for most of these things in a reasonable amount of time 👍
The ESP32-C series is a RISC-V microcontroller. The boards are readily available on AliExpress. I have tested the power/perf of them here on this channel.
@@GaryExplains awesome, i must have missed it, I'll check it out, thank you 😄👍
@@andybarnard4575 Have you tried any OpenGL or VideoCore work with C/C++ on these boards? When I was testing with them it all seemed completely unsupported or had serious bugs which would crash the CPU. Likewise video playback was not accelerated, or only supported low resolutions.
These issues were never addressed and so I abandoned them. As said, they're fine for basic headless servers, but the support just isn't there. It makes more sense to the Chinese companies to abandon them and just compile new verisons of Linux for their new models. There's no financial incentive for them to support their old boards.
What micro sd you were using?
Thanks for the video!
I ordered a 4 GB version from Amazon for $28 with free shipping in the US. I'm very interested to see how the software evolves in the coming months.
I can't wait for OPI devs to inlcude the dtoverlays for the standard tft LCD like they did for the ORI zero 2.. Since they made the OPI zero3 smaller it fits right under the standard 3.5 inch tft LCD.
As someone who's had Orange Pi's for several years, don't bother with the Orange Pi provided Linux versions as they don't get updated, just use the Armbian for your board, you'll have a much easier time and get driver fixes much quicker.
@@daveamies5031 Not really.. I went to find out something simple for the image provided by armbian for the libre computer renegade. I was just trying to use xrandr or something to change the resolution of the screen. Was looking through the forums where some guy was asking the same thing and he was met with trolling and sarcasm from the dev team. Everyone says the newer the better and the new linux kernerl 6.10 might have upgrades. Its is not worth the head ache to get funtionality that should be standard. Good thing I keep older versions of the OS stored away. Armbian is better "eventually" but when that is will be anyones guess. Right now so far OPI has done a OK job with their ubuntu releases.
Yup. Chinese (really, anyone that's in the business of selling hardware) are often pretty poor at providing software. @@daveamies5031
The charts of relative performance were especially helpful. Do you have a spreadsheet somewhere or a website where you have more?
Using this bad boy to satisfy my addiction for self hosted services. Right now it’s running a 3D model repository for storing and viewing 3D models with full 360 rotation. Works great and efficiently and the OPiZ3 says it can handle more!
"to satisfy my addiction for self hosted services." Hey bro, we are on the same page! Just ordered the 2GB version of the Zero 3 today :) And i also ordered (Mikrotik HAP ax 3 router). That will ALMOST fullil my self hosting addiction.
I've recieve mine, and have found that without the micro sd it boots into a tiny shell that displays and accepts usb keyboard. If I put any micro sd card in, it just sits there. I've not found a good image to burn. Any suggestions. Orange Pi Zero 3
Thanks Gary. Another great video.
I just bought an orange pi zero 2w. Can it be run headless? I cannot find any references in the 300 page manual.
Gary thank you for video! How about running temps in idle and under load?
Are there any other interfaces that can provide power besides typec?
Strange as most are going on about Ram but for a non-desktop of simple display its got more than enough with 1gb as its still an A53.
Its the low price and the 1gb is a great deal.
I just found I/o a tad slow
Is this can be used in PISOWIFI VENDO?
Thanks Gary. I've just bought a 1GB version to run Pi Hole. Great value for £13.
Will it work with mx 23 linux?
Can You install MAAS on this ubuntu?
Thank you for another review!
My pleasure!
Great video and channel Gary. Would be good to put links to the software and products in your videos (the OS's mentioned in the video for example).
The definitive list and links are on Orange Pi's website. Anything I post will go quickly out of date.
From the comments below, yep I get it, there can be some disadvantages to these boards compared to a RPi.
But when the latter is simply not available or restricted, then its moot.
Go with whats available, and adapt.
Crashing might have something to do with the unshielded processor. You should test it with a shield and see what happens.
Did anyone figure out to flash the Android image from a Linux machine? I found the Openixcard tool and it seemed to convert the image well. The outputnimage is readable with loopback mount and I see 20 partitions or so... But the OrangePi doesn't boot. 😢
I gave up and put Windows on an old PC just to run Phoenixcard. Waste of time, as A) it was nearly as hard to use and nearly as non-working as the Openixcard debacle, and while I eventually got an image to boot, it turns out that B) the Debian and Ubuntu images do everything out of the box that I thought I needed Android for...
that's something I dislike with HDMI cables.
I'm in a situation where my screen is a Mini HDMI, and increasingly, devices have these smaller connectors on. So, if I wanted to go from an RPi 4 (or even this device) to my screen, I need a Mini HDMI to Micro HDMI cable... I have a PC Graphics card (it's an older one) with 2x DVI and Mini HDMI out... and a camcorder with Mini HDMI out, and a tablet with Mini HDMI out...
I can't connect most of these to my screen because the converter block doesn't physically fit in either end device, and I can't find the cable to do it directly.
I can find HDMI to HDMI cables, or Mini HDMI to HDMI cables, or Micro HDMI to HDMI cables... but I can't find Mini to Mini HDMI or Micro to Mini HDMI cables.
The best I've been able to find is a Mini HDMI to HDMI Socket cable, but it's still not what I actually want.
The OPi Zero2 Daughter board works on the Zero3 to breakout the other two USB's along with some other I/O
Good to know. Thanks.
I've been using Orange Pi for years and have always found Armbian to be the most reliable and compatible option. It also works well for GPIO work but I did need to create a mapping file to make them properly compatilbe with the pinouts for Raspberry Pi HATs
How does that work? Is that something you'd mind sharing?
Does that work for the display hats?
@@seancook6879 I have never tried it with the display hats and so I am not sure.
This fix I did was mainly for use with Python and bash scripts. Cheers.
I'm having problems finding an image that works. Any suggestions? OrangePi Zero 3. Want debian on it.
@@chrisBruner I have zero experience with the newer Orange Pi models due to their 400% price increase since the pandemic and I am actively looking for cheaper Pi compatibles for my purposes. We here in Australia are still suffering from Beijing's retaliation for our call for an investigation into the outbreak.
Is there any C/C++ library like Wiring usable from the scratch ? I'd like to use it with Armbian or Debian and the Wiring is not working there as was said in the video.
I'm not using Hats just sensors/relays therefore only proper programming access to pins is important for me.
Dear Gary,
could you publish a link where you ordered your Orange Pi Zero 3? I only found more expensive offers at Aliexpress or Amazon.
Depending on your country AliX from the links on the Orange website is cheaper than Amazon.
aliexpress i scheaper, orange pi has links to theiir official ali store
Does the H618 run as hot as the H616 it is so closely related to? I have a MangoPi with a H616 board and it is consistently idling at around 51 C without a heatsink. (It boots with a Banana Pi Debian based distro. Something hobbyist should pay attention to are software and support for SBCs based in the same SoC. Often what one community lacks in support another has, when it exists at all.)
Edit: I am using a heatsink but for a benchmark at idle I didn't here.
ALL modern SBC's need a heatsink at minimum on the SOC you can not sink 5-10W in and not expect issues otherwise this is not a brand thing either. I ran my Zero3 for 40 minutes at 100 all core load and with the heatsink I have fitted it was fine.
@@seabreezecoffeeroasters7994 I agree. To benchmark at idle I didn't use a heatsink here. There are considerable differences in heatsink performance depending on the heatsink itself and the case, if a case is used.
A general rule of thumb I am following is to use aluminum cases that are the heatsink as they tend to dissipate heat better than the heatsinks that are peel and stick and fit inside of a case.
Performance is so dependent on the SBC since some board designs perform better at dissipating heat that others and so work in concert with an aftermarket heatsink. The Raspberry Pi 3B+ for instance was purposely designed to dissipate some heat through the board, and work well with a peel and stick heatsink inside many different plastic cases. The MangoPi MQ Pro runs reasonably cool compared to the MangoPi MQ Quad.
Yeah, it should be the same
Wished I watched this video before I purchased my mini hdmi to hdmi adapter. Had the same issue trying to plug in the usb c
While OrangePi themselves don't seem to do long-term support of their boards. Armbian does have more up to date versions of Debian & Ubuntu for the Orange Pi Zero 2 (Last updated June 6, 2023). I'm sure they will be supporting the Zero 3 in no time. I use my Zero 2 as a PiHole server, and it seems to do a great job. I must admit however, that I do prefer the Raspberry Pi ecosystem as you mentioned. Just way more and longer-term support for the boards is worth the extra few bucks.
and you were so wrong on this, i hope they do but as it seems they wont do it
Remember guys, these boards are not hobbyist generally. They need someone to do without Google help. İ have actually some products with zero lts and working for years without a problem.
İf you are serious to learn go buy one.
İf you are looking for something to play with go with raspberry
4:34 😂😂😂 No puede ser amigó , voy a tener que modificar el adaptador HDMI acabo de comprar uno y no vi el detalle 😂
I hate HDMI mini. Nothing wrong with the board side connectors, but the cables are extremely fragile. Push at the plug slightly wrongly and the metal part will go crooked, as apparently it sitsonly about 0.5mm deep into the plastic part. We broke 2 cables that way, one within minutes of first use
Use plastic case and/or cable/soft cable adapter like in video.
And maybe adding silicon clay over the connectors to make them mechanically more solid.
This is the problem of all these extremely small SOC, the cable is often more rigid than the device itself...
At least it has a decent RAM size. The RPi02 is just odd.
I bought the 4gb version without thinking since I saw the potiential of the OPI zero 2. The orange pi zero was ment to compete with the odd ducks Raspi-A. It would be cool if you could order these boards just blank with no ethernet port or pins soldered on. At 4gb this is no longer a just a IoT board in fact the esp-32 has got that realm covered nicely at this point. The project I see coming out of this is. retro emulator/pihole/coffee shop wifi add and virus blocker/mid class robot(claws, camera, facial reconition, and webpage control).
They will be releasing a OPI Zero 2W with up to 4GB's of RAM that's in the RPI's Zero Form Factor, so keep an eye out.
@@wll1rah I know. i just saw that. and Immediatly knew I pulled the trigger too soon.
kali os worked well , both xf4ce and lite versions
The best OS for those is probably Armbian - You should test it.
Not in price or number of GPIO pins, but does in performance and IO
Just to add that, if you don't have the necessary cables, enclosure or power supply around, you can of course get a package with all included. The zero 3 with expansion board (for the extra 2 USBs), power supply, video cable and plastic enclosure costs about $50 with transport included. It took ~3 weeks to arrive to Europe. Supports 256GB microSD card just fine (probably bigger as well, I haven't tested) and should be well fit for a home file server.
Mine did not crash. It is for me not in direct competition with the Raspi, since the Raspis now are around 120 Euros for a full config. They priced themselves out of this market.
🤯 120 Euros for a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W!!! If you paid that you were scammed. They only cost around 19 Euros.
This thing is nothing for me, even if it may be more powerful than the raspberry pi. I want newer arm processors. Is there something on the market?
What do you class as "newer"? There is the Rock 5, plus the Jetson Orin.
have you got OrangePi 3B?
No.
I guess it will get Armbian-support.
Why's there a white pixel on the graph starting at 7:46, you made me think I had a dead pixel 😭
I don't see a white pixel, only a red one, and that is the laser dot that I use during the presentation. 🤷♂️
@@GaryExplains Above the Pi4 results, just above the 50 second line, it's statically there throughout the whole graph until 9:57
😂 I see it now! I don't know what that is or how it got there! I will check in my video editor later.
They just launched the Orange PI Zero 2W what is petty much a smaller form factor version than this one.
Yeah, I saw that announcement, I am not going to buy it as I guess all the problems that the Pi Zero3 has will be present 🤷♂️
In theory these Chinese boards seem good value but in my experience there's often lots of gotcha's. On the whole, graphics support is poor or even broken, drivers tend to be closed source if they're available at all, there's little community support, the SoC silicone is often (perhaps always?) buggy and on some boards I've had to separately purchase heatsinks as the SoC runs far too hot without.
If you try and run a decent modern SOC without a heatsink then you deserve to let the smoke out you can not put 5-10W+ into any of them regardless of brand.
@@seabreezecoffeeroasters7994 That's probably true although it doesn't detract from my point that you're getting an incomplete and possibly defective product. Unlike here in the West the Chinese tend to push things to and occasionally beyond the limit and then pretend that this is fine. Those SoC's will probably turn on and sit idle just fine without a H/S but start to develop damage as soon as you try to do anything useful.
@@loc4725 Any technical merit and ambit claims you just made got lost in your clear xenophobia! A large percentage of the worlds best silicon comes out of the "'East"'.
@@seabreezecoffeeroasters7994 *"Any technical merit and ambit claims you just made got lost in your clear xenophobia! A large percentage of the worlds best silicon comes out of the "'East"'."*
I guess baseless, factually devoid personal attacks are easier to mount than actually trying to understand what I said. And your implication that China represents ' the "'East"' ' is almost certainly offensive to many in that region, something which you would know if you had even a basic understanding of the other cultures there.
from what I've seen it has always been about software. That's why the risc-v movement has been so important. No more reverse engineering an SoC because the manufature will not give you the full spec sheet. To what your saying.. Libre computer board has been a good example of this. I bought their S905x board way back in 2018 when they first released it to get away from the raspberry pi. They didn't come out with proper documentation to full utilized the full board until 2022 when they revamped the website. Now there is no need to scoure the forums and download someones dogdey software just to turn on a GPIO. Thats just how it goes.
is it better?
He didn't comment. He asked a question.
Answer is no. Get one to play with if you are a collector, otherwise Raspberry is better.
The main advantage of this board is to have 4 GB at a very low price. I use Orange Pi OS on mine, works well. I do not have a micro hdmi adapter but I managed to set it up headless so I can remote into it. Ethernet works out of the box with DHCP... Then you can condigure wifi manually.
For Android, the flashing procedure seems very difficult. You need a special version of PhoenixCard on Windows to flash it. I dont have Windows so hoping someone will figure out how to flash from a Linux box...
Thanks Gary for another excellent video.
Edit: Video to another review that goes thru the Android flashing procedure.😅
czcams.com/video/MOt9HRcLVgo/video.html
So, if you need a power-consuming doorstop, then yes. Honestly, sounds pretty awful. Thanks for your hard work!
I`m typing this straight from my Orange pi zero 3 1 GB and the answer is YES -- It can play 4k videos like its nothing.
From Android or Ubuntu/Debian ??? That's the point ! And can it play it in CZcams ?
@@vencdee Those are android-based boards at heart -- ofc its from Android. Also yes for youtube playback.
how did you get it to boot? ive tried 4 or 5 different distros using Etcher, and I cant get it to boot off the SD (every other board ive used boots immediately)
Small board with ethernet. With normal price.
Raspberry Pi has a fantastic ecosystem -- BUT THE DAMNED THINGS ARE NOT AVAILABLE!!!! Comparing this board to the Raspberry Pi Zero is like comparing a mule to a unicorn. Sure, you'd rather have the unicorn. But you're not going to get one. It would be better to compare this board with something that people can get.
I think you need to double check, the stock levels of all the Pi boards has been steadily increasing for months. Most retailers now have a good supply. I think the Pi Zero W 2 is still a little hard to get, but that will change in a few weeks.
I think that comparing to RPi Zero 2W is appropriate only.
RPi Zero is far less capable in any way except compatibility (and using any windowed ui is almost impossible, it's best for headless devices therefore quite a different usage category).
@@vencdee It doesn't matter anyway -- you can't get your hands on either device.
2:25 "...you need at least five volts at three amps..." So feeding it with 800 volts is okay? You said "at least five volts", and 800 volts is exactly that ! LOL, 🙂 !!!
USB-C doesn't support 800v. There is a little thing called context. You will find it useful in life 😜
@GaryExplains wait, does it actually support the higher voltage standards on usbc? I didn't have this question until reading this but now I'm rather curious actually
No, I think it just uses 5V.
@@xxportalxx. It would have no sense as adding PD modes would be rather expensive thing.
Tried using these and they overheat like crazy - especially if overclocked. They run fine for a while, but for things like web servers or, in my case, running a bbs, it was frustrating - the configuration is awesome 😎 with physical ethernet etc - but the unreliability drove me nuts.
No processor is guaranteed to work well when overclocked. Why are you overclocking it?
@@GaryExplains sorry, I called out the overclocking because there is a menu that supports changing clock speed. However, even at default clock the heat is an issue.
It is passively cooled, so that is always that danger when it is under heavy load. Did you try a heat sink?
@@GaryExplains I didn't - and to make it worse I was using one of those cute enclosures. Live and learn. By the time I understood what was going on I had cooked the CPU, and it would crash all the time.
Oh, sorry to hear that, that isn't a good outcome! 😢
Becouse Orange is dedicated to learn AI installed software in mini way.
I love the video, but I don't get the fetish about naming the individual operating systems and the 'latest' version (you're not the only one with this strange fetish in SBC land).
I have age old Orange Pi's, OPi One, Opi Zero, Opi Zero LTS, Opi Zero Plus, Opi R1, Opi PC and they all run the latest Debian up to date till TODAY... Some of these will stop being supported/upgraded as soon as Debian no longer suports 32-bit ARM. But so far never had any problems at all... So the focus on the versions of the linux distro is just wrong. It's all about kernel support AND support for the architecture. This one is 64 bit and I expect it will be supported for quite a while.
Running into 'problems' has a lot to do with insight and knowledge.
I have a bunch of other SBC's in use and only ONE has ever (hardware) failed me (30+ xPi's), and it was a Raspberry Pi 3B.
I will add some Opi Zero 3's to my Pi farm 😊. Just because I can!
So, software-wise, the current version of Orange Pi still seems to basically suffer from the same disease that plagued one of the early iterations of the Orange Pi that I had looked at at the time, years back: some operating systems that just crash after a few minutes in the 'best' case, then (in descending order of 'usefulness'): others crashing during boot, not even starting to boot at all, or, worst case, some of the download links on their software page just leading into nothingness... or, long story short: the company putting out just unusable operating systems. Seems like they didn't really learn one thing in all those years...
I put the OrangePi 22.04 Jammy on mine several weeks ago and it has been faultless as far as not crashing ever. Currently mine is running Octoprint and Klipper and heading off to one of my printers when I have finished playing with it on the bench. Anything networking Wired or Wireless has been great, talks to my NAS for pulling files and the only niggle I had was getting my networked Laser Printer to talk to it but a little fiddling got that working too. Not that it is perfect either but as it was released 4-5 weeks ago it is off to a decent start.
I tried an Orange Pi a few years ago. Totally sucked. OS support basically useless. Android wasn't stable. Linux didn't have proper drivers. Networking didn't work. Had to chuck it in the bin. Whereas at home I have a Pi3 as my always on machine for things like that.
No support, no community, no help, nothing, even you use recommanded sdcards you can boot it or not.
Beware... That thing totally sucks as soon as graphics are involved, Orange Pis are known to work only with Android, not Linux, X and Wayland just put the CPUs on their knees. Now, if we're talking headless, they're excellent. Just don't expect graphics or music. A RPi Zero W is better for a HTPC.
Running a (OpenGL accelerated) QtQuick GUI in a virtual framebuffer is actually quite performant. But I understand not everyone can do projects in C++, and just want a desktop environment, this hardware is not for those people.
@@semaph0re You missed the point and you troll on what you believe you understood... What I'm saying is that AllWinner doesn't pay the ARM license for the GPU cores and everything is going through the CPU for rendering, including 2D rendering and everything OpenGL. I have a couple of OPi-PC2 which are fantastic as long as you're not trying to display graphics, and that includes any form of desktop, X works beautifully as long as the X server is not on the OPi.
However, for some reason, everything works fine on Android, but development documentation and libraries are not so easy to get there (and the programming model is slightly "different"). What I'm saying is you should never test an OrangePi on its graphical capabilities, its advantages are elsewhere, such as the 1Gb Ethernet and the QuadCore that makes it ideal for anything headless, such as a NAS, a Plex server or a Web server, or anything IoT for which you refuse to use the "Cloud" (I do). It's a beast in processing, it just totally sucks in display.
@@RegisMichelLeclerc Who you calling troll? You said "sucks as soon as graphics are involved" and I gave an example of a situation where graphics are involved. These devices are great for touchscreen gadgets with QtQuick GUIs. For example, coffee/ticket machines, PoS, smart home display, etc. It's advantage is here, not plex or NAS, this SBC is not known for its speedy I/O.
All of these boards either using Micro or Mini HDMI don’t need to rearrange the connectors. These idiots need to design a standard cable instead of expecting us to use adapters. All of the boards are fine until these adapters are required for use.
That cursor is nothing but annoying. Goodbye
Sorry to hear that. Goodbye.
Competition is not always good, sometimes it’s just a rip off
You think the Orange Pi is a rip off? How do you define a rip off?