New research from Farnell, an Avnet Company and distributor of electronic components, products and solutions, reveals that low-cost Single Board Computers (SBCs) are the most popular SBCs for industrial and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
According to the survey, some 50 per cent of professional engineers use SBCs. The Raspberry Pi is the most popular board with 44 per cent of professional users preferring it to other SBCs. Arduino was ranked second (28 per cent) with Beagleboard in third preference (6 per cent).
These market-leading SBCs simplify new product development and reduce time to market, allowing Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to respond to market trends much faster. The survey also indicates that users of Raspberry Pi are most loyal and less likely to use another SBC than engineers who preferred a different product.
Use of Raspberry Pi and Arduino have a similar market share for makers, which suggests that engineers like to use a board they are familiar with from home projects at work.
Romain Soreau, head of SBC at Farnell, said, “This new research clearly illustrates the widespread adoption of SBCs among engineers working in commercial, IoT and industrial environments. The success of the Raspberry Pi and Arduino is driven by a powerful combination of high performance, versatility, features and accessories, low cost and a large active user community, making these platforms very attractive to engineers looking to develop and deploy a broad range of applications quickly. The use of SBCs in prototyping provides opportunities for engineers to significantly reduce computing costs and get new products to market much faster.”
The global survey ran from March to May 2021 and received nearly 1,500 responses from professional engineers, designers and makers working on SBC solutions. Two thirds of the respondents (75 per cent) were professional users and only a quarter were hobbyists or makers (25 per cent). The questions were designed to understand how popular SBCs from some of the world’s leading manufacturers are being used within professional products and projects.
