Raspberry Pi 4 B 2019 Support


 

Bryan Mayland

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Today the Raspberry Pi foundation released yet another Pi B, this time they at least incremented the version number to 4! This new board has an entirely new SoC and is not supported by the HeaterMeter software. The layout changes to the design also mean it is physically incompatible with both 4.3 and 4.2 HeaterMeter.

Stick with the current recommended Pis (somewhat in order of desirability):
Raspberry Pi Zero W - Cheapest solution, but must add headers
Raspberry Pi Zero WH - Cheapest solution with headers
Raspberry Pi 3B+ 2018 - Best solution with Ethernet and dual band wifi
Raspberry Pi 3B - Almost as good as 3B+ except just 2.4GHz wifi
Raspberry Pi 3A+ - Slightly cheaper than a 3B+ but no Ethernet and imperceptibly faster but much more expensive than a Zero W.

EDIT: Updated to indicate the Pi 4 is wholly incompatible and can not be supported without hardware changes to HeaterMeter.
 
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So far it isn't looking good for Pi4 support on the existing hardware. They swapped the Ethernet jack and one of the USB stacks and there's not enough clearance at that corner already with the HeaterMeter base board. On the software side, naturally there is also a different kernel needed to support the new architecture which means we'll have another new target or I'll have to finally figure out how to build a single image with all the targets on it.

The bigger issue being the physical incompatibility though.
 
I would think the supply of Zero W and 3B+ units should stave off a board re-design for quite a while
 
I've received my Pi 4 and yeah it is a no-go, incompatible with both HeaterMeter 4.3 and 4.2 physical layouts.

Also somewhat baffling is their decision to put 2x micro HDMI outputs on it (instead of the 1x full-size HDMI or 1x mini HDMI) considering how not-powerful the device is. You can either have one HDMI monitor connected, with the added cost of a micro HDMI to full size adapter that nobody owns, at a regular 60Hz refresh rate, or use both outputs for a flickery mess at 30Hz. The Pi is barely capable of being a "desktop computer", much less having enough horsepower to fill two monitors with active applications.
 
Ooh boy. I don't know if the Pi4 I got is an outlier, but the wifi on it is really really bad. Like at the development desk where I've never had any wifi issues with any Pi or wifi dongle and it is showing -49dB signal, I've got about a 10-20% chance of getting a DHCP address and when it does connect I get up to 50KB/s of transfer speed. If I pick the device up and try holding it at a variety of angles, it shoots up to 10MB/s. If I just rotate the thing on my desk I go from full signal and working ok to not responding to pings at all and drops off. I've put it aside for now because it is almost impossible to work with in its current state and I am hoping they work something out in software at some point.
 
Bryan, G just picked up a 4 4gb model, and is reporting no issues w/ WiFi at all.
That's weird. I haven't done anything with the Pi4 other than spending an hour trying to figure out why the networking was working intermittently. I can't use it at all in the same position that every other Pi I've used has sat (including edimax adapters and the old Pi chip antenna). The wifi router is only 25ft away with just two sheets of drywall between the two. Other Pis indicate the signal is full bars, and a wifi scan shows my AP at 62/70 quality, -48dBm signal which is great. The power supply is their official one and I read >5.1V at all times, no indicated undervoltages either.

/shrug. It isn't like I can do anything HeaterMeter-related with it anyway so it isn't a huge deal but I did spend like $70 to get it so it would be nice if it would work properly.
 
I'd be giving serious thought to asking for a product exchange. Something has to be wrong with the WiFi subsystem on yours.
 
Actually I was just playing with it a little more and found that I can connect to my 5GHz network just fine (all my "IoT devices" are on the 2.4GHz network and I save my 5GHz for high throughput). No matter where I put the Pi it reports great signal and 1ms ping times to the router. Switch back over to 2.4GHz and it is awful, 600ms or more ping times. Maybe some other wifi in the area is interacting poorly with it or something even though no other device has the issue. I might look at changing channels and dropping to 20MHz width to see if either makes it work, but I am pleased that it works great on 5GHz.
 

 

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