To paraphrase, “The Pi 5 will not be released in 2019. “Next year is a recovery year,” the CEO said. I believe that it would be wise for us to take a year off from making any major changes while we all regroup from the recent events.

“We’re looking at next year as a year of recovery.”

Raspberry Pi is an especially well-known example of supply chain issues plaguing the technology industry as a whole. For the last 18 months, due to ripple effects of the pandemic such as the worldwide chip scarcity, it has been very difficult to acquire its micro computers, which are bought by both companies to power their goods and by consumers directly. While the corporation has been able to maintain normal supply levels to these commercial clients, hobbyists have felt the pinch.

Upton warns that if a firm launches a new product while it is still rebuilding, there is a risk that manufacturing of the new gadget would not ramp up enough to satisfy consumer demand. Competition for resources like testing capacity or packaging might even threaten “cannibalising” supplies of older models. He calls it “a tragedy” to imagine it happening.

The CEO says, “We’re going to be extremely ginger about how we seek to go ahead.” Before the epidemic, Upton predicted that supplies would return to pre-disaster levels by the second quarter of 2023. At an interview with Explaining Computers, Upton predicted that development on the Pi 5 will begin in the firm somewhere between the second half of next year and 2024.

The situation seems to be improving. As of earlier this month, the firm said that it had made enhancements to its supply chain channels, allowing it to reserve “a little over a 100,000 units” for sale to fans. Although “things are obviously improving,” Upton observed, “we are not quite out of the woods yet.”

After a long wait, the Raspberry Pi community finally got their hands on the Pi 4 in 2019, making the interval between generations quite long. If the release is postponed until 2024 or later, it’s possible that four or five years will pass between the Pi 4 and Pi 5.