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Any Windows IoT Core update for Raspberry pi 4?

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Hi Team,

 

Any Windows IoT Core update for Raspberry pi 4?

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About to start a project need power of raspberry PI 4, when would IoT Core be available or do I need to move it to Linux/python?
Here is the statement from the Windows 10 IoT Core development team: Microsoft is excited by the new RPi4 platform and is evaluating the numerous changes. Given the need for a new Raspbian OS, we do not expect the existing FFUs for Windows 10 IoT Core to be compatible with this platform.

it's not happening.

 

if we want to use the raspberry pi 4 for IoT and physical computing, we are going to have to use Rasbian Buster, code in Python, and use a web based UI (even if we intend to install a local display on our device.) that will send you down a path that will at least have long term support.

 

.net core / xamarain for linux to run apps on Rasbian seems like something that might have dubious support / path forward in just a few short years.

 

Microsoft is a huge self promoter . if they were planning anything with raspberry Pi 4 they would have been telling us so for the last 6 months.

 

not trying to be disrespectful in this posts, just realistic

@ODwyerPW, I have an updated response from the product team, which is a bit more hopeful.

 

You can find the Windows 10 IoT Core open source BSP for RPi2, RPi3, Pi3 Compute Module, and RP3B+ here (https://github.com/ms-iot/rpi-iotcore) for your use. If you are interested in expanding and supporting the RPi3B+ and/or Pi4, we would like to invite you (and the rest of the community) to do so in the open source rpi-iotcore repo! We continue to monitor GitHub and StackOverflow and are happy to help community development.

 

Additionally, we offer 10 years of support with Windows 10 IoT Core Services. You may use the open source BSP for Raspberry Pi, commercial BSPs supported by Intel and Qualcomm, or the recently released open source NXP BSP (https://www.nxp.com/design/software/embedded-software/windows-10-iot-core-for-i.mx-applications-proc...), for which NXP offers commercial support as well.

John Spears,

Awesome! I'm free to port your Windows 10 IoT Core Operating System to the Raspberry Pi 4. I'd just have to figure out the graphics drivers for the gpu, usb, touchscreen, wifi and bluetooth that you all didn't for the 3B+ . 

 

Hey thanks for the vote of confidence that I'm talented enough fix your OS and then move on to using your software, technologies, standards to develop my actual app.

 

Oh, I feel the hope. :) 

@ODwyerPW @John Spear 

Ok, so let's say that our favorite platform is dead in the water now... what are the alternatives? I'm not "that" attached to Raspberry but having not other option is what's really making me wondering for the foreseeable future. 

I've been looking round to find something similar and I haven't found anything useful. Have you been more successful?

@Eric Beaudry 

 

By alternative, are you thinking of a hardware alternative for the Raspberry Pi4 for Windows IoT Core?

 

What kind of hardware/software solutions are you looking to build? The Windows IoT Core SoCs and Custom processor page has a number of suggestions. The Windows IoT Core Processor table shows which versions of Windows IoT Core are supported on which processor family (covering up through release 1809).

 

While neither of these pages will resolve the question of Raspberry Pi4, they provide suggestions to consider.

@John Spear 

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, I’m looking for something that would be officially supported for more than a couple months. When we look at the Pi, it never really worked like expected with Win IoT and I can’t find a clear candidate to replace it.

The sites you’re pointing out are the reason I’m so confused at the moment.

The “SoCs and custom boards” page was last updated more than 2 years ago and still state support for Broadcom and Raspberry PI. But clearly this is not the case anymore or maybe I’m missing something?

The table “Windows IoT Core Processor table” (updated 2018, about a year ago) goes even further saying “Up through currently enabled Broadcom Processors” … Again, this seams to be wrong.

So, if we cannot trust these references, what can we build on and not be left dead in the water in a couple months?

Maybe there are multiple questions I should be asking:

  • Is there really a future for Win IoT or has this been abandoned? It sure feels like it is going downhill…
  • If there’s a future for Win IoT, then is there one for the Raspberry Pi (3B+ and 4) on that platform?
  • If not, then what will “really” be supported?

In terms of the kind of hardware/software solution, the Pi is mainly a hub sitting at the edge between Azure and the real devices (based on ESP). The Azure IoTHub & Edge solutions are not well aligned with the reality of residential solutions so we’re building our own stuff.

Since the Win IoT has never really worked for us, we went with Raspian (with dotnet core solutions) for over a year. The reason we are coming back is that we’d like to build some kind of UI on the hub and that would fit nicely with UWP.

 

@Eric Beaudry 

 

I'm on the Windows IoT team. We’ve been working with our enterprise customers to provide solutions for their needs and currently this is our priority. However, we don’t want to abandon our developer community and have invested in partnerships with Intel, NXP, and Qualcomm to offer long-life supported BSPs for IoT Core.

Hi @Bervell,

 

It's been quite some time since you posted your update. Is there any news regarding official Raspberry Pi 3B+ support?

@Bervell 

 

Can we get an official response from Microsoft regarding future support for Windows 10 IoT Core and , if so, some reliable timelines for when updates will be released for production?  

 

Looking at the website, it appears support for new devices halted in 2018 and the product is no longer receiving attention.  As a Windows UI is preferred for our delivered gateway deployment, we had been looking to utilize the Core and Azure stack for our large IoT urban project. However, reading this forum there are hints that no resources are allocated for improving Windows 10 IoT Core and it has potentially been orphaned. Yes, we saw your statement about not wanting to "abandon our developer community" which does inspires some hope. Yet, the lack of movement on the Core for 2 years is telling.   

 

If there is updated guidance from Microsoft in favor of a future for this product, we welcome it. Alternatively, if Microsoft has indeed made a business decision to forsake Windows 10 IoT Core, fine. We simply want to make a platform selection where it is evident there is a corporate commitment and on-going support/innovation thus affording flexibility to meet our customer's evolving needs. Certainly, we hope it is understandable that if there is no responsive reply to this inquiry we have no choice but to consider Windows IoT Core as being End-of-Life and act accordingly. 

 

Feel free to reach out to us via my contact info, if desired.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the typical deafening roar of silence you receive from Microsoft for any consumer facing product that they are going to abandon.  If you were an adapter of the ecosystem and clung on to Zune, Band or Windows phone (I did), then this is another deja vu moment.

 

Microsoft's only interest in IoT is grabbing data and storing it in their Azure cloud. Windows IoT Core as a client platform is dead. I feel bad for folks (Atlas-Scientific) who have put allot of effort into the platform, only to have their offerings stalled on a 1.2Ghz/1GB solution.

 

I moved over to Rasbian on my Pi 4 and do my development in Node-RED, enjoying the performance from 4GB of Ram and my 4 cores at 2.0Ghz. Raspberry Pi OS is now available in 64bit and a Raspberry Pi 4 can be bought with upwards of 8GB of Ram. If an upcoming Pi offers an M.2 slot, it will just be the ultimate little platform for IoT apps for me.

 

The Raspberry.org folks have completely removed any links to Windows IoT Core from their site.  

@ODwyerPWGood to hear you found an alternative.

 

I'm quite shocked with the silence by Microsoft and assume a cancel notification this year.

@ODwyerPW 

 

Possibly,  not enough time has elapsed to allow for discovery, consultation and a considered response to my inquiry. However, I am inclined to believe that you may indeed be right. My surprise is that Microsoft is marketing their IoT stack to many of our very-large clients that need huge numbers of IoT gateways for their rollouts and thus are sensitive to per node pricing.  So, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is out and, from my understanding, there is no other Microsoft gateway platform offering to govern sensor constellations at-the-edge. In contrast, their competitors are moving aggressively to provide integrated cloud services and robust gateway offerings along with device-level OSs for uniformity down to the edge sensors. In terms of Microsoft, unless I missed it or a surprise is forthcoming, crickets! Baffling!

 

Fully agree with you on the PI 4 as being a great platform for proof-of-concept, though we must use industrial-specification HW for our operational deployments. I, too, am hoping that a revision is released that adds M.2 support as this will finally enable our development teams to share a common mid-tier prototyping platform and development assets.

Hi @logeshpalani30   

 

Developers have finally installed an ARM-optimized version of Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi 4 after some people managed to get it running on the Raspberry Pi 3  in the first half of 2019.

Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 3 officially support the IoT Core version of Windows 10, which is not the same as the version of Windows 10 that runs on a desktop but is a stripped-back release for low-power computer board.  

For example, Windows 10 IoT Core won’t let you run the traditional Win32 apps or even boot into the desktop. The IoT allows you to run a single UWP app at a time and the real purpose of the OS on Pi is to run small applications, which are designed for a diminutive computer board.

Fortunately, there’s a new guide for getting Windows 10 on ARM to work on the Pi 3 B+ and Pi 4B using an unsupported technical preview build. Unlike IoT, Windows 10 ARM is ARM-targeted spin of the OS, which comes with a traditional desktop and Win32 apps support via emulation.

Developer Marcin has managed to get Windows 10 on ARM running on the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and he has also published a detailed guide. 

 

Thanks in Advance 

Lavanya Sreepada ( IoT Professional ) 

 Hi @logeshpalani30  

 

Surely, since the first release of Windows 10 IoT Core, there are many changes, and many of them improved the overall user experience with this system. Let's have a quick look at them.

Installation

To install Windows 10 IoT on your Raspberry Pi, you have to download the IoT dashboard. 

You can download it here.

Then, you must have a Microsoft account, but this account is free, and you will be prompted to create one.

The process of creating an SD card is very simple. First, you will have to insert an SD card to your card reader and then, you can choose what version of OS you would like to install.

 
 
 

In this step, you will also choose the device name, and you have to set a device password. Here, it is good to notice that when you try to login to your device, the username is administrator also now it is possible to set up WiFi connection directly to your SD card so when you boot your device for the first time, it will connect automatically.

After you set up everything, the program will start downloading the selected Windows version. Currently in 4.2019, you can choose from 3 versions of Windows 10 IoT core:

  • 17763 (latest)
  • 17744 (insider)
  • 17744 (insider)
  • Custom (here, you can choose your own *.ffu file, but I do not know how to get one)

After download, the command line window will appear and it will check your SD card. 

 

Features Overview

Same as before 3 years, Windows 10 IoT is not using full potential from Raspberry Pi 2 or 3. User experience in most of the app is rather bad, even the default app which is pre-installed on image is sometimes laggy on Raspberry Pi 3, on Raspberry Pi 2 it is even worse. But there are still some bright sides, so let's have a look at it.

  • WiFi (Raspberry pi 3) - Working
  • Bluetooth                   - Working
  • HDMI output             - Working
  • Audio output             - Working
  • LAN                            - Working
  • USB                            - Working
  • Graphics                     - Not Working
  • Remote client             - Not Working  

What was an unpleasant surprise to me was that even after 3 years, Microsoft did not add Graphic Chip support. Raspberry board has that chip on board, and all Linux distributions are fully capable of playing video. But on Windows 10 IoT, you are not able to play any video or display some more complex graphic content because all rendering goes only through CPU and it just cannot handle it. Another thing to mention about the video is that you will get no sound over HDMI. At least in default setting, maybe it is possible to set it somehow to send sound over HDMI, but in the default setting, you get sound only from 3.5 mm jack.

 

Thanks in Advans 

Lavanya Sreepada 

 

 

@GerbenB@clmartin , @ODwyerPW 

 

We are committed to supporting Raspberry Pi and are continuing to develop and invest in Windows IoT Core as an operating system. Sorry for being vague, the marketing overlords are looking over my shoulder and asked me to mention this. Personally, I know that the Windows IoT product team is actively monitoring these forums although we have been really busy lately working on some new and exciting stuff that will be announced soon.

Ah, yes, the marketing team. Thou may not say a thing, or thou should have shared that more. :p

 

Best of luck, my Pi3b+ is idle at the moment. Really looking forward to any news at all.

 

And of course, best luck with marketing. :p

@GerbenB I wish we could share more at the moment but what @Bervell wrote is all that we publicly can talk about right now, unfortunately.

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About to start a project need power of raspberry PI 4, when would IoT Core be available or do I need to move it to Linux/python?

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