It's priced at $149 with all that, whereas rp4 2GB w. zigbee and PoE would be $45 + $45 + $20 = $110, so price seems reasonable if you need all those things as you're getting the rtc, m.2 and case all in a nice package.
My use would probably only need the Zigbee module and I can 3D print a case, so I'd go with the rp4 especially as I have a bunch lying around anyway! But Seems like a really nice package if you need all those things, and especially PoE is nice to have built in.
> Just trying to see the benefit of the Home Assistant Amber over a Raspberry Pi 4 2GB.
I'm guessing largely the "for beginners" part in the description. That and people who lack time or for other reasons want something working out-of-the-box?
Right now, I have an issue with a third party add on where if I upgrade the host OS it doesn't pass USB devices the same way to the guest container. Its stuff like this where I don't want to designate the time to figure it out. Where an out of the box solution would more than likely alleviate that and have more people working on a solution for everyone.
The main thing that I notice is the lack of wifi and 2GB of RAM. I think it'd be easy for that to get tight with some of the big add-ons and I'd think the consumer space is exactly where you'd want wifi.
Otherwise, it looks like a pretty decent package, though.
It looks like you get:
* Zigbee module ($45 for rp4 https://phoscon.de/en/raspbee2)
* PoE module ($20 if desired for rp4 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14882)
* M.2 Slot (but no SD card slot)
* battery powered RTC
* A case
It's priced at $149 with all that, whereas rp4 2GB w. zigbee and PoE would be $45 + $45 + $20 = $110, so price seems reasonable if you need all those things as you're getting the rtc, m.2 and case all in a nice package.
My use would probably only need the Zigbee module and I can 3D print a case, so I'd go with the rp4 especially as I have a bunch lying around anyway! But Seems like a really nice package if you need all those things, and especially PoE is nice to have built in.