GPU works on the 2W, just make sure to enable GPU in the orange-pi config utility, as it is disabled by default on this device. The GPU is Mali-G31, so it uses Panfrost, I have been able to render 3D scenes with shaders and stuff just fine.
Oh you legend - I did not consider checking the config tool, I was going to modify the DTB by hand haha. Yeah I'm planning a "Part 2" covering a bit more, and was going to work out how to resolve the GPU issues along with testing 4K there. No idea why it's off by default! Much appreciated.
@@PlatimaTinkers yeah, it took me a long time to figure out that the GPU was disabled by default, maybe it depends on the image that is used, at least on my image it was disabled (Orangepizero2w_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_server_linux6.1.31).
I am also impressed by this tiny SBC, (right now using it to browse and comment this video as an experiment) Ubuntu image is pretty good. Thanks for this shirt and good review. I'll try soon to run the retropie/recalbox on it, very curious to see results ;)
@@PlatimaTinkers lol I was asking the original comment poster @McGivrer - definitely dive into Batocera Linux - it’s a game changer! I tried Recalbox on my Rasp Pi Zero 2W and it’s definitely splashy (and love the homebrew focus!) - Batocera Linux is geared more for high end systems (though it’s amazing what it makes even an old 2015 MacBookPro do!)
@@udance4ever (Sorry been on the road for work) Hah okay good to know. And I actually have an old 2015 MacBook Pro (i7 / 16GB / 512GB) that I could put to use!
the GPU is disabled in default config. Try to enable it. idk why they turn off the GPU as default settings. Maybe to reduce the power consumption. But if user need to enable it for further project, OFC we can.
Hahah I could definitely do so, but honestly the two huntsmans that live in/around my workshop are approx 6 times the size of this SBC. The one I last saw inside was missing a leg from a fight with a bird, but its stance was about CD sized.
@@PlatimaTinkers Huntsmans are not deadly, unless you are an insect. I presume @DanielRumbacher was referring to funnel-web spiders. I am not expecting you to include a live funnel-web next to any small SBCs in future videos, unless you really want to do so.
@@vladsnape6408 Yeah got two huntsmans that live in my workshop, each missing a different leg from a bird fight hah. And they're not deadly, but it can make ya fairly ill! They don't usually bite at least.
Nice to see you back reviewing ARM SBCs and the OrangePi 2W as its an upgrade in performance than the RaspberryPi version and I see the H618 used in a few other boards from BananaPi with Sipeed just releasing one themselves. My 4gb has been in its box as was waiting on time to get it setup. Be sure to use cooling as Allwiner chips suck and this one will get hot... Great video!
Hey I'm trying to stick to RISC-V, but waiting on RV 1.0, so going back to ARM since I've got still literal dozens to get through haha. Honestly, I cannot tell what the difference between the H616 and H618 is? Thanks for the comment/engagement and input! Cheers
Looks good. This is what the raspberry pi zero 2w should be. I was quite disappointed with it only having 512mb ram. This board is excellent though except for the initial bootup time. I think this would work great with klipper. Well, I finally bought a 2gb one. At first I thought none of the images were working as I kept getting an error mounting the sd card. I was using Win32 Disk Imager. I switched to using Balen Etcher and was able to get the images to work. So far, it is okay, but I have done anything with it other than test the images.
Yeah seconded hey, and DDR2 even more so! Definitely good for Klipper, but that first boot time does make sense to me 1) had to expand partition etc, 2) slow SD card!
Hey, just an FYI that HEVC is H.265. AVC is H.264. Just random names for random numbers :P But it depends on what functionality you are after. It has a H616/618 processor - datasheet at linux-sunxi.org/images/b/b9/H616_Datasheet_V1.0_cleaned.pdf - and you can see it has H.264 and H.265 hardware video decoding, along with H.264 hardware video encoding. I hope that helps!
@@PlatimaTinkersThaks. But i haven't found it in official specifications of O-Pi 2W. And that is strange. For example newest RPi does NOT have hardware acceleration of H.264. I know that those SoCs are powerful enough to software decoding H.264. But what is important for me is ENERGY CONSUMPTION. And for this is better hardware acceleration. I am going to build device with battery, and there is consumption very important. I am still not sure which SBC is best for this. Low consumption in IDLE and in STANDBY mode is key ! Unfortunately most of these SBCs are significantly worse in this, compared to embeded SBCs in smartphones and tablets :-(
@@petrklic7064 yeah I think the doco is a bit aged, as it also says there is no hardware acceleration for the GPU, but there is these days - you just enable the drivers in `orangepi-config`. So I'd say it was the same marketing material / documentation from launch, but it's evolved since then. Is there a way you know of to easily test if it's doing hardware decode/encode? I'm not hugely familiar with that 2D side; testing the 3D acceleration in the GPU is easy enough for me hah.
@@PlatimaTinkersEasy test ? Start decoding 4K 60p video and measuring energy consumption (if it will run). ps: it is sad, but i can not find any reliable newer youtube video like "make your own tablet from SBC and 7inch LCD". It looks like people are not even trying to make their own Linux/AOSP tablet.
@@petrklic7064 Oh okay good to know! Re the tablet, funny you say that as I currently have a 7" touchscreen sitting on my desk here that I'm playing with: shop.plati.ma/products/luckfox-7inch-hd-capacitive-touch-screen-lcd-1024-600-resolution-hdmi-ips-multi-point-touch Pretty damn good so far, besides literal sharp edges haha.
Yep you can, but USB0 (near 24-pin connector) is set to 'Device Mode' by default as that's usually the power supply, and USB1 is in 'Host Mode'. This is page 125 of the manual, and you can change USB0 config using `orangepi-config` if need be as it steps you through there!
It's unfortunately not easy - the OS needs to be ported to the hardware (DTB), and an image created for the SD card. Your best bet would likely be sticking to the releases, unless you know exactly what you're doing!
Pretty damn good to be honest. Orange Pi are an Armbian Platinum Sponsor, so most models get fully endorsed Armbian releases, but they also put out ~8 images for each board themselves, eg Arch, Android, Ubuntu and Debian, with CLI and GUI versions where relevant, and sometimes with 5.10 and 6.1 kernels too! Plus extensive doco, eg the PDF for this board was 319 pages!
Does it work with all the OSs the regular Zero 2 can? I need one for a Tilt hydrometer setup (Tilt makes their own OS off of Raspberry Pi OS for this purpose that is Pi 2,3, 3+, 4 and Zero compatible according to their documentation) and wouldn't mind having the extra hp this comes with.
Both processors are Cortex-A53, so the software should work perfectly, but the device tree might be slightly different. I expect it as close as possible, so the images _might_ Just Work™ but I'd use the official Orange Pi image, then just copy your software across... unless you've got a custom build of course! Else maybe just jamming the OPi DTB into the RPi image might work!
Second attempt at posting a reply, for whatever reason the first one didn't stick. The custom image Tilt made for the Zeros, 2, 3, 3+ and 4 did not work. I kept getting and mpt4 mount error. Funnily enough I get the same error when I try to boot with no SD card installed. The only thing that worked was the Orange PiOS (Arch) image. Tried installing a regular Pi OS Lite, Pi OS in both 32 and 64 bit with no success. I like the idea of a cheap and powerful Zero 2w but the support is not nearly close to what it needs to be. @@PlatimaTinkers
@@oda0111yeah UA-cam is good at eating comments sometimes. So annoying. That's really interesting and good to know. I'd expect that is going to be something to do with the device tree (DTB). If you can get the Tilt image, and use the DTB from the official image, that might work. The other option is that you might be able to modify the u-boot or related boot options, as it might be looking for a specific block device or connection to boot from, which is different on this.
Luv you're vids. Have 4 Opi zero 2w. 2-1g , 2-4g. And expansion boards for all 4. Need to know diff with loading the os's. Also had issues with loading Rpio ontop of opi zero os. Diddntt work. Can you go over difference between the 2 w and also the Rpi 0 2w? Also best plce to load os and where to mount os between the 2 and issues where the antenna are best placed. Plus had issues with loading Rpios vs Orgpios,? Also is the a true Dietpi Oxpi vs diet pi over iox. Also any ideas of how to load dietpi orgli os for RTSP CAMERAS STREAMING? THANKS.
Hey thanks for the comment and support! I've not tried Orange Pi OS, as I'm not a fan of Arch. The Orange Pi Zero 2W wipes the floor with the Raspb Pi Zero 2W in my opinion; 4K HDMI output, USB-C, heaps more RAM, faster RAM, Wireless-AC and BT5, SPI flash, etc. Probably cheaper too! Antenna is a hard one; depends on your case or layout. But most of the time it can go pretty much anywhere, just vertical. RTSP camera streaming would be best done with ffmpeg / V4L2. You'd need to learn a bit about it, as it can be slightly complex, but there are some pre-made packages out there that you might find in the apt repositories. Eg github.com/mpromonet/v4l2rtspserver which is super common and easy to use. To load the OS just use Balena Etcher or similar on to the SD card. You can program the embedded SPI Flash but it is only 16MB so barely fits much. Maybe RT-Thread haha
Thanks for the reply. I've used RTSP on pi zero w and zerow2 for a few years with no issues. And capture the feed on a Pi4 8gb of 4 streams in Shinobi. I had an issue when first setting up Debian os from Orange pi site when first came out. Ill try it again.
@@PlatimaTinkers i have it in an Argone one case with thee SSD bottom using a 2tb ssd. Capturing 4 zero w2 RTSP cameras streams it run great. When I ran it on the SD card it was awful. So the SSD really makes a big difference. Thinking of upgrading to the Pi 5, 4gb or 8gb. Just to see if it can add up to 8 cameras using pi zero2w RTSP.. have pi5 4gb now , waiting for 8gb setup just shipped Friday from Vilros. May try 8 cams on current pi4 8gb setup since I want to really use pi5 for more power options. Also got SSD bottom hat from pimoroni for the pi5's. Will try 2tb and 4tb when I get the time.
@@cjlowe1650 Ooh yeah I have a few SBC cases from Argon and I quite like them! Yep SSD would make a huge difference. I'd not go the Pi 5 though; Orange Pi 5B or Raxda Rock 5A absolutely rinse it as far as performance goes from what I've seen! I've got an OPi 5 here if you want me to check anything, but I think I've only got a Raxda Rock 4SE - still better than Raspberry Pi 5 I think though hah. The 4 SE also supports NVMe onboard I think, not E-keyed for wifi like most! Might have to move my current setup. I've also got a 3 TOPS USB accelerator I need to try, but I'm considering Frigate too... tough call!
Thanks mate much appreciated. And nope, no idea. Yeah 2W's. On Reddit people said they had similar problems. Basically it's running fine for a few months in a little enclosure, then one day it just stops responding. Stick debug headers on it, and it turns out nobody's home. Only SBC I've ever had that's died - and I've got a Banana Pi M1 from 9 years ago that's been running Docker 24x7 nonstop and works fine still!
@@PlatimaTinkers interesting, thanks for info. Maybe it runs to hot, even when on stock settings. Shall see how my build turns out. Going to be a handheld build I'm working on. Very eager to test rpi zero 2w or even bananas or radxas variants.
@@Sysshad yeah it could be, but you'd expect it to rate limit itself, or turn off. Hitting 40-50C shouldn't cook it. I could try a basic oven reflow to see if it comes good, had not though of that. Yep just had the Raxda Zero 3W just turn up yesterday, cannot wait to try it. Very happy with both them and Orange Pi!
Thanks for the great review. I will keep an eye on the Orange Pi zero 2 w as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w. Raspberry Pi single board computers where unavailable during about 3 years during Corona. The Raspberry Pi zero 2 was was available used on eBay for around 120 USD during Corona. Raspberry Pi’s are available again now, but also for brockers, since Raspberry Pi is on the stocks. Since Corona our trust in Raspberry Pi is gone. Orange Pi’s are getting better since Corona, as we can see here in the example of the Orange Pi zero 2 w. There is also an armbian image avaible, which I hope will become better and make the device faster. Thank you very much fur this great review and the great tests.
@rmjormjo Yeah personally I use the OPi Zero 2W or Radxa Rock 3W for those mid-range (nearly)eSBCs. Eg they are not quite an eSBC, but they're not a full SBC. I've got one RPi 4 I use somewhere as a comparison, but it mostly lives in a box hah
Thanks for the review! This would be great for an upcoming project, especially because there's offers for 30 euros that include the expansion board too. Probably because the successor is now their main focus. I'm preparing for a project that just needs to animate some images, display short sequences and play background sounds, right in the wheelhouse of the two-board combo with a screen.
Very welcome! They're an awesome little unit, but I am actually using the the Radxa Zero 3W and the Luckfox Pico range more these days. Ref: shop.plati.ma/collections/all?filter.p.vendor=Luckfox
@@PlatimaTinkers Thanks, I'l have to check that out. Would be even more interesting if I could integrate simple 3D, taking the 3D compass values from an accelerometer and rotating a compass sphere accordingly. That's something only the second generation of Pi Zeros and its competitors have the power to do.
@@Iskelderon I'd honestly not considered ever doing something like that, but that would be pretty awesome to see. I think you could probably offload a lot of the compute though; either use DMA, or a dedicated IC for it. DFRobot have some great kit for that sort of stuff!
Amazon reports: Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock. For: Orange Pi Zero 2W 2GB with Expansion Board Allwinner H618 LPDDR4 Quad Core CPU 64 Bit Single Board Computer, 1.5GHz Frequency WiFi 5.0 Bluetooth 5.0 onboard Antenna Support 4K Display (Zero 2W 2G+EB)
I'm wondering why your raspberry pies keep dying, is it because of a lot of read rights to the storage or overheating or something else? I am very interested.
I've got no idea, but over the last 2-3 years I've gone through a half-dozen Pi Zero's. It's only those that die, I've never had another SBC/eSBC fail, and they're in a really good enclosure, indoor, running off well-regulated power. Having spoken to others on Reddit, apparently it's actually fairly common.
Yeah, technically it would be able to. You MIGHT just have to modify U-boot to enable USB - I don't recall if it is enabled by default. (Google Translate: Да, технически это возможно. Вам МОЖЕТ просто потребоваться изменить U-boot, чтобы включить USB - я не помню, включен ли он по умолчанию.)
@@PlatimaTinkers Wow thanks for feedback! And thanks for the translated text)) This moment with the flash drive was very interesting, since this information was nowhere to be found and I would like to ask the real owner of the board) again thanks!❤️
@@DevXcode_P Hah, welcome! Problem with USB drives though; slow. This only has USB 2.0 (although Type-C ports), so 480Mbps max. That is still 60MB/s, but good SD cards can do 90MB/s up to 300MB/s or so 🐇 This page should help you, as I think most uboot defaults to SPI -> eMMC -> SD -> Fail. linux-sunxi.org/FEL/USBBoot
@@PlatimaTinkers I hadn't thought about that... usb 2.0 is a big problem. Then only sd cards. Okay, thanks for everything, I will think about the purchase!
It's a really really confusing topic. The Zero 3 is an upgrade over the Zero 2, HOWEVER, the Zero 2W is essentially the same as the Zero 3. The Zero 2W has more headers and expansion, but the 3 has ethernet. I guess they are wifi vs ethernet models, but Radxa made it a little easier by just releasing a 2W and a 2E 😅
Hello, were you able to activate the GPU? I tried several things without success and ended up installing Android against my will, because my idea when I got the card was to use it to capture video with a USB card, but as there is a lot of delay in videos on UA-cam I gave up on Linux and left it with Android for now only running UA-cam and Xcloud.
Hey I honestly cannot recall! I think I did in the end, just didn't save the image 😪 From what I recall, the Armbian images with newer kernels include the GPU support (Arm Mali GXX if I recall) out of the box. Ref: www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero-2/ (although www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2W.html now has some newer 6.1 images!) Enjoy 😊
@wimvander1427 Not sure sorry mate, I'm not hugely familiar with Kali. I'd assume you could cut your own image using the SDK and a Kali rootfs, as it almost certainly supports arm64!
hhmmm i wanna make a pure standalone mediaplayer...no firefox...nothing else then mp3/4 software and a small display...i there any such standalone mediaplayer software that i can install on this opi 2w???
Install Armbian and run Klipper for your 3D printer... That's where this little guy really shines (along with its bigger sister, the Orange Pi Zero 3).
@@PlatimaTinkers Certainly, FDM and mostly custom machines. It allows a lot of flexibility: Custom commands, real pressure advance, total control over acceleration... And it can run on a potato (on the machine side). The best thing is that any change you make is applied on the fly, no need to recompile the firmware on the machine.
Hey any heatsink and fan would probably do, eg shop.plati.ma/products/raxda-heatsink-fan-combo-2513-25x25x13mm-suits-rock-5a-and-similar can probably cover CPU and RAM, however, the RAM doesn't get that hot from memory. The board has no fan pins though, so I'd recommend connecting either to the 5V pin to have it running full time, or you can probably connect it to a PWM pin, set that pin as the fan similar to on ameridroid.com/blogs/ameriblogs/setting-pwm-on-armbian-for-fan-control-a-step-by-step-guide
Yeah it's always possible, not always recommended haha. In this case, I would say not to. 1) It is not the sort of thing to be used in any application where overclocking may be beneficial. A full Orange Pi 5B maybe, but not something like this. 2) You'd need to add custom cooling, which would probably be about the same cost as buying a second one or bigger model to get more compute power. HOWEVER. If you want to, A) Slap on some thermal compound, a heat sink, and a fan (shop.plati.ma/products/fan-and-heatsink-with-adhesive-for-sbcs) B) If using Armbian, use armbian-config to tweak frequency and voltage settings, else C) Decompile and modify the device tree (github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/arm64/boot/dts/allwinner/sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dts) to use different dvfs or frequency settings.
Linux 5.4 kernel likely won't have audio over HDMI without a lot of messing about. Linux 6.1 kernel should work fine, but you might need to enable the overlay. Tested confirmed with an Orange Pi Zero 3 using Armbian.
Each board has it pro and cons. Without raspberry release their board and idea from them. It would be other long time for people really open hardware develop board.
Kiiiiind of. OpenWRT runs fine on Cortex-A53 cores (downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.2/targets/sunxi/cortexa53/) but there are no builds for that specific board or processor. It does look like some others are working on it though, eg github.com/iuncuim/openwrt/tree/master-opizero3
Lack of support for GPU drivers are a constant with chinese SBCs, you have a 4k HDMI output that's unusable from Linux. That's why people keep buying raspberry pies.
Hey yeah but it turns out it works fine - just has to be enabled from the config app as it's not enabled by default! Probably for power/benchmark results. When I do a Part 2 video I'll include that info!
Hahah nah I am halfway through moving my AP but right now it's sitting on a metal shelf that just cripples the throughput - need to put the new mount up!
NFI where you got that from. Think what you want about Debian, watch the video if you want. Your entitled to your own opinion, and I honestly don't give two squirts either way 🤘
@@CommanderBeefDev Never said I was a dev 😂 At least not these days. I was actually a software developer for a gaming company, and then a mining company, back in the days. These days I just spend my time replying to comments from closed minded narcissists while my employees do the dev work 😊
Maybe. If I remember, so probably not. "Always" is pushing it. I'll probably show `glxinfo -B`, but honestly most SBCs coming out have no hardware GPU support, so pointless
GPU works on the 2W, just make sure to enable GPU in the orange-pi config utility, as it is disabled by default on this device. The GPU is Mali-G31, so it uses Panfrost, I have been able to render 3D scenes with shaders and stuff just fine.
also re-do your UA-cam test after enabling the GPU.
Oh you legend - I did not consider checking the config tool, I was going to modify the DTB by hand haha.
Yeah I'm planning a "Part 2" covering a bit more, and was going to work out how to resolve the GPU issues along with testing 4K there. No idea why it's off by default!
Much appreciated.
@@PlatimaTinkers yeah, it took me a long time to figure out that the GPU was disabled by default, maybe it depends on the image that is used, at least on my image it was disabled (Orangepizero2w_1.0.0_ubuntu_jammy_server_linux6.1.31).
@@semaph0re Yeah quite possibly. Even the official docs still say it's not supported though =/ Odd. Ah well, wonderful find!
@@PlatimaTinkers For some reason it is off by default on their os lately, the same happens on the Orange Pi 3B por example
I am also impressed by this tiny SBC, (right now using it to browse and comment this video as an experiment) Ubuntu image is pretty good. Thanks for this shirt and good review. I'll try soon to run the retropie/recalbox on it, very curious to see results ;)
Oh wow that is excellent, nice work mate!
how did your RetroPie/Recalbox adventures go? you get Batocera Linux working on it by chance? I don't see a download listed for the Z2W...
@udance4ever I think you got the wrong person mate? I don't even know what RetroPie/Recalbox or Batocera Linux are 😂
@@PlatimaTinkers lol I was asking the original comment poster @McGivrer - definitely dive into Batocera Linux - it’s a game changer! I tried Recalbox on my Rasp Pi Zero 2W and it’s definitely splashy (and love the homebrew focus!) - Batocera Linux is geared more for high end systems (though it’s amazing what it makes even an old 2015 MacBookPro do!)
@@udance4ever (Sorry been on the road for work) Hah okay good to know. And I actually have an old 2015 MacBook Pro (i7 / 16GB / 512GB) that I could put to use!
the GPU is disabled in default config. Try to enable it. idk why they turn off the GPU as default settings. Maybe to reduce the power consumption. But if user need to enable it for further project, OFC we can.
Yeah someone told me that just after I uploaded. Really bad design decision - alters reviews and benchmarks 😑
@@PlatimaTinkers you really do need a part 2 with GPU AND with a decent SD card! I think my boots are under 10 seconds from a sandisk
@@jdchmiel Yeah it's in the pipe, just got about 4 months worth of other content lined up first.
@@PlatimaTinkers whats your excuse now buddy 5 months have past!
as a real australian i would have expected you to compare these tiny pocket socs to a huge australian deadly spider :)
Hahah I could definitely do so, but honestly the two huntsmans that live in/around my workshop are approx 6 times the size of this SBC. The one I last saw inside was missing a leg from a fight with a bird, but its stance was about CD sized.
@@PlatimaTinkers Huntsmans are not deadly, unless you are an insect. I presume @DanielRumbacher was referring to funnel-web spiders. I am not expecting you to include a live funnel-web next to any small SBCs in future videos, unless you really want to do so.
@@vladsnape6408 Yeah got two huntsmans that live in my workshop, each missing a different leg from a bird fight hah. And they're not deadly, but it can make ya fairly ill! They don't usually bite at least.
Nice to see you back reviewing ARM SBCs and the OrangePi 2W as its an upgrade in performance than the RaspberryPi version and I see the H618 used in a few other boards from BananaPi with Sipeed just releasing one themselves. My 4gb has been in its box as was waiting on time to get it setup. Be sure to use cooling as Allwiner chips suck and this one will get hot... Great video!
Hey I'm trying to stick to RISC-V, but waiting on RV 1.0, so going back to ARM since I've got still literal dozens to get through haha.
Honestly, I cannot tell what the difference between the H616 and H618 is?
Thanks for the comment/engagement and input! Cheers
Hey bro😊 compatible gpicase?
@styauJ Eh?
Looks good. This is what the raspberry pi zero 2w should be. I was quite disappointed with it only having 512mb ram. This board is excellent though except for the initial bootup time. I think this would work great with klipper.
Well, I finally bought a 2gb one. At first I thought none of the images were working as I kept getting an error mounting the sd card. I was using Win32 Disk Imager. I switched to using Balen Etcher and was able to get the images to work. So far, it is okay, but I have done anything with it other than test the images.
Yeah seconded hey, and DDR2 even more so!
Definitely good for Klipper, but that first boot time does make sense to me 1) had to expand partition etc, 2) slow SD card!
Does this support HEVC h.264 / h.265 ?
Hey, just an FYI that HEVC is H.265. AVC is H.264. Just random names for random numbers :P
But it depends on what functionality you are after. It has a H616/618 processor - datasheet at linux-sunxi.org/images/b/b9/H616_Datasheet_V1.0_cleaned.pdf - and you can see it has H.264 and H.265 hardware video decoding, along with H.264 hardware video encoding.
I hope that helps!
@@PlatimaTinkersThaks.
But i haven't found it in official specifications of O-Pi 2W. And that is strange.
For example newest RPi does NOT have hardware acceleration of H.264.
I know that those SoCs are powerful enough to software decoding H.264.
But what is important for me is ENERGY CONSUMPTION. And for this is better hardware acceleration.
I am going to build device with battery, and there is consumption very important.
I am still not sure which SBC is best for this.
Low consumption in IDLE and in STANDBY mode is key !
Unfortunately most of these SBCs are significantly worse in this, compared to embeded SBCs in smartphones and tablets :-(
@@petrklic7064 yeah I think the doco is a bit aged, as it also says there is no hardware acceleration for the GPU, but there is these days - you just enable the drivers in `orangepi-config`. So I'd say it was the same marketing material / documentation from launch, but it's evolved since then.
Is there a way you know of to easily test if it's doing hardware decode/encode? I'm not hugely familiar with that 2D side; testing the 3D acceleration in the GPU is easy enough for me hah.
@@PlatimaTinkersEasy test ? Start decoding 4K 60p video and measuring energy consumption (if it will run).
ps: it is sad, but i can not find any reliable newer youtube video like "make your own tablet from SBC and 7inch LCD".
It looks like people are not even trying to make their own Linux/AOSP tablet.
@@petrklic7064 Oh okay good to know!
Re the tablet, funny you say that as I currently have a 7" touchscreen sitting on my desk here that I'm playing with: shop.plati.ma/products/luckfox-7inch-hd-capacitive-touch-screen-lcd-1024-600-resolution-hdmi-ips-multi-point-touch
Pretty damn good so far, besides literal sharp edges haha.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Not a problem at all mate, thanks for the engagement!
Could you please confirm if both USBs have both data and power capabilities ? bcs according to their website, both should be able to carry data too 😊
Yep you can, but USB0 (near 24-pin connector) is set to 'Device Mode' by default as that's usually the power supply, and USB1 is in 'Host Mode'. This is page 125 of the manual, and you can change USB0 config using `orangepi-config` if need be as it steps you through there!
Hoping to buy one, could you do a video where you install other OSs ? Like Fedora OS (I heard that it can be installed to Rsp Pi not sure tho)
It's unfortunately not easy - the OS needs to be ported to the hardware (DTB), and an image created for the SD card. Your best bet would likely be sticking to the releases, unless you know exactly what you're doing!
Whats software support like? Will anything rin natively or is ot only Oranges own images??
Pretty damn good to be honest. Orange Pi are an Armbian Platinum Sponsor, so most models get fully endorsed Armbian releases, but they also put out ~8 images for each board themselves, eg Arch, Android, Ubuntu and Debian, with CLI and GUI versions where relevant, and sometimes with 5.10 and 6.1 kernels too! Plus extensive doco, eg the PDF for this board was 319 pages!
Does it work with all the OSs the regular Zero 2 can? I need one for a Tilt hydrometer setup (Tilt makes their own OS off of Raspberry Pi OS for this purpose that is Pi 2,3, 3+, 4 and Zero compatible according to their documentation) and wouldn't mind having the extra hp this comes with.
Both processors are Cortex-A53, so the software should work perfectly, but the device tree might be slightly different. I expect it as close as possible, so the images _might_ Just Work™ but I'd use the official Orange Pi image, then just copy your software across... unless you've got a custom build of course! Else maybe just jamming the OPi DTB into the RPi image might work!
Second attempt at posting a reply, for whatever reason the first one didn't stick.
The custom image Tilt made for the Zeros, 2, 3, 3+ and 4 did not work. I kept getting and mpt4 mount error. Funnily enough I get the same error when I try to boot with no SD card installed.
The only thing that worked was the Orange PiOS (Arch) image. Tried installing a regular Pi OS Lite, Pi OS in both 32 and 64 bit with no success.
I like the idea of a cheap and powerful Zero 2w but the support is not nearly close to what it needs to be. @@PlatimaTinkers
@@oda0111yeah UA-cam is good at eating comments sometimes. So annoying.
That's really interesting and good to know. I'd expect that is going to be something to do with the device tree (DTB). If you can get the Tilt image, and use the DTB from the official image, that might work.
The other option is that you might be able to modify the u-boot or related boot options, as it might be looking for a specific block device or connection to boot from, which is different on this.
What heatsink you used for cpu?
I just grabbed a small spare one I had in a box. I've ordered some for stock, so keep an eye on shop.plati.ma! Cheers
Luv you're vids. Have 4 Opi zero 2w. 2-1g , 2-4g. And expansion boards for all 4. Need to know diff with loading the os's. Also had issues with loading Rpio ontop of opi zero os. Diddntt work. Can you go over difference between the 2 w and also the Rpi 0 2w? Also best plce to load os and where to mount os between the 2 and issues where the antenna are best placed. Plus had issues with loading Rpios vs Orgpios,? Also is the a true Dietpi Oxpi vs diet pi over iox. Also any ideas of how to load dietpi orgli os for RTSP CAMERAS STREAMING? THANKS.
Hey thanks for the comment and support!
I've not tried Orange Pi OS, as I'm not a fan of Arch. The Orange Pi Zero 2W wipes the floor with the Raspb Pi Zero 2W in my opinion; 4K HDMI output, USB-C, heaps more RAM, faster RAM, Wireless-AC and BT5, SPI flash, etc. Probably cheaper too!
Antenna is a hard one; depends on your case or layout. But most of the time it can go pretty much anywhere, just vertical.
RTSP camera streaming would be best done with ffmpeg / V4L2. You'd need to learn a bit about it, as it can be slightly complex, but there are some pre-made packages out there that you might find in the apt repositories. Eg github.com/mpromonet/v4l2rtspserver which is super common and easy to use.
To load the OS just use Balena Etcher or similar on to the SD card. You can program the embedded SPI Flash but it is only 16MB so barely fits much. Maybe RT-Thread haha
Thanks for the reply. I've used RTSP on pi zero w and zerow2 for a few years with no issues. And capture the feed on a Pi4 8gb of 4 streams in Shinobi. I had an issue when first setting up Debian os from Orange pi site when first came out. Ill try it again.
@@cjlowe1650 Oooh how does Shinobi go on a Pi4? I've got it running on a little x86 NUC but it struggles.
Yeah the current image seems to work well!
@@PlatimaTinkers i have it in an Argone one case with thee SSD bottom using a 2tb ssd. Capturing 4 zero w2 RTSP cameras streams it run great. When I ran it on the SD card it was awful. So the SSD really makes a big difference. Thinking of upgrading to the Pi 5, 4gb or 8gb. Just to see if it can add up to 8 cameras using pi zero2w RTSP.. have pi5 4gb now , waiting for 8gb setup just shipped Friday from Vilros. May try 8 cams on current pi4 8gb setup since I want to really use pi5 for more power options. Also got SSD bottom hat from pimoroni for the pi5's. Will try 2tb and 4tb when I get the time.
@@cjlowe1650 Ooh yeah I have a few SBC cases from Argon and I quite like them!
Yep SSD would make a huge difference. I'd not go the Pi 5 though; Orange Pi 5B or Raxda Rock 5A absolutely rinse it as far as performance goes from what I've seen! I've got an OPi 5 here if you want me to check anything, but I think I've only got a Raxda Rock 4SE - still better than Raspberry Pi 5 I think though hah. The 4 SE also supports NVMe onboard I think, not E-keyed for wifi like most!
Might have to move my current setup. I've also got a 3 TOPS USB accelerator I need to try, but I'm considering Frigate too... tough call!
Thanks, great video!
Cheers Rich, much appreciated!
Thanks for review. Have you found out why your rpi zero dies? Is it 2w?
Thanks mate much appreciated. And nope, no idea. Yeah 2W's. On Reddit people said they had similar problems. Basically it's running fine for a few months in a little enclosure, then one day it just stops responding. Stick debug headers on it, and it turns out nobody's home. Only SBC I've ever had that's died - and I've got a Banana Pi M1 from 9 years ago that's been running Docker 24x7 nonstop and works fine still!
@@PlatimaTinkers interesting, thanks for info. Maybe it runs to hot, even when on stock settings. Shall see how my build turns out. Going to be a handheld build I'm working on. Very eager to test rpi zero 2w or even bananas or radxas variants.
@@Sysshad yeah it could be, but you'd expect it to rate limit itself, or turn off. Hitting 40-50C shouldn't cook it. I could try a basic oven reflow to see if it comes good, had not though of that.
Yep just had the Raxda Zero 3W just turn up yesterday, cannot wait to try it. Very happy with both them and Orange Pi!
Thanks for the great review. I will keep an eye on the Orange Pi zero 2 w as an alternative to the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w. Raspberry Pi single board computers where unavailable during about 3 years during Corona. The Raspberry Pi zero 2 was was available used on eBay for around 120 USD during Corona. Raspberry Pi’s are available again now, but also for brockers, since Raspberry Pi is on the stocks. Since Corona our trust in Raspberry Pi is gone. Orange Pi’s are getting better since Corona, as we can see here in the example of the Orange Pi zero 2 w. There is also an armbian image avaible, which I hope will become better and make the device faster. Thank you very much fur this great review and the great tests.
@rmjormjo Yeah personally I use the OPi Zero 2W or Radxa Rock 3W for those mid-range (nearly)eSBCs. Eg they are not quite an eSBC, but they're not a full SBC.
I've got one RPi 4 I use somewhere as a comparison, but it mostly lives in a box hah
toyed with getting these for Home Assistant voice satellites but drivers for respeaker hat only for raspberry pi version
Hrmmm, shouldn't be too hard just to compile for most boards? github.com/respeaker/seeed-voicecard looks like it'd support most common ARM boards.
Thanks for the review!
This would be great for an upcoming project, especially because there's offers for 30 euros that include the expansion board too. Probably because the successor is now their main focus.
I'm preparing for a project that just needs to animate some images, display short sequences and play background sounds, right in the wheelhouse of the two-board combo with a screen.
Very welcome! They're an awesome little unit, but I am actually using the the Radxa Zero 3W and the Luckfox Pico range more these days. Ref: shop.plati.ma/collections/all?filter.p.vendor=Luckfox
@@PlatimaTinkers Thanks, I'l have to check that out. Would be even more interesting if I could integrate simple 3D, taking the 3D compass values from an accelerometer and rotating a compass sphere accordingly. That's something only the second generation of Pi Zeros and its competitors have the power to do.
@@Iskelderon I'd honestly not considered ever doing something like that, but that would be pretty awesome to see. I think you could probably offload a lot of the compute though; either use DMA, or a dedicated IC for it. DFRobot have some great kit for that sort of stuff!
@@PlatimaTinkers Glad I could inspire you. Think of an amateur movie prop akin of a Ghostbusters cartoon PKE Meter or Aliens motion tracker.
@@Iskelderon Haha god damn that's pretty specific 😂
Amazon reports: Currently unavailable.
We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.
For: Orange Pi Zero 2W 2GB with Expansion Board Allwinner H618 LPDDR4 Quad Core CPU 64 Bit Single Board Computer, 1.5GHz Frequency WiFi 5.0 Bluetooth 5.0 onboard Antenna Support 4K Display (Zero 2W 2G+EB)
God damn what a pain. Links updated with new listings that are in stock. Thanks for letting me know!
Which is better orange pi zero 2w or orange pi zero lts
Both are very good, depends on what you want to use it for!
I'm wondering why your raspberry pies keep dying, is it because of a lot of read rights to the storage or overheating or something else? I am very interested.
I've got no idea, but over the last 2-3 years I've gone through a half-dozen Pi Zero's. It's only those that die, I've never had another SBC/eSBC fail, and they're in a really good enclosure, indoor, running off well-regulated power. Having spoken to others on Reddit, apparently it's actually fairly common.
У меня лишь один вопрос, может ли orange pi zero 2w запускать систему с юсб флешки? Если да то я готов купить её прямо сейчас 😂
Yeah, technically it would be able to. You MIGHT just have to modify U-boot to enable USB - I don't recall if it is enabled by default. (Google Translate: Да, технически это возможно. Вам МОЖЕТ просто потребоваться изменить U-boot, чтобы включить USB - я не помню, включен ли он по умолчанию.)
@@PlatimaTinkers Wow thanks for feedback! And thanks for the translated text)) This moment with the flash drive was very interesting, since this information was nowhere to be found and I would like to ask the real owner of the board) again thanks!❤️
@@DevXcode_P Hah, welcome! Problem with USB drives though; slow. This only has USB 2.0 (although Type-C ports), so 480Mbps max. That is still 60MB/s, but good SD cards can do 90MB/s up to 300MB/s or so 🐇
This page should help you, as I think most uboot defaults to SPI -> eMMC -> SD -> Fail. linux-sunxi.org/FEL/USBBoot
@@PlatimaTinkers I hadn't thought about that... usb 2.0 is a big problem. Then only sd cards. Okay, thanks for everything, I will think about the purchase!
@@DevXcode_P Any time :)
I just ordered 1 to replace original pi zero, better value but not sure on the software, Ubuntu server 24.04? (Pihole)
I usually just run Debian!
How does this compare to the orange pi zero 3? Does that have the same soc?
It's a really really confusing topic.
The Zero 3 is an upgrade over the Zero 2, HOWEVER, the Zero 2W is essentially the same as the Zero 3.
The Zero 2W has more headers and expansion, but the 3 has ethernet.
I guess they are wifi vs ethernet models, but Radxa made it a little easier by just releasing a 2W and a 2E 😅
@@PlatimaTinkers thanks so I guess that means the zero 2w plus the expansion board is a superset of the zero 3
@@Autotrope Yeah kind of! Zero 3 just has ethernet instead. Odd marketing haha
Good review maaate
Cheers!
Hello, were you able to activate the GPU? I tried several things without success and ended up installing Android against my will, because my idea when I got the card was to use it to capture video with a USB card, but as there is a lot of delay in videos on UA-cam I gave up on Linux and left it with Android for now only running UA-cam and Xcloud.
Hey I honestly cannot recall! I think I did in the end, just didn't save the image 😪
From what I recall, the Armbian images with newer kernels include the GPU support (Arm Mali GXX if I recall) out of the box. Ref: www.armbian.com/orange-pi-zero-2/ (although www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2W.html now has some newer 6.1 images!)
Enjoy 😊
Does it support Kali Linux and is there a special version available for the OPI zero 2W?
@wimvander1427 Not sure sorry mate, I'm not hugely familiar with Kali.
I'd assume you could cut your own image using the SDK and a Kali rootfs, as it almost certainly supports arm64!
@@PlatimaTinkers thanks mate😎
hhmmm i wanna make a pure standalone mediaplayer...no firefox...nothing else then mp3/4 software and a small display...i there any such standalone mediaplayer software that i can install on this opi 2w???
www.orangepi.org/html/hardWare/computerAndMicrocontrollers/service-and-support/Orange-Pi-Zero-2W.html
Install Armbian and run Klipper for your 3D printer... That's where this little guy really shines (along with its bigger sister, the Orange Pi Zero 3).
Super curious, why does everyone use Klipper? What's it do that's so great?
I've only got SLA printers, so guessing it's an FDM thing? 😂
@@PlatimaTinkers Certainly, FDM and mostly custom machines. It allows a lot of flexibility: Custom commands, real pressure advance, total control over acceleration... And it can run on a potato (on the machine side). The best thing is that any change you make is applied on the fly, no need to recompile the firmware on the machine.
@@zeendaniels5809 ooh okay that's awesome, thanks for sharing!
What do you recommend for cooling this particular board? Thanks!
Hey any heatsink and fan would probably do, eg shop.plati.ma/products/raxda-heatsink-fan-combo-2513-25x25x13mm-suits-rock-5a-and-similar can probably cover CPU and RAM, however, the RAM doesn't get that hot from memory. The board has no fan pins though, so I'd recommend connecting either to the 5V pin to have it running full time, or you can probably connect it to a PWM pin, set that pin as the fan similar to on ameridroid.com/blogs/ameriblogs/setting-pwm-on-armbian-for-fan-control-a-step-by-step-guide
Is this possible to overclock, and if so, how?
Yeah it's always possible, not always recommended haha.
In this case, I would say not to. 1) It is not the sort of thing to be used in any application where overclocking may be beneficial. A full Orange Pi 5B maybe, but not something like this. 2) You'd need to add custom cooling, which would probably be about the same cost as buying a second one or bigger model to get more compute power.
HOWEVER. If you want to, A) Slap on some thermal compound, a heat sink, and a fan (shop.plati.ma/products/fan-and-heatsink-with-adhesive-for-sbcs) B) If using Armbian, use armbian-config to tweak frequency and voltage settings, else C) Decompile and modify the device tree (github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/arch/arm64/boot/dts/allwinner/sun50i-h618-orangepi-zero2w.dts) to use different dvfs or frequency settings.
Doesn't the Zero 2W come with Ethernet connector?
Nah but you can get the addon board that has it. Eg @3:10 if you'd watched it :P
I'll be so cool if you'd build a small Linux phone using that 💘
Make it happen man! I'm building a small Linux fox trap haha
4:12 Only 512 gig? That'll do for me! ;-)
PS, that was only a cheeky dig! Like saying "There's no H in aych mate" lol ;-) Love your content!
HAH good catch! Added an edit, cheers
You can easily enable the GPU using orangepi-config...
Yeah found that out waaaay later haha. Cheers though!
I have no audio by HDMI. I Tried Ubuntu, Arch (OpiOS) and Debian, can anyone help me?
Linux 5.4 kernel likely won't have audio over HDMI without a lot of messing about. Linux 6.1 kernel should work fine, but you might need to enable the overlay.
Tested confirmed with an Orange Pi Zero 3 using Armbian.
@@PlatimaTinkers Thanks a lot, but how to enable the overlay?
@@Bersotti `armbian-config`
Each board has it pro and cons. Without raspberry release their board and idea from them. It would be other long time for people really open hardware develop board.
Ain't wrong mate!
Do we have graphics drivers yet?
Yeah mate, either enable it in config, or install custom image with Panfrost :)
does it has openwrt support?
Kiiiiind of. OpenWRT runs fine on Cortex-A53 cores (downloads.openwrt.org/releases/23.05.2/targets/sunxi/cortexa53/) but there are no builds for that specific board or processor. It does look like some others are working on it though, eg github.com/iuncuim/openwrt/tree/master-opizero3
Does the Android TV build have hardware acceleration?
Yep it says it does - page 285 of the docs (Android 12, Linux 5.4 kernel)
hot exposure
Cheers mate
Lack of support for GPU drivers are a constant with chinese SBCs, you have a 4k HDMI output that's unusable from Linux. That's why people keep buying raspberry pies.
Hey yeah but it turns out it works fine - just has to be enabled from the config app as it's not enabled by default! Probably for power/benchmark results.
When I do a Part 2 video I'll include that info!
Bro your internet ain't avg 1080p is almost two decades old :P
Hahah nah I am halfway through moving my AP but right now it's sitting on a metal shelf that just cripples the throughput - need to put the new mount up!
sd cards get fried from high read write speed.. how lol
Not sure where you got that from, but not what I said at all mate
so you hate on arch and prefer debian? debian is for noobs so why would i bother watch this?
NFI where you got that from. Think what you want about Debian, watch the video if you want. Your entitled to your own opinion, and I honestly don't give two squirts either way 🤘
@@PlatimaTinkers well good for you, those of us with brains dont use windows, shows youre not worth anything as a dev
@@CommanderBeefDev Never said I was a dev 😂 At least not these days. I was actually a software developer for a gaming company, and then a mining company, back in the days. These days I just spend my time replying to comments from closed minded narcissists while my employees do the dev work 😊
@@PlatimaTinkers youre wrong guy i was talking to and i got confused my bad
@@CommanderBeefDev Roger
Please always show us chrome://gpu & kodi > settings > hardware & glxinfo -B
Maybe. If I remember, so probably not. "Always" is pushing it.
I'll probably show `glxinfo -B`, but honestly most SBCs coming out have no hardware GPU support, so pointless
too many ads impossible to follow
Yeah the YT ads are a huge pain in the ass. Install uBlock Origin - helps me heaps.