
Η pandemic of the corona continues to spread throughout the world, bringing the system to its limits health of every country. The need for basic tools like respirators is the largest of all at this time. To help with this, technology companies are turning to alternative designs to create faster and more economical respirators. And now the Raspberry Pi has become one of the key ingredients that will help in this endeavor. As reported by Tom's Hardware, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is increasing production of Pi Zero tiles to provide manufacturers with enough units to keep up with high demand for respirators. Although the $ 5 Pi Zero is the company's least powerful computer (it has a core, 1,0 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM), it still has enough power to control the relatively simple computational work that requires a respirator.
Another reason why Raspberry Pi is ideal for respirators is the company's ability to supply them quickly. Eben Upton, CEO and Founder of Raspberry Pi, told Tom's Hardware: "The Raspberry Pi is made in stock rather than on demand, so we generally have products either on hand or in preparation with short delivery times." The company created 192.000 Pi Zero and Pi Zero W tiles in the first quarter of 2020, but aims to produce 250.000 of them in the second quarter of the year. Upton said this was the first time Raspberry Pi had been used as a medical ingredient. devices.
Interestingly, manufacturers are becoming more creative with their designs and adopting them technology usually associated with the DIY community. We hope that this approach will bring more respirators to the health system and help save even more lives.