More time to tinker at home? Over the course of a couple weeks, I purchased four a two months back. A project I worked on inspired at least another person in my office to buy one.

My local microcenter has been jammed packed since the pandemic started. I also purchased 2 a few months back and a bunch of accessories.

> Has anyone noticed a shortage of Pi Zeros recently?

It has always been like that since day one with the RPi Zero, which was years ago. The Zero has always been produced in very small quantities and sold at a loss so they could advertise that price, but the actual users who could get it at the advertised price are a small minority of those wanting to buy it. I gave up after 2 full years, and never regretted.

Now I'd rather spend some more quid and get different (and often much more powerful) boards that I can order in 1 or 1000 units and will be available without either being bundled with unnecessary stuff to inflate the price or locked to 1 piece per order.

Here's a big list of boards complete with spreadsheet tables to compare them.

http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-the-new-year-with-136-open...

It's being updated once or twice per year, however this year's pandemic could have delayed the new one.

Recently? I've seen a shortage (in EU shops (Pi Zero W specifically)) since it was launched and seems it's not getting better either.

Comes and goes. As it happens they are back in at https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-w (limited to 1 per order).

When it's in stock, it's always limited to X per order, so I'd still stay it's in shortage currently

Yes, I entirely agree. I often add one with my orders when I can because they are useful and the equivalent clone versions work out very expensive in the UK. They are in short supply because the margin on them must be tiny and it's not worth wasting much manufacturing capacity on them. I wish they would update the specs but I think that's very unlikely to happen as they'll lose the original $5 computer claim. I don't care if it got a little more expensive (again), I like the form-factor.

I think this is intentional. The Pi Zero is mostly a marketing device. It's advertised at $5 but unless you happen to have a physical store selling them near you, it's not really $5 because the shipping is never free and you can only ever by one. So it's more like $15.

Still not a crazy price, of course, I just dislike the misleading advertising.

Always, it's been "limit:1" but you can buy the different kits, even from the same vendor but not for $5.