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I'm running virtualhere on thousands of raspberry pi's sharing various USB devices to cloud machines over vpn. It's been working without issues for years now. S

I'm running virtualhere on thousands of raspberry pi's sharing various USB devices to cloud machines over vpn. It's been working without issues for years now. Seems to be a solo developer in Australia that's been working on it for a really long time. https://www.virtualhere.com/ https://www.virtualhere.com/

brcmthrowaway 2y ago
What possible use case is this for
- zymhan 2y ago
  > This USB server solution is perfect for allowing USB devices to be used remotely over a LAN network, over the Internet, or in the Cloud without the USB device needing to be physically attached to remote client machine.
  - scintill76 2y ago
    Well, speaking for myself, I was curious why someone would need "thousands", and what the devices are.
    - bdittmer 2y ago
      clickbot farm?
    - nicman23 2y ago
      it is probably printers the horror
    - numpad0 2y ago
      VDI?
kotaKat 2y ago
$49 and a byzantine per-server-cannot-be-transferred license is not palatable to me. I hate hardware-bound licensing.
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  Would you rather like a monthly subscription per client?
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    They didn't say anything about monthly subscriptions.
- eps 2y ago
  Oh, knock it off. The reality is that licenses must be restricted because people cheat, steal and pirate. Hate them instead. Besides $49 is dirt-cheap for what it is, especially considering it covers all future versions.
theogravity 2y ago
> thousands of raspberry pi's so you've spent 1000s * $49 for the license?
- rrr_oh_man 2y ago
  Why not?
  - squarefoot 2y ago
    Possibly because a developer hired to write something around usbip would cost a lot less. https://usbip.sourceforge.net/ https://usbip.sourceforge.net/
    - dabber 2y ago
      > Possibly because a developer hired to write something around usbip would cost a lot less. https://usbip.sourceforge.net/ https://usbip.sourceforge.net/ Would it? For the sake of discussion, I'll assume "thousands of raspberry pi's" = 2,000 RBpis, or something around $10,000 in license fees. I don't know anything about either project beyond the links shared by you and the root comment, but based on the information at each link and the assumption of $10,000 spend: I would choose the one time cost of VirtualHere's purpetual update license and release cadence over a some short dev for hire contract to write some unmaintained wrapper code around a sourceforge library that hasn't been been touched in over a decade.
      - pmontra 2y ago
        $49 times 2,000 is $98,000, not around $10,000. Yet your argument still holds. There are many reasons for that. 1. You are paying a developer that works 100% on that, year after year, and not a hire that won't be there when something goes wrong in the future after an OS update, new hardware, anything. This is basically your argument. Let me add: 2. In some parts of the world far away from SV but still in the West, $100k are about two years of gross developer salary, not what the developer actually gets at the end of the month. Point 1 still holds. Where it's 10 years of salary maybe companies could be tempted by a custom solution. 3. You are giving $49 per server to that developer but you are probably getting more per server from your customers. If you have thousands of servers you probably have a viable business, so that's just yet another cost of doing business.
msbroadf 2y ago
Correct, i am a solo developer working on it since 2010 :)
- zbrozek 2y ago
  I love your website. It's clear and to the point. I immediately knew what your product did; thank you.
- dmead 2y ago
  This sounds like a cool use case for my observatory control box. Do you ever have issues with latency pushing the bounds of the USB spec wrt latency? Can I use this with my camera?
  - msbroadf 2y ago
    I have a lot of astro users. But you need to use Ethernet for the connection between VirtualHere server and client and not wifi. A pi5 is very good for this.
    - dmead 2y ago
      Yep. I have a hard line from my skyshed to the house lan. It would be over cat8 or whatever I have.
- rawbot 2y ago
  Thanks for your work. I tried using it to use the official Gamecube Controller USB Adapter through Steam Link, but there was some spiking noise that killed playability. Nevertheless, I think it is amazing stuff.
fasteo 2y ago
>>> I'm running virtualhere on thousands of raspberry pi's Offtopic. Mind sharing what are you doing with thousands of pi's ? Thanks

brcmthrowaway 2y ago

What possible use case is this for

zymhan 2y ago
> This USB server solution is perfect for allowing USB devices to be used remotely over a LAN network, over the Internet, or in the Cloud without the USB device needing to be physically attached to remote client machine.
- scintill76 2y ago
  Well, speaking for myself, I was curious why someone would need "thousands", and what the devices are.
  - bdittmer 2y ago
    clickbot farm?
  - nicman23 2y ago
    it is probably printers the horror
  - numpad0 2y ago
    VDI?

kotaKat 2y ago

$49 and a byzantine per-server-cannot-be-transferred license is not palatable to me. I hate hardware-bound licensing.

rrr_oh_man 2y ago
Would you rather like a monthly subscription per client?
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  They didn't say anything about monthly subscriptions.
eps 2y ago
Oh, knock it off. The reality is that licenses must be restricted because people cheat, steal and pirate. Hate them instead. Besides $49 is dirt-cheap for what it is, especially considering it covers all future versions.

theogravity 2y ago

> thousands of raspberry pi's so you've spent 1000s * $49 for the license?

rrr_oh_man 2y ago
Why not?
- squarefoot 2y ago
  Possibly because a developer hired to write something around usbip would cost a lot less. https://usbip.sourceforge.net/ https://usbip.sourceforge.net/
  - dabber 2y ago
    > Possibly because a developer hired to write something around usbip would cost a lot less. https://usbip.sourceforge.net/ https://usbip.sourceforge.net/ Would it? For the sake of discussion, I'll assume "thousands of raspberry pi's" = 2,000 RBpis, or something around $10,000 in license fees. I don't know anything about either project beyond the links shared by you and the root comment, but based on the information at each link and the assumption of $10,000 spend: I would choose the one time cost of VirtualHere's purpetual update license and release cadence over a some short dev for hire contract to write some unmaintained wrapper code around a sourceforge library that hasn't been been touched in over a decade.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      $49 times 2,000 is $98,000, not around $10,000. Yet your argument still holds. There are many reasons for that. 1. You are paying a developer that works 100% on that, year after year, and not a hire that won't be there when something goes wrong in the future after an OS update, new hardware, anything. This is basically your argument. Let me add: 2. In some parts of the world far away from SV but still in the West, $100k are about two years of gross developer salary, not what the developer actually gets at the end of the month. Point 1 still holds. Where it's 10 years of salary maybe companies could be tempted by a custom solution. 3. You are giving $49 per server to that developer but you are probably getting more per server from your customers. If you have thousands of servers you probably have a viable business, so that's just yet another cost of doing business.

msbroadf 2y ago

Correct, i am a solo developer working on it since 2010 :)

zbrozek 2y ago
I love your website. It's clear and to the point. I immediately knew what your product did; thank you.
dmead 2y ago
This sounds like a cool use case for my observatory control box. Do you ever have issues with latency pushing the bounds of the USB spec wrt latency? Can I use this with my camera?
- msbroadf 2y ago
  I have a lot of astro users. But you need to use Ethernet for the connection between VirtualHere server and client and not wifi. A pi5 is very good for this.
  - dmead 2y ago
    Yep. I have a hard line from my skyshed to the house lan. It would be over cat8 or whatever I have.
rawbot 2y ago
Thanks for your work. I tried using it to use the official Gamecube Controller USB Adapter through Steam Link, but there was some spiking noise that killed playability. Nevertheless, I think it is amazing stuff.

fasteo 2y ago

>>> I'm running virtualhere on thousands of raspberry pi's Offtopic. Mind sharing what are you doing with thousands of pi's ? Thanks