The Raspberry Pi finally has an official case, priced at just $9 (£6)
Three years later, but this Raspberry Pi 2 and Model B+ case is rather nice. — More than three years after launch, there is now an official Raspberry Pi case. In keeping with Raspberry Pi's aspirational remit …
Context & Ripple Effects
For over three years the Raspberry Pi shipped as a bare board, leaving enclosures to third-party makers. This $9 official case for the Pi 2 and Model B+ is the foundation's first move into finished-product territory, arriving just months before the $60 official touchscreen extends the same strategy to displays.
The timing fits a broader arc visible across the coverage: within a year Raspberry Pi was bundling peripherals into a £99 Starter Kit, and by 2020 the logic ran to completion with the Pi 400 keyboard-computer. The case is where that trajectory starts.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the Pi 2 and Model B+ get a cheap, sanctioned enclosure at $9 (£6), removing the need to source and vet third-party cases for the most common deployments.
- Raspberry Pi captures accessory margin directly for the first time on enclosures, adding a second revenue line alongside the board itself.
Second-order effects
- Third-party case vendors lose the default position and must differentiate on design, cooling, or features rather than simply filling the gap the foundation left open.
- Complete-kit offerings become easier to assemble once every major component — board, case, display — carries official branding, setting up the Starter Kit model.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the foundation's identity shifts from component supplier to consumer device maker — the endpoint visible in the Pi 400's integrated keyboard form factor, which internalizes the case-and-peripheral layer entirely.
- A growing official-accessory catalog raises the bar for what schools and hobbyists expect from a $35-class computer: a working product out of the box, not a board plus a shopping list.
The trend: Raspberry Pi is steadily wrapping its bare boards in official hardware — case, display, then fully integrated products — moving from component vendor toward consumer computing brand.