The future of Arduino

[jdurand]

Now that Arduino is owned by Qualcomm which is known for wanting things locked down, has there been any indication of how this is going to change Arduino?

I've heard that they essentially only want the customer database to push their AI stuff. We had something like that happen with CAD software years ago. It was purchased by a big name company and at the next update the CAD software could not import old files and everything worked differently.

Hopefully if something like this happens, then an open source version FreeArduino will fork off and keep going.

I hope they're smarter than to alienate all their newly acquired customers.

So, anyone have news?

[Frank S]

Not sure how much this article can be trusted, but it seems for now at least that Arduino will remain pretty much unmolested. We can only hope.
https://www.eetimes.com/what-comes-n...s-acquisition/

[jdurand]

Not sure how much this article can be trusted, but it seems for now at least that Arduino will remain pretty much unmolested. We can only hope.
https://www.eetimes.com/what-comes-n...s-acquisition/

I'm not sure how many Arduino users are really ready to go to bigger systems/AI. For one thing, Arduino teaches shoddy programming. I have a student I've warned about this, functions with no error checking, etc. I'm slowly moving her towards "real" programming, for now not using the libraries, talking to ports and registers directly. This year she'll be moving more into real C (and assembly) programming using standard IDEs.

But, Arduino is handy for the quick project or simple controller. It also gets people started, but it certainly isn't something I'd use for high end things.

[ductape]

Qualcomm claims that Arduino will be an independent subsidiary of the company. That claim doesn't have much resemblance to their past actions, as you stated. To be fair, they have been fairly active in providing support for Linux over the past few years without much negative noise from Torvalds.

Interesting that they didn't disclose the purchase price. Qualcomm's stock dropped a bit after the transaction.

My guess is that they think pushing their new AI products to the current market (mainly educators and hobbyists, some small businesses) will put them ahead of others during the current AI fad, then take that free development and slowly move Arduino away from that market to the much more profitable industrial market. There is a growing trend of consumers not wanting AI in everything, but the opposite seems to be true for industry managers.

SparkFun and Maker Shed, among others, have clones of some Arduino models. ESP and ATmega boards aren't exact replacements, but can be made to work.

No affiliation, not financial advice, etc.