The future of Arduino

[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.