4 ms·

The main problem here is that the Arduino brand is currently paired with "maker". This was intentional, as they pushed so hard to reach this current status. Now

by scoutt 4y ago

The main problem here is that the Arduino brand is currently paired with "maker". This was intentional, as they pushed so hard to reach this current status. Now the "maker" market seems to be declining. They have to go PRO. I know they have the "PRO" line, but the problem is that in professional settings it almost became a joke to even mention Arduino. For a time we had a lot of internal jokes around it (for example, one coworker, in interviews with candidates, always leaves the room as soon as the candidate mentions Arduino). Myself, I loved the UNO, the concept, the support and the community. Now I use it sometimes to test a 5V sensor or other I2C/SPI peripherals, when I'm not in the mood to use a 3.3V level translator. On the other hand, if the product is not a success, they might leave the product to die (anyone remember Arduino MKR Vidor 4000? the project last major update is 4 years ago). In that case, to me it means that I prefer to fully qualify and validate a chinese brand, purchase 10000 boards and forget about it. It will be very difficult to turn the things around for Arduino, to consolidate itself in other markets. I will take a while.

colordrops 4y ago
> one coworker, in interviews with candidates, always leaves the room as soon as the candidate mentions Arduino Sounds like these candidates dodged a bullet.
- marmetio 4y ago
  > Now I use it The qualification to work there and use an Arduino is to have no prior experience with it.
  - scoutt 4y ago
    Yes! Also, I forgot to mention "in my lab at home".
- scoutt 4y ago
  She is the sweetest person in the world, and always come back like after 5 seconds. It's a joke :)
  - FeistySkink 4y ago
    Damn, two red flags in the span of 5 seconds.
benj111 4y ago
Is the maker market declining? Raspi don't seem to have any trouble selling. The problem for Arduino seems to be competition. I can get better boards cheaper. Arduino may have been the first, but they've since been surpassed.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  > Is the maker market declining? No, but it's not a huge growth market either. Makers tend to prefer products which are relatively inexpensive and close to "raw" hardware; neither of these factors are particularly favorable to manufacturers. > Raspi don't seem to have any trouble selling. Ironically, a lot of this is because it's become popular for use as an embedded Linux controller, often for applications that the BCM283x isn't even particularly well suited for. It's used in a number of musical synthesizers, for example.
liminalsunset 4y ago
Is there any pathway to creating something that's like Arduino but suitable for professional use? The primary benefits of such a solution would be 1) Freely reuse code and open source ecosystem 2)"Professional Grade" technical viability and reliability, and it would be suitable for people who want to handle support by themselves and do not want to pay the entry price for professional software and tooling. Right now there's a lot of new IoT devices being put on the market and a large number of them are undoubtedly based on Arduino, but of course, there are supposed reliability and code issues with it. However, people write and open source so much drivers and example code for Arduino. Wouldn't it be nice if the Arduino platform could become "production ready" so that people can actually leverage these drivers and example codes in their own projects instead of having to rewrite drivers for every combination of MCU and peripherals? Ideally, making a product with Arduino shouldn't be a derogatory statement about its quality.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  There are already arduino-based products that are suitable, but as stated before, a large part of the problem is getting past the "maker" association. If you look at Industruino, Controllino, Ruggeduino products, and then the domain-specific arduino variants such as those for home automation, automotive hobbyist, lighting control, you'll probably find a lot of already OSH/OSS arduino-based hardware on the market. And on the development side, ditch the (beginner-friendly?) Arduino IDE for VS Code and the PlatformIO plugin and you're all set.

by scoutt 4y ago

colordrops 4y ago

> one coworker, in interviews with candidates, always leaves the room as soon as the candidate mentions Arduino Sounds like these candidates dodged a bullet.

marmetio 4y ago
> Now I use it The qualification to work there and use an Arduino is to have no prior experience with it.
- scoutt 4y ago
  Yes! Also, I forgot to mention "in my lab at home".
scoutt 4y ago
She is the sweetest person in the world, and always come back like after 5 seconds. It's a joke :)
- FeistySkink 4y ago
  Damn, two red flags in the span of 5 seconds.

benj111 4y ago

Is the maker market declining? Raspi don't seem to have any trouble selling. The problem for Arduino seems to be competition. I can get better boards cheaper. Arduino may have been the first, but they've since been surpassed.

duskwuff 4y ago
> Is the maker market declining? No, but it's not a huge growth market either. Makers tend to prefer products which are relatively inexpensive and close to "raw" hardware; neither of these factors are particularly favorable to manufacturers. > Raspi don't seem to have any trouble selling. Ironically, a lot of this is because it's become popular for use as an embedded Linux controller, often for applications that the BCM283x isn't even particularly well suited for. It's used in a number of musical synthesizers, for example.

liminalsunset 4y ago

Is there any pathway to creating something that's like Arduino but suitable for professional use? The primary benefits of such a solution would be 1) Freely reuse code and open source ecosystem 2)"Professional Grade" technical viability and reliability, and it would be suitable for people who want to handle support by themselves and do not want to pay the entry price for professional software and tooling. Right now there's a lot of new IoT devices being put on the market and a large number of them are undoubtedly based on Arduino, but of course, there are supposed reliability and code issues with it. However, people write and open source so much drivers and example code for Arduino. Wouldn't it be nice if the Arduino platform could become "production ready" so that people can actually leverage these drivers and example codes in their own projects instead of having to rewrite drivers for every combination of MCU and peripherals? Ideally, making a product with Arduino shouldn't be a derogatory statement about its quality.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
There are already arduino-based products that are suitable, but as stated before, a large part of the problem is getting past the "maker" association. If you look at Industruino, Controllino, Ruggeduino products, and then the domain-specific arduino variants such as those for home automation, automotive hobbyist, lighting control, you'll probably find a lot of already OSH/OSS arduino-based hardware on the market. And on the development side, ditch the (beginner-friendly?) Arduino IDE for VS Code and the PlatformIO plugin and you're all set.