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I'm just going to be the one who says it: Arduino has always been a money-grab and a grift. Open-source was just marketing for Arduino, and it worked for them

I'm just going to be the one who says it: Arduino has always been a money-grab and a grift. Open-source was just marketing for Arduino, and it worked for them when they were selling an undifferentiated dev kit for 10x the price it should actually have had (and at least a 30x markup on their actual manufacturing cost). They then load down those dev kits with software that is so inefficient that it upsells people on huge chips for problems that could otherwise be solved with a 10-cent chip. On top of that, the initial Arduino software was pretty much stolen from a grad student, who got no credit, and using open source also gave them free contributions from motivated users. Fast forward to now and they have a "community" and are trying to start selling more complicated dev kits with the same ridiculous markup, and have found themselves unable to compete with Chinese companies that charge a fair price. The end result, killing the openness, is inevitable.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
I don't think that's completely right, although I'm open to parts of it. Arduino was always low-end relatively uninteresting hardware sold at a significant markup, but specifically made into a happy path that new users could easily work with, which I think actually did justify the markup. The value was never in the chips, the value was in selling premade boards that came with power regulators and serial interfaces built-in, that you could buy, plug in to your USB port (or power+serial really early on), open the Arduino IDE, follow the provided tutorials, and it worked. That said, I don't have enough perspective/knowledge to comment on their ethics, and I wouldn't be surprised either way on them actually having believed in open source or just being opportunistic. OTOH, I would easily agree that the market moved under them, because today others in the space can provide the same easy on-ramp at a lower cost with better hardware, which is leaving them flailing a bit.
- mikepurvis 3y ago
  I think Arduino really struggles to justify its own existence in a world where RPi exists. Like, sure, there are lots of legitimate applications for microcontrollers where you need realtime or interrupts or signal generating timers or instant boot or ultra low power, but few of the common use cases (or libraries) for Arduino really corner any of that— most of it that I've seen is stuff that would make way more sense as a Python script running on a tiny Linux computer than as a microcontroller firmware.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    IMO, Linux is unusually complicated to configure for unattended use cases, despite being a server OS. Arduino just goes into user code shortly after powerup, a la AUTOEXEC.BAT, no systemd-jumpscared shenanigans. There's just too much of those.
    - Animats 3y ago
      There ought to be something in between Wiring and Linux. The problem is that the good minimal real-time operating systems are not free. QNX, VXworks, etc. are all expensive.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
        ESP32-based boards come with FreeRTOS built in.
      - fest 3y ago
        Zephyr fits the description IMO.
      - cyberax 3y ago
        FreeRTOS exists, and it's pretty good.
        mikepurvis 3y ago
        Yes if you set it up correctly, but it's very easy to set it up wrong, especially once a networking or usb stack is in the mix.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        This is true for all platforms, including no OS at all, RTOSes, Linux, DOS, Windows, etc.
        mikepurvis 3y ago
solardev 3y ago
Maybe this shows the value of packaging? What Arduino offered wasn't just a bunch of commodity chips, but a guided educational experience. The same way that Lego Mindstorms is more approachable than a tub of plastic powder and some copper wire, having someone do the design, sourcing, integration, testing, documentation, etc. is worth a lot. I wouldn't even know where to start with a pile of undifferentiated chips. Arduino lets you spend a bit of money (relatively cheap when it comes to hobbies) to learn the ropes from vetted and curated parts that are made to work together, including the software. At some point, yes, maybe you know enough to be able to evaluate the Chinese knockoffs on your own and avoid pitfalls and counterfeits, and find the correct vendors who offer an awesome product at a good price. But it takes a while to get there. I can hardly find reliable power stations and USB PD chargers these days. I wouldn't even know how to start to evaluate an entire dev kit. If anything it seems like this is the fate of intellectual property in the age of global capitalism. Whatever we design, whether it's software or chips or fighter jets or solar panels or cars will be copied and produced much more cheaply there because their costs of everything is much lower. And actually, relative to most of the world population, it's probably the USA that is overpriced. We have our insane quality of life to keep up with. But that's hardly the fault of any one company. As we move more and more into services, domestic manufacturing just can't keep pace. All those reshoring efforts don't really seem to be making an impact. Most things I see are still Chinese, especially at the price points I can afford. I don't know that "killing the openness" is the inevitable result. Closed designs get stolen and copied too. Getting bought out and eaten alive by Chinese companies the same way Hollywood and video gaming have been going seems the more likely route?
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > Whatever we design, whether it's software or chips or fighter jets or solar panels or cars will be copied and produced much more cheaply there because their costs of everything is much lower. The Arduino was a copy itself, and no credit was ever given to the original grad student who came up with it and did almost all of the work to make it into the system that was released.
  - Chilko 3y ago
thomastjeffery 3y ago
They did a relatively mediocre job, in a space with zero competition. That means it's a money grab? How is it their fault no one competed in this space?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Well, when you say you are an "open-source" "nonprofit," both which were their initial pitch, yes. If not, go for it. Pivoting from a nonprofit to a for-profit should be illegal. Looking at you, OpenAI.
neoeldex 3y ago
I remember the days having to build my devkits with power regulators and having to flash them with separate programmers. The Arduino ecosystem opened up hardware to many designers, makers and tinkerer's. sure thing, the real cost of the boards is low. but the value is tremendous.
sircastor 3y ago
I think you're underrating what Arduino was in its time. They weren't selling an undifferentiated dev kit. The defining feature of the Arduino was that it: * Plugged into USB (The Decimila, Duelmilnova, and the Uno) * Had a software stack that worked on Mac, Windows, and Linux * Had a software library that allowed people to drop in features to accomplish goals. Arduino was a bad fit for an electrical engineer making a product, but it was an amazing fit for hobbyists and artists trying make a one-off project or presentation. This is the thing that the EE evangelists and gatekeepers could never seem to grok: No one* cares if it's taking 4 cycles or 120 cycles to blink the LED, or turn the servo. Sure it starts to matter if you're doing a dozen other things simultaneously, but most people just wanted the LED to blink. Arduino was a miracle when it showed up. No toolchain to figure out because it was all just in the package. No bitmask decoding. No being rejected because you're not running Windows. The C Superset was surprisingly readable code for people who didn't have a programming background. It is shameful the way that Arduino was pulled out of Wiring, without real credit and acknowledgement. *Yes, there's the subset of people who were chasing efficiency, or who were interested in doing things "The right way™", but this was never the target audience for Arduino.
- jkestner 3y ago
  Living long enough to be seen as the villain. As you point out, Arduino did a lot of original work in integrating the toolchain that made it really simple to make something. They then stagnated and competing products shot past them (and that artist market). The team was a group of academics who weren’t necessarily ready to build a business, but instead of letting it go when the market, they’ve made some desperate decisions. The industrial/commercial markets that a lot of people here use microcontroller boards for are well catered by much cheaper boards, and Arduino should’ve stuck to developing their original creative market with better tools.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    > The team was a group of academics who weren’t necessarily ready to build a business, but instead of letting it go when the market, they’ve made some desperate decisions. The industrial/commercial markets that a lot of people here use microcontroller boards for are well catered by much cheaper boards, and Arduino should’ve stuck to developing their original creative market with better tools. and do what? That market isn't used to pay for the tools (hell, they made "good enough" one that's free), and their boards are too pricy even for some one-offs
varispeed 3y ago
> unable to compete with Chinese companies that charge a fair price That's debatable. I don't think China has the same labour laws or costs of running a business. Maybe it's fair from their perspective, but we really should have tariffs on such products so that they would cost as much as if manufactured in the west and perhaps use that money to help domestic businesses grow.
- ilyt 3y ago
  I can buy the chips and pay myself living wage and still solder Arduino nano for cheaper than they sell it and I don't live in 3rd world country. That's the amount of profit they make on one. It's not the case of just chinese labour being cheaper, they earn massive profits on one and when you can have 5 or even 10 boards made for cost of one arduino it just becomes silly.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    There is a substantial difference between making something for yourself and make it to sell as a business. Also take into account that someone with a skill is not going to look at making a living wage. It's a poor return of investment in one's education.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      Congratulations on missing the point entirely
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      You can pay European/American labor rates and make an Arduino for <$5. It takes Chinese labor rates to make them for <$1. They sell for $30.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

I don't think that's completely right, although I'm open to parts of it. Arduino was always low-end relatively uninteresting hardware sold at a significant markup, but specifically made into a happy path that new users could easily work with, which I think actually did justify the markup. The value was never in the chips, the value was in selling premade boards that came with power regulators and serial interfaces built-in, that you could buy, plug in to your USB port (or power+serial really early on), open the Arduino IDE, follow the provided tutorials, and it worked. That said, I don't have enough perspective/knowledge to comment on their ethics, and I wouldn't be surprised either way on them actually having believed in open source or just being opportunistic. OTOH, I would easily agree that the market moved under them, because today others in the space can provide the same easy on-ramp at a lower cost with better hardware, which is leaving them flailing a bit.

mikepurvis 3y ago
I think Arduino really struggles to justify its own existence in a world where RPi exists. Like, sure, there are lots of legitimate applications for microcontrollers where you need realtime or interrupts or signal generating timers or instant boot or ultra low power, but few of the common use cases (or libraries) for Arduino really corner any of that— most of it that I've seen is stuff that would make way more sense as a Python script running on a tiny Linux computer than as a microcontroller firmware.
- numpad0 3y ago
  IMO, Linux is unusually complicated to configure for unattended use cases, despite being a server OS. Arduino just goes into user code shortly after powerup, a la AUTOEXEC.BAT, no systemd-jumpscared shenanigans. There's just too much of those.
  - Animats 3y ago
    There ought to be something in between Wiring and Linux. The problem is that the good minimal real-time operating systems are not free. QNX, VXworks, etc. are all expensive.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
      ESP32-based boards come with FreeRTOS built in.
    - fest 3y ago
      Zephyr fits the description IMO.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      FreeRTOS exists, and it's pretty good.
      - mikepurvis 3y ago
        Yes if you set it up correctly, but it's very easy to set it up wrong, especially once a networking or usb stack is in the mix.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        This is true for all platforms, including no OS at all, RTOSes, Linux, DOS, Windows, etc.
        mikepurvis 3y ago

solardev 3y ago

Maybe this shows the value of packaging? What Arduino offered wasn't just a bunch of commodity chips, but a guided educational experience. The same way that Lego Mindstorms is more approachable than a tub of plastic powder and some copper wire, having someone do the design, sourcing, integration, testing, documentation, etc. is worth a lot. I wouldn't even know where to start with a pile of undifferentiated chips. Arduino lets you spend a bit of money (relatively cheap when it comes to hobbies) to learn the ropes from vetted and curated parts that are made to work together, including the software. At some point, yes, maybe you know enough to be able to evaluate the Chinese knockoffs on your own and avoid pitfalls and counterfeits, and find the correct vendors who offer an awesome product at a good price. But it takes a while to get there. I can hardly find reliable power stations and USB PD chargers these days. I wouldn't even know how to start to evaluate an entire dev kit. If anything it seems like this is the fate of intellectual property in the age of global capitalism. Whatever we design, whether it's software or chips or fighter jets or solar panels or cars will be copied and produced much more cheaply there because their costs of everything is much lower. And actually, relative to most of the world population, it's probably the USA that is overpriced. We have our insane quality of life to keep up with. But that's hardly the fault of any one company. As we move more and more into services, domestic manufacturing just can't keep pace. All those reshoring efforts don't really seem to be making an impact. Most things I see are still Chinese, especially at the price points I can afford. I don't know that "killing the openness" is the inevitable result. Closed designs get stolen and copied too. Getting bought out and eaten alive by Chinese companies the same way Hollywood and video gaming have been going seems the more likely route?

lelanthran 3y ago
> Whatever we design, whether it's software or chips or fighter jets or solar panels or cars will be copied and produced much more cheaply there because their costs of everything is much lower. The Arduino was a copy itself, and no credit was ever given to the original grad student who came up with it and did almost all of the work to make it into the system that was released.
- Chilko 3y ago

thomastjeffery 3y ago

They did a relatively mediocre job, in a space with zero competition. That means it's a money grab? How is it their fault no one competed in this space?

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Well, when you say you are an "open-source" "nonprofit," both which were their initial pitch, yes. If not, go for it. Pivoting from a nonprofit to a for-profit should be illegal. Looking at you, OpenAI.

neoeldex 3y ago

I remember the days having to build my devkits with power regulators and having to flash them with separate programmers. The Arduino ecosystem opened up hardware to many designers, makers and tinkerer's. sure thing, the real cost of the boards is low. but the value is tremendous.

sircastor 3y ago

I think you're underrating what Arduino was in its time. They weren't selling an undifferentiated dev kit. The defining feature of the Arduino was that it: * Plugged into USB (The Decimila, Duelmilnova, and the Uno) * Had a software stack that worked on Mac, Windows, and Linux * Had a software library that allowed people to drop in features to accomplish goals. Arduino was a bad fit for an electrical engineer making a product, but it was an amazing fit for hobbyists and artists trying make a one-off project or presentation. This is the thing that the EE evangelists and gatekeepers could never seem to grok: No one* cares if it's taking 4 cycles or 120 cycles to blink the LED, or turn the servo. Sure it starts to matter if you're doing a dozen other things simultaneously, but most people just wanted the LED to blink. Arduino was a miracle when it showed up. No toolchain to figure out because it was all just in the package. No bitmask decoding. No being rejected because you're not running Windows. The C Superset was surprisingly readable code for people who didn't have a programming background. It is shameful the way that Arduino was pulled out of Wiring, without real credit and acknowledgement. *Yes, there's the subset of people who were chasing efficiency, or who were interested in doing things "The right way™", but this was never the target audience for Arduino.

jkestner 3y ago
Living long enough to be seen as the villain. As you point out, Arduino did a lot of original work in integrating the toolchain that made it really simple to make something. They then stagnated and competing products shot past them (and that artist market). The team was a group of academics who weren’t necessarily ready to build a business, but instead of letting it go when the market, they’ve made some desperate decisions. The industrial/commercial markets that a lot of people here use microcontroller boards for are well catered by much cheaper boards, and Arduino should’ve stuck to developing their original creative market with better tools.
- ilyt 3y ago
  > The team was a group of academics who weren’t necessarily ready to build a business, but instead of letting it go when the market, they’ve made some desperate decisions. The industrial/commercial markets that a lot of people here use microcontroller boards for are well catered by much cheaper boards, and Arduino should’ve stuck to developing their original creative market with better tools. and do what? That market isn't used to pay for the tools (hell, they made "good enough" one that's free), and their boards are too pricy even for some one-offs

varispeed 3y ago

> unable to compete with Chinese companies that charge a fair price That's debatable. I don't think China has the same labour laws or costs of running a business. Maybe it's fair from their perspective, but we really should have tariffs on such products so that they would cost as much as if manufactured in the west and perhaps use that money to help domestic businesses grow.

ilyt 3y ago
I can buy the chips and pay myself living wage and still solder Arduino nano for cheaper than they sell it and I don't live in 3rd world country. That's the amount of profit they make on one. It's not the case of just chinese labour being cheaper, they earn massive profits on one and when you can have 5 or even 10 boards made for cost of one arduino it just becomes silly.
- varispeed 3y ago
  There is a substantial difference between making something for yourself and make it to sell as a business. Also take into account that someone with a skill is not going to look at making a living wage. It's a poor return of investment in one's education.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Congratulations on missing the point entirely
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    You can pay European/American labor rates and make an Arduino for <$5. It takes Chinese labor rates to make them for <$1. They sell for $30.