5 ms·

Today is Arduino Day

56 points by carbocation 12y ago

noobermin 12y ago
There is an event just a bike ride away from my house and I'm stuck at home sick; how depressing. Cheers all, Happy 10th Arduino.
StavrosK 12y ago
I only have the Arduino to thank for my rotary mobile phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkdWQswpc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkdWQswpc8
mmastrac 12y ago
The Arduino trademark disputes stemming from the rogue founder left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I'm going to be staying away from the official Arduino hardware until there's some clarity around the whole thing. http://hackaday.com/2015/03/28/arduino-srl-to-distributors-were-the-real-arduino/ http://hackaday.com/2015/03/28/arduino-srl-to-distributors-w... The entire thing is utterly confusing to an outsider, but I think that arduino.cc -- the ones linked above -- are "the good guys" in this fight. EDIT: previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231708
- sammermpc 12y ago
  Yeah, .cc are the good guys.
rasz_pl 12y ago
Arduino LLC day? or Arduino SRL day? :)
- JohnTHaller 12y ago
  Arduiono LLC is Apple. Arduino SRL is Foxconn. Which one owns the iPhone?
  - rasz_pl 12y ago
    The one with valid Trademark - Foxconn in your example :)
barbs 12y ago
How come I didn't hear about this? I don't remember seeing anything on Hacker News, and my local Internet of Things meetup don't appear to know anything about it either. I would've maybe looked to organise something in Sydney, had I known.
- carbocation 12y ago
  Submitter here. Sadly, I also didn't hear about it until it was too late (in Boston). I stumbled across it because I was browsing the Arduino.cc site today!
- bigiain 12y ago
  It was mentioned on the Robots & Dinosaurs mailing list - but no discussion resulted and it didn't seem to gain any traction. The OzberryPi crowd, who are the other Sydney based bunch I'd have half expected to be interested, are all a bit quiet right now...
  - schappim 12y ago
    Big, we (littlebirdelectronics.com) found in Australia that people are now way more interested in embedded Linux. Embedded Linux projects now accounts for roughly 50% of our sales .
    - bigiain 12y ago
      Hey Marcus, I'm sure you're right, but I'm guessing those are not identical sets of people. I know a bunch of people who are buying RaspberryPis and BeagleBoards and Galileos - some of them have never picked up a soldering iron or hot glue gun in their lives - some of the people I'm thinking of here are front end devs who love the idea of a server they own/control, or people who have a specific "computer task" they'd like a dedicated inexpensive machine for (media server, file server, firewall, internet radio box, that sort of stuff). For them, Arduino is all a bit alien and unapproachable, and also quite useless for the ideas in their heads. I also see many people who want to drive servos/steppers/motors/solenoids/etc, who've either fried a RaspberryPi's 3.3v gpio already, or who've got a project idea for which there's a great Arduino library already existing but for which they'd have to write their own in the embedded linux world. Many of these people (and I'm mostly in this camp) often start projects out with an Arduino (or similar) to interact with "the real world" - sensors, servos, motors, relays, gps, leds, lasers, whatever - and only add in a linux board when neccessary (that "RaspberryPi + Arduino" combination is spectacuarly common, bot for projects and as the prototype stage of products with custom built electronics. I know that's where our Moorescloud hardware started - didn't your NinjaBlocks start out that way too?) It'd be interesting to see from your sales data how many of your embedded linux sales are to customers who've never bought any "Arduino-type" microcontroller stuff, and how many of your Arduino customers are also RasPi/embedded-linux purchasers.
IshKebab 12y ago
Meh. Arduino have rested on their laurels for too long. mBed is far better these days. For example the NUCLEO-F411RE is less than half the price of an Arduino (£7 vs £17) and far higher spec (100 MHz vs 16 MHz, FPU, more pins, etc. etc. etc.) Also mBed's code is much much better. mBed boards: http://developer.mbed.org/platforms/ http://developer.mbed.org/platforms/ NUCLEO-F411RE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=63&v=g3p6iX_RpEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=63&v=g3p6iX_RpEc
- mkl 12y ago
  They still have effectively no RAM, though. I clicked through for the first one I saw with as much as 256kB of RAM, and it was US$35, the same price as my 1.5GHz quad-core ODroid C1, which has 1GB of RAM. I don't understand this. Is it purely a power efficiency thing? The NUCLEO-F411RE has a product page but doesn't seem to be for sale on that site. Where can you get it?
- freehunter 12y ago
  The real question is, for the price of a legit Arduino Uno ($25), why would you not just go with a Raspberry Pi Model A? edit - I know they're different. But for many projects, it just doesn't matter. Stop telling me they're different.
  - schappim 12y ago
    They're apples and oranges, and it completely depends what you're doing. RPi can be a personal computer, Arduino is most certainly not. When you're asking yourself whether you should use a RPi or an Arduino: RPi Cons: RPi has analogue in pins, limited PWM etc, an OS and file system you need to take into consideration when building a project. RPi Pros: You can use pretty much whatever language (natively) you want. It's a computer. Much better support for Audio / Video built-in.
    - schappim 12y ago
      I meant to say here 'no Arduino like analog in pins'...
urda 12y ago
> Today is Arduino Day! > Posted pretty much at the end of the day Swing and a miss there Arudino, swing and a miss

56 points by carbocation 12y ago

There is an event just a bike ride away from my house and I'm stuck at home sick; how depressing. Cheers all, Happy 10th Arduino.

StavrosK 12y ago

I only have the Arduino to thank for my rotary mobile phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkdWQswpc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSkdWQswpc8

mmastrac 12y ago

The Arduino trademark disputes stemming from the rogue founder left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I'm going to be staying away from the official Arduino hardware until there's some clarity around the whole thing. http://hackaday.com/2015/03/28/arduino-srl-to-distributors-were-the-real-arduino/ http://hackaday.com/2015/03/28/arduino-srl-to-distributors-w... The entire thing is utterly confusing to an outsider, but I think that arduino.cc -- the ones linked above -- are "the good guys" in this fight. EDIT: previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231708

sammermpc 12y ago
Yeah, .cc are the good guys.

rasz_pl 12y ago

Arduino LLC day? or Arduino SRL day? :)

JohnTHaller 12y ago
Arduiono LLC is Apple. Arduino SRL is Foxconn. Which one owns the iPhone?
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  The one with valid Trademark - Foxconn in your example :)

barbs 12y ago

How come I didn't hear about this? I don't remember seeing anything on Hacker News, and my local Internet of Things meetup don't appear to know anything about it either. I would've maybe looked to organise something in Sydney, had I known.

carbocation 12y ago
Submitter here. Sadly, I also didn't hear about it until it was too late (in Boston). I stumbled across it because I was browsing the Arduino.cc site today!
bigiain 12y ago
It was mentioned on the Robots & Dinosaurs mailing list - but no discussion resulted and it didn't seem to gain any traction. The OzberryPi crowd, who are the other Sydney based bunch I'd have half expected to be interested, are all a bit quiet right now...
- schappim 12y ago
  Big, we (littlebirdelectronics.com) found in Australia that people are now way more interested in embedded Linux. Embedded Linux projects now accounts for roughly 50% of our sales .
  - bigiain 12y ago
    Hey Marcus, I'm sure you're right, but I'm guessing those are not identical sets of people. I know a bunch of people who are buying RaspberryPis and BeagleBoards and Galileos - some of them have never picked up a soldering iron or hot glue gun in their lives - some of the people I'm thinking of here are front end devs who love the idea of a server they own/control, or people who have a specific "computer task" they'd like a dedicated inexpensive machine for (media server, file server, firewall, internet radio box, that sort of stuff). For them, Arduino is all a bit alien and unapproachable, and also quite useless for the ideas in their heads. I also see many people who want to drive servos/steppers/motors/solenoids/etc, who've either fried a RaspberryPi's 3.3v gpio already, or who've got a project idea for which there's a great Arduino library already existing but for which they'd have to write their own in the embedded linux world. Many of these people (and I'm mostly in this camp) often start projects out with an Arduino (or similar) to interact with "the real world" - sensors, servos, motors, relays, gps, leds, lasers, whatever - and only add in a linux board when neccessary (that "RaspberryPi + Arduino" combination is spectacuarly common, bot for projects and as the prototype stage of products with custom built electronics. I know that's where our Moorescloud hardware started - didn't your NinjaBlocks start out that way too?) It'd be interesting to see from your sales data how many of your embedded linux sales are to customers who've never bought any "Arduino-type" microcontroller stuff, and how many of your Arduino customers are also RasPi/embedded-linux purchasers.

IshKebab 12y ago

Meh. Arduino have rested on their laurels for too long. mBed is far better these days. For example the NUCLEO-F411RE is less than half the price of an Arduino (£7 vs £17) and far higher spec (100 MHz vs 16 MHz, FPU, more pins, etc. etc. etc.) Also mBed's code is much much better. mBed boards: http://developer.mbed.org/platforms/ http://developer.mbed.org/platforms/ NUCLEO-F411RE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=63&v=g3p6iX_RpEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=63&v=g3p6iX_RpEc

mkl 12y ago
They still have effectively no RAM, though. I clicked through for the first one I saw with as much as 256kB of RAM, and it was US$35, the same price as my 1.5GHz quad-core ODroid C1, which has 1GB of RAM. I don't understand this. Is it purely a power efficiency thing? The NUCLEO-F411RE has a product page but doesn't seem to be for sale on that site. Where can you get it?
freehunter 12y ago
The real question is, for the price of a legit Arduino Uno ($25), why would you not just go with a Raspberry Pi Model A? edit - I know they're different. But for many projects, it just doesn't matter. Stop telling me they're different.
- schappim 12y ago
  They're apples and oranges, and it completely depends what you're doing. RPi can be a personal computer, Arduino is most certainly not. When you're asking yourself whether you should use a RPi or an Arduino: RPi Cons: RPi has analogue in pins, limited PWM etc, an OS and file system you need to take into consideration when building a project. RPi Pros: You can use pretty much whatever language (natively) you want. It's a computer. Much better support for Audio / Video built-in.
  - schappim 12y ago
    I meant to say here 'no Arduino like analog in pins'...

urda 12y ago

> Today is Arduino Day! > Posted pretty much at the end of the day Swing and a miss there Arudino, swing and a miss