Does Arduino have a future?

AVR is falling behind ARM.

Well, that's a certainty. AVR is essentially a "legacy" architecture, while ARM is still evolving. In theory, it doesn't matter as long as the AVR is "enough" for a particular application.
I guess the big "danger" is that "CircuitPython" will get fast enough and cheap enough to implement the things people want to do, while being much "friendlier" than Arduino. So far, I haven't decided whether I'm UN-impressed by Python on a 256k 48MHz ARM with an extra 2Mb flash being "almost enough" for people to use, or stunned that those boards are the same price as the 32k AVR Arduinos.
(It wasn't that long ago that there were a bunch of Embedded Java computers that were going to take over the areas where Arduinos and WeMos board now prevail. You haven't hear much recently about SunSpots, Jini, or Javelin Stamps, have you?)

Since the OP was written in 2014, and worried that Tre would replace AVR Arduini, the Tre has disappeared and AVR Arduini continue, despite several attempts to wreck the Arduino company.

CircuitPython™ is a bit of a joke I think, MicroPython already seems to be killed with multiple incompatible forks.

Far from not having a future, I am wondering what it would take to kill AVR Arduino! Even if Microchip dropped the ATMega (which is very unlikely), there are clone AVR devices. If Arduino AG folded, there are probably enough interested parties who would pick up development of the IDE etc.

It looks like the Arduino Uno will literally be with us forever now.

Arduino may have many faults, but it is very versatile. The Arduino TRE will always be an arduino board, with all Arduino's pros and cons, and with the Arduino IDE. Arduino should update many things in the boards, but given that it was born to teach, it is very good.
This is what I think.

I hate to diverge any from this wonderful conversation... And yet, here I am wondering, what happened to

boards like the Esplora and Arduino Robot? Those were great, and with some improvement could be

fantastic. Built-in sensors and controls allow more flexibility in space management, and the potential uses

are far beyond those of a standard starter kit. I would love to see more boards like those from Arduino.

The other thing I wonder about is the standard price point. Now that Arduino is up and a few years running,

why are the boards still so darn expensive? There are clones of the Uno rolling out of China for less than

half the price of authentic ones, with no loss to quality or service whatsoever. I think that Arduino may have

to lower the cost of their products if they want to continue to be successful.

Lastly, I kind of want to see a version of a Uno or a Mega with more memory and the ability to run

multiple functions simultaneously, but without any super-fancy hard to learn code. Maybe a new library, but

nothing like a Raspberry Pi or ARM cpus... just good ol' Arduino. That sounds like a good future to me.

  • D.E.

There are clones of the Uno rolling out of China for less than half the price of authentic ones, with no loss to quality or service whatsoever.

Pleas note that China inc. does not pay for the forum and other costs the Arduino team make.

China inc. does not pay for the forum and other costs the Arduino team make.

Forum and other costs like: binary IDE repositories, github source repositories, IDE development, Core development, library development, website and documentation, advertising, evangelism, sales (in the sense of working to get Digikey to carry Arduino boards)...

Reducing UNO price to $20 would be nice. I came to know Arduino UNO as a $30 board and almost no alternatives elsewhere. That has changed a lot. The technology involved in making the board is well-established and the board can be cheaply made.

Just noticed that the official price is $22 now. Not bad.

I wonder if Arduino should change business model a bit. I know the open-source business model is very new and appealing. But it is also prone to issues such as copycats and dumping. What if Arduino LLC decides to lower board price to $10? With the official appeal, they can get rid of lots of competitions that are no more than a fab house with a couple of ebay accounts. Arduino LLC can still make a little bit of money but they will need to get the rest of the money by annual donation campaigns like wiki or others. I'd be willing to pay my contribution if I know that board quality is good and cost is low, even if I'm not buying their boards every year.

Giving a donation and trying to find the cheapest board to buy are two totally different things that I believe many people can do both.

While there are several more powerful products like BeagleBone an Pi etc, the beauty and success of Arduino IS its simplicity. If I need a bit more memory or speed for a particular task, I use an ESP-8266. Just those two choices cater for 99% of my IOT projects.

For more complex projects, e.g. a very comprehensive weather station, I've found multiple Pro-Mini / ESP nodes have often been a better solution, that's also easier to maintain. For the 1% that demand more grunt etc a CubieTruck or Pi has been more than enough. Beyond that I just use a small industrial PC with Linux, Android or Windows.

For me, the real magic of Ardunio is its totally open source (hardware and software). I prototype with standard Arduino hardware and when its time to produce a quantity (10+), its so easy find an existing (public domain) Eagle file that's closest to my needs, add on any extra logic etc, and get some boards made. All the components are readily available, it a piece of cake!

I wouldn't even consider using some of the so called 'better' boards for a more demanding project, the few people I know who went down that road regretted it due to the lack of information, code examples, and special components etc, made it a nightmare. A small Linux / Windows single board computer is quicker and more reliable etc.

So, yes, I see a long future ahead for Arduino, its simplicity making it perfect for the explosion of IOT devices.

Just my 2 cents worth on the topic.

Cheers!

Paul

I don't love the sound of that either. I wouldn't like to see Arduino move in to the micro-pc space if it means leaving the mcu space behind. I have Raspberri Pis and Orange Pi Zeros and they are great where they belong, but I would much rather see Arduino move to better MCUs and stay where they have done so well. I don't think that sticking with the 8bit chips is a good idea, but I would love to see some good quality boards build around A LOT of new chips. They're packing everything in to some of these new MCUs. I'm waiting for them to start integrating e-paper on the dye or some such.

I've been following the MKR series for a bit. 32bit ARM Cortex-M0+ @ 48Mhz core , memory capacity of the Mega,
Although not a fan of all of the varieties (lora, sigfox,), the original MKR Zero including a microSD was good, the MKR1000 had Wifi for allot less than the YUN. Really liking the MKR 1400GSM & MKR 1500 NB (need to learn more about connecting with this) and the MKR 1010 WIFI (a reboot of the MKR1000). Having the built-in Li-Po charging/swithching circuits is really good.

Anyway, this MKR format seems the way to go..... much better than the old beardboard unfriendly UNO/MEGA R3 layouts that every single Arduino board before used. This MKR format is the future for Arduino.

In the future, we may see a better equipped/supported successor to DUO/MEGA that might use a Cortex-M33 or Cortex-M7 core in a stretched MKR format to give us access to many more pins, multiple channels of UART, SPI, I2C, I2S, MIPI DSI & Touch interfaces, microSD, and a BLE, Wifi, LTE NB comm interface. That would be cool stuff to see in an elongated MKR format.

I've been used Arduino for a while and have a number of older boards, Leonardo ETH and GSM v2 for example.

I have noticed a worrying trend both in the website information (arduino.cc, the forum) and also the IDE - the "purging" of "retired" products, information, data, guides and (working) IDE examples for them.

They fact Arduino no longer sell them does not make them "retired" to the many that own, and continue to use them. Too many PC hardware manufacturers adopt this closed , sales orientated mind set where once a product is "retired" is ceases to exist, and for some have ever existed. All their interested in if pushing the latest product.

So is Arduino as an organisation losing it's heart and going purely for shifting new product and not caring about the stuff it has sold in the past?

Hopefully not..... If it does, it will be the end of it....

With PC hardware I never buy from manufacturers that have that stupid attitude, personally or for work (there are some I can still download drivers for that are over 15 years old, others if it is discontinued it is erased from history). I still maintain equipment at work which relies on PLC hardware 25+ years old and still doing its job.

the "purging" of "retired" products, information, data, guides and (working) IDE examples for them.

You can still download the old IDEs with their "examples", most of the 3rd party libraries are in source-controlled repositories like github (the IDE too, actually), and the forums are delightfully (?) un-purged, so I'm not sure it's as bad as you think.

"Hopefully not..... If it does, it will be the end of it...."

There is a whole new set of generations coming through who are adopting newer boards.
It will never be the end.

Most consumer electronics has a very short life span of less than 5 years and mobile phones are among the shortest.

IMHO there is life in both the older and newer Arduino boards....

I could retire tomorrow but it doesn't mean its the end of me :wink:

A pessimistic and cynical summary of the Arduino-day talks ( Arduino Day 2018 Livestream - YouTube ) might be something like "we're changing our target audience from the original students, artists, and hobbyists to the more profitable set containing Educational Institutions and wanna-be Entrepreneurs. Ie, from people who want to make things, to people who want to make money."

westfw:
A pessimistic and cynical summary of the Arduino-day talks ( Arduino Day 2018 Livestream - YouTube ) might be something like "we're changing our target audience from the original students, artists, and hobbyists to the more profitable set containing Educational Institutions and wanna-be Entrepreneurs. Ie, from people who want to make things, to people who want to make money."

I can't think of a more sorry target audience than Educational Institutions. The whitepaper on Arduino technology for my institution (the largest community college district in the universe) still lists arduino.org as the preferred vendor for Arduino technology.

Fortunately, I qualified Sparkfun, DFRobot, Pololu, SeeedStudio, Osepp, Arduino.cc and Adafruit as vendors years ago.

westfw:
You can still download the old IDEs with their "examples", most of the 3rd party libraries are in source-controlled repositories like github (the IDE too, actually), and the forums are delightfully (?) un-purged, so I'm not sure it's as bad as you think.

Actually, no, you can't.

If you go to the Software, Downloads section then look for previous IDEs they jump from 1.6.13 to 1.8.0.

What the hell happened to the numerous releases of 1.7?

They exist! I know they do as I downloaded 1.7.6 and 1.7.10 when they WERE available. They contain some very useful and practical examples including working examples for the Ethernet2 library which work on the LeonardoETH.

I know, I installed 1.7.10 on a an ancient Acer TravelMate 2490 (labelled as 4250 - I HATE it when manufacturers do that) laptop running Windows 10 Pro and this morning plugged in my LeonardoETH, set the board type and COM port, opened the DHCPAddressPrinter example from the Ethernet2 examples, built and uploaded it and BINGO - worked first time.

Try that with 1.8.5 and your in trouble. All those examples - GONE!

When I first tried 1.8.x (can't remember precisely which subversion) with one of my UNO R3's fitted with the offical GSM V2 shield, none of the examples would even build. They threw up shed loads of compile errors. Try exactly the same examples under 1.7.6 and they built, uploaded and (after sorting out an issue with the auto-power on for the GSM modem) worked first time.

All versions of 1.7.x of the IDE have been redacted from history.

This to me, and I've seen it a LOT with PC hardware, looks very suspiciously like attempting to kill off (by making them useless or very hard to use) retired products to get people to buy new.

ballscrewbob:
"Hopefully not..... If it does, it will be the end of it...."

There is a whole new set of generations coming through who are adopting newer boards.
It will never be the end.

Most consumer electronics has a very short life span of less than 5 years and mobile phones are among the shortest.

IMHO there is life in both the older and newer Arduino boards....

I could retire tomorrow but it doesn't mean its the end of me :wink:

Perhaps - new boards are great as with this area of technology standing still is going backwards.

With consumer products it is actually a lot, lot worse. When I worked for a major Japanese printer/fax manufacturer in the UK the "active" lifespan of lower end (i.e. home/home office/small business) products from introduction to withdrawal was <8 months. From the product development teams POV, back in Japan, the next range of products we were about to launch were already dead and buried.

But that is the way of the commercial world and how things are - long product "pipelines".

I fully agree there is plenty of life in older Arduino boards as well as lots of opportunity with the new ones. Unlike you (and I, being far from a "spring chicken" myself) though, I really do get the impression that Arduino really do want "retired" products to not just die, but to cease to have ever existed.

Try going to the Arduino section of Products on the main website. You normally get the overview of the entire range (current and past). Several times now I've done that and click on LeonardoETH in the Internet of Things section and been taken straight to the CURRENT PRODUCTS page. The first couple of times I thought perhaps I was doing something stupid or my mouse playing up. If I then went back and did the same thing I was taken to the page I wanted!

A bit strange that.

Not that it helped that much as the Getting Started link is broken, and has been for some time. It has been reported, but I don't see anyone being bothered to fix it.

Paranoia? Perhaps... Could also be it being erased from Arduino's history to push me toward buying something else.....

If you go to the Software, Downloads section then look for previous IDEs they jump from 1.6.13 to 1.8.0.
What the hell happened to the numerous releases of 1.7?

The 1.7.x versions were from arduino.org, and were mostly older than the 1.6.x versions.
Were there actually "numerous" versions? I only vaguely recall what looked like attempts to mislead and confuse us by "leapfrogging" the arduino.cc versions. (but then, I didn't have any of the .org specific boards.) A lot of th

They threw up shed loads of compile errors.

That's because arduino.org did NOT pull in the changes that allow for easy additions of 3rd party hardware and libraries (which changed the directory/install/etc structure quite a bit.)
I guess it was all better than if there had been two separate 1.7.x "releases" going on simultaneously.

OTOH, releases prior to 0013 are also missing...

Hmm. 1.7.x is also still available on guthub:
https://github.com/arduino-org/Arduino/releases

For me, the strength of Arduino is in the huge documentation, experience and wonderful community.

What I would like to see is something like ATMega 328 + connectors and a sort of "peripherals shield" to add to it.

+++

Another point is not to go ahead to fast.

I just ended my half year Arduino nano learning and experience to find out that this version may lo longer exist. Then I turn to Arduino pro mini 3.3 V - to find out that is very difficult to find them.

As long as the purpose is to learn, such fast moves seriously jeopardize my efforts.

I welcome MKR series - that is wonderful! But for me, their high cost prevent me to pick them for learning and education purpose.

Nano did a great job in respect to education/learning - in my opinion. It may be somehow obsolete, but cheap genuine units and even cheaper clones along with an wonderful simplicity and versatility - these points are difficult to beat.

If Arduino moves up to target more experienced people, then it may leave the empty space for other competitors - that is ok in the market sense, but is somehow disappointing (in my humble opinion).