Arduino Zero no longer listed in Arduino USA, Asia and Oceania Store

hello

I just notice today that the Arduino Zero is no longer list in the Arduino USA, Asia & Oceania Store.
The MKR Zero is still listed.

I did check and the Arduino/Genuino Zero is still being listed.

So the question I now have is:
does a MKR Zero and the MKR2UNO Adapter equal an Arduino Zero?

It's fine if they want to configure the store so that it doesn't list products that are out of stock or out of production (though I highly doubt that the Zero is retired) but the product pages are not just about selling boards, they also are documentation. So for that reason if no other it's really a problem and as you have reported here:

it extends to other boards as well.

I do really like the direction Arduino is taking with the new MKR form factor. Hopefully that will be taken up as a new standard for the boards and shields manufacturers (3rd party as well as Arduino) and we can start the move away from the off-grid pins of the Uno form factor, as well as more compact boards.

I have come to realize the hard way that Arduino is a boutique product, not a commodity. Board production seems to be done in small batches. With leading-edge technology sometimes some small part must have gone unavailable and Arduino does not react very quickly.

Fortunately all is open source so you are free to use a site like Osh Park to get a board and then solder on all the parts. Sometimes some small company has done this already and is selling the assembled product on Ebay, caveat emptor, or else AdaFruit or SparkFun will have a reliable substitute.

This does make it difficult for people who write books and teach courses because last year's notes have gone obsolete. I wish that the Arduino team would pay attention to the distribution chain but they always seem to be chasing the next technology. Welcome to the bleeding edge.

If you check with Digikey the Arduino Zero is listed as obsolete but the M0 Pro is active. It may be as simple as Arduino is consolidating the product line now that the CC vs Org battle is over.

Digikey does have 187 boards in stock as of this posting.

Another possibility is that Arduino.org or its employees may have sequestered products before the end of the battle and now these are being trickled into Digikey, Ebay, and Amazon. However, the genuine M0 Pro boards have worked fine for me and seem just as good as the Zero.

If you check with Digikey the Arduino Zero is listed as obsolete but the M0 Pro is active.

AFAIK, the Arduino.org faction "owned" the digikey-class distributors (mouser, newark, farnell, etc.) While smaller hobbyist vendors were struggling with taking sides based on moral issues or whatever, the bigger distributors were more pragmatic: "you're building boards and say you can supply them, I guess we'll deal with you!"
Arduino.org never had a "Zero"; just the "M0 Pro."

This whole conversation is proof Arduino needs to clarify which boards are going to be available going forward. I've never once seen the Primo being available for purchase in the USA but supposedly it exists...

dlabun:
This whole conversation is proof Arduino needs to clarify which boards are going to be available going forward. I've never once seen the Primo being available for purchase in the USA but supposedly it exists...

i have been tweeting Massimo Banzi on twitter about the need for transparency . That the Arduino Community needs to kept informed.

You may tweet him at @mbanzi

I think you'll see the SAMD21 variant boards like the Arduino Zero, around in some guise or other in the near future.

Arduino has invested a lot of time and effort in creating and maintaining the SAMD21 core code and you now see this investment being leveraged with the SAMD21 based, MKR series with their Internet of Things connectivity.

As for the future, it's difficult to say. Adafruit are currently creating a number of Arduino compatible SAMD51 (120MHz, ARM Cortex M4F) boards that are also based on SAMD21 core code. Whether these might perhaps spawn a new generation of faster more powerful boards? Time will tell.

In the strange world of electronics, in a market place where despite more capable offerings (such as the Arduino Due), the Arduino Uno remains their flagship product, the future, as well as the economic viability and longevity of each board is probably very difficult to predict.