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Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

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Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#41

Post by reidrac »

nathancahill wrote: post #28

Serious question: what are people building with these boards? The recurring projects I've seen are controlling lights, doors/locks and monitoring water in plants. I don't find these particularly compelling, am I missing something? How is this the next big thing?

I'm not sure it is the "next big thing" as you say.

The Arduino IDE and all the ecosystem of libraries and community could be the actual "big thing", because the Arduino is just a convenient development board; but you can get those from the chip manufacturers themselves (OK, may be now those are nicer because the Arduino boards).

I think the IDE is making the hobbyists able to work with microcontrollers in a very easy way; compared with all the tooling and docs you have to read to build your own dev board and program the MCU yourself.

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#42

Post by herbst »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #25
herbst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought like 2 of them so far and they both were exactly as expected. The only thing to note is that you should try to find those with CPUs (are those CPUs?) similar to the ones from the original designs. Some (the super cheap ones, < $1) often are identical by design but come with some crappy CPU

I think they're technically microcontrollers, which are actually a microprocessor and then some (RAM, ROM, ADC, etc) all on the same chip.

yes, thats the word i was looking for i think :)

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#44

Post by azdle »

CalRobert wrote: post #26
azdle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they are. I mean, sure, you and I know the difference between an 8-bit micro with some friendly libraries and a 64-bit ARM SOC running a full OS. But for a lot of stuff they accomplish the exact same thing. So why not compare them by what most people do with them rather than their raw technical specs.

I needed a small box to run owncloud. I would definitely use something like a Pi (or odroid). I needed to control my brewery's heating element based on input from a timer and a thermometer. That definitely called for an arduino. They're different, and while it's true I COULD have used a Pi for the latter, it would use way more power and be complete overkill.

I think people are getting hung up on verbiage here. Yes, I realize they are not completely identical.

But, the original comment was taking about the price difference between the arduino and an RPi. Sure the RPi is 'overkill' for for controlling brewing beer, but if it's cheaper, then why not use it? I could understand this argument if the more-feature-full thing was more expensive, but not when it costs more for less.

Don't get me wrong, I love Arduino. I use it way more than I use RPis. I just use it on $2 ESP8266 boards straight from China.

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#45

Post by azdle »

snerbles wrote: post #22
azdle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they are. I mean, sure, you and I know the difference between an 8-bit micro with some friendly libraries and a 64-bit ARM SOC running a full OS. But for a lot of stuff they accomplish the exact same thing. So why not compare them by what most people do with them rather than their raw technical specs.

This is like saying a farm tractor and a pickup truck are the same thing because they both have internal combustion engines and wheels.

Yeah, but if the farm tractor was cheaper, faster, and could carry more cargo than the truck, why wouldn't you just use the tractor?

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#46

Post by devnull42 »

nathancahill wrote: post #28

Serious question: what are people building with these boards? The recurring projects I've seen are controlling lights, doors/locks and monitoring water in plants. I don't find these particularly compelling, am I missing something? How is this the next big thing?

We use them all over my office because each team has their own metrics portal and we can just plug one into a big screen TV and have it run that portal. Cheaper than a full computer and just as effective.

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#47

Post by nfriedly »

xchip wrote: post #29

Why do you want an Arduino when the ESP8266 is half the price and has WIFI?

Up until recently, at least, ESP8266 boards were far more finicky. Even today, for a simple task that didn't need wifi, I'd probably trust an Arduino a little more than an ESP'.

It may also be partially a software thing - there are a lot of libraries that were written for Arduinos and then adapted to mostly work on ESP's. This too has been improving recently.

And, as others have mentioned, Arduinos have better built-in analog support.

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#48

Post by trevyn »

devnull42 wrote: post #46
nathancahill wrote: post #28

Serious question: what are people building with these boards? The recurring projects I've seen are controlling lights, doors/locks and monitoring water in plants. I don't find these particularly compelling, am I missing something? How is this the next big thing?

We use them all over my office because each team has their own metrics portal and we can just plug one into a big screen TV and have it run that portal. Cheaper than a full computer and just as effective.

That would be a Raspberry Pi, my friend.

Re: Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more

#49

Post by [deleted] »

devnull42 wrote: post #46
nathancahill wrote: post #28

Serious question: what are people building with these boards? The recurring projects I've seen are controlling lights, doors/locks and monitoring water in plants. I don't find these particularly compelling, am I missing something? How is this the next big thing?

We use them all over my office because each team has their own metrics portal and we can just plug one into a big screen TV and have it run that portal. Cheaper than a full computer and just as effective.

[deleted]
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