Why we won't be selling Genuino or Arduino any more • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by manyxcxi » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

ayuvar wrote: post #129

manyxcxi wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always mean to write up my projects but never do. The gist is really, through trial and error I was able to map developer's desks to coordinates and elevation angles to get to their seat and just made a flat file that had their username, X, Y, and Z values in it. The main loop was just the standard socket server you'd find in a Ethernet module example and I wrote a Jenkins plugin that would connect on break and sen…

You probably could have done some basic artillery calculations. Then again, you might work in one of those weird offices where trying to measure the distance from your desk to theirs is more awkward than repeatedly attempting to shoot your coworkers while you fine-tuned the numbers. Neat project!

Actually, having someone sit at their desk while I continued to shoot closer and closer to their face was probably the most fun of the entire project.

I tried some basic calculations, but as you could guess with a nerf dart, building HVAC, and all the other things going on it wound up being faster and easier (and again, more fun) just shooting until I was on target a couple of times.

After the first few desks it was pretty easy to get close on the first shot because you could generally know that 4ft left or right was about an adjustment value of +/- whatever from the last coordinate you had dialed in.

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

#172

Post by rjeli » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

flamedoge wrote: post #135

timlyo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A USB nerf gun that shoots at the developer who broke the Jenkins build Anywhere I can read any more about this?

I keep throwing money at the screen, but I don't get the nerf gun.

this is not reddit, please comment as such.

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

#173

Post by durkie » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #76

durkie wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're building electronic noses with gas sensors to monitor fruit ripening and tell us when we should pick fruit trees. arduinos are cool because they make physical computing really easy. they're just a nice tool.

Interesting, that does work reliably? Could you tell us more? (I've read about gas sensors in the past and it seemed like they are either extremely inaccurate or hideously expensive)

We're just now getting them up and running, so I don't exactly know yet. I'm pretty sure that we can do it though. There are some interesting data analysis techniques (PCA, neural nets) that can be used to get meaningful results out of less than perfect data.

We're working with the guy that makes these: http://www.maskau.dk/projects/electronic-nose -- he's super thorough and has lots of interesting data.

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

#174

Post by syntheticnature » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

dan1234 wrote: post #85

falcolas wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the additional costs and logistics of separating out SKUs by country which are placed upon the reseller, simply for "branding" reasons.

It sounds like they were already buying both product variants and surely it shouldn’t be too hard to restrict certain SKUs to certain territories via a shipping rule in their ecommerce system? Shame they didn’t breakdown how many sales they get from the US (wouldn’t expect it to be many considering they’re UK based). Got them to the front page in any case…

It sounded like they didn't want to buy the "Arduino" variant to me because it was a separate SKU; they'd been selling "Arduino" in the past before the whole kerfluffle started.

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

#175

Post by syntheticnature » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #137

Anyone know of any small, low-cost, battery powered programmable boards for Bluetooth LE? I've got the Pi 3 and CHIP is ordered, but I'd love something smaller if possible. Thanks!

I'd suggest the Intel Edison. Take a look here, note that there's a battery block: https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/272

(Of course, it can also do WiFi, but I imagine BTLE will be thriftier on power.)

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

#176

Post by samtho » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

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?

Arduino is a platform (the boards, the IDE, the language, debugging tools, etc) that allows any sort of user new to programming and/or hardware to get started very quickly. It is a great gateway into raw microcontrollers, as it is based on the Atmel/Microchip ATMega line of chips, which are also fairly easy to program. Most people can easily transition into that and build "production-ready" things.

Also, many 3D printers, laser cutting tools, and CNC routing tools use Arduino as their microcontroller of choice. It represents a huge community and is one of the most basic of tools in any new or seasoned maker's toolbelt.

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

#177

Post by syshum » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

uola wrote: post #147

michaelt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new requirements make providing a good customer experience much more difficult, because it passes the retailers the burden of explaining this bullshit no-one cares about to their customers. For example, what if I visit the shop while logged out, put a Genuino into my basket, then log in and ask for delivery to a US address - should the website replace the Genuino in my basket with an Arduino? What if Arduinos are…

Providing customer service is what a retailer does. It's fine not to want to sell something, but writing rants in response (especially when you suggest your own products instead) isn't very nice. Retailers also take quite a big piece of the pie from smaller manufacturers. (As far as I understand) Arduino LLC only has the trademark for Arduino in the US, meaning they can only sell and manufacture them in the US. It se…

>>People always say they want open source, support, locally manufactured products etc. but then they seem to take pretty much any excuse possible not to support it.

I think you confuse the 2 vocal groups, it is not normally the same people Wanting Locally Manufactured products and wanting Cheap Knock offs, even if both want Open Source

I Love opensource, but I have little respect nor desire to support Arduino LLC, and will happily buy the cheapest board, I will also support projects and vendors by paying a premium if I feel it is worth it.

>Retailers also take quite a big piece of the pie from smaller manufacturers.

Margins are these boards are very very thin, this is why Retailers like SparkFun, Adafruit and other are making their own Arduino Compatible boards because it is more profitable, It is not true that the retailer is taking a "big piece" of the pie selling Aurdinuo LLC licensed boards. this is also why other Platforms are starting to replace the what I consider Overpriced Aurdinuo. I have been starting to use ESP8266 based boards (like NodeMCU) for example. If I want a $40 board I am using a rPI not an Aurdinuo...

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

#178

Post by soylentcola » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

manyxcxi wrote: post #171

ayuvar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably could have done some basic artillery calculations. Then again, you might work in one of those weird offices where trying to measure the distance from your desk to theirs is more awkward than repeatedly attempting to shoot your coworkers while you fine-tuned the numbers. Neat project!

Actually, having someone sit at their desk while I continued to shoot closer and closer to their face was probably the most fun of the entire project. I tried some basic calculations, but as you could guess with a nerf dart, building HVAC, and all the other things going on it wound up being faster and easier (and again, more fun) just shooting until I was on target a couple of times. After the first few desks it was…

Plus then they can build defense fortifications and start an arms race!

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

#179

Post by khedoros » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

nfriedly wrote: post #130

soapdog wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true to all countries and regions. For example, in Brazil a raspberry pi 3 will cost a bit more than USD 100 which is a lot of money for many people and prevent it from being acquired by low and middle income classes which are arguably among the ones that would most benefit from access to this ecosystem. Arduino/Genuinos on the other hand are easily available on our version of eBay and can be purchased as…

Yikes! Is that because the main distributors (RS/Allied Electronics/Newark) charge more to ship it to Brazil, or do they just not ship there at all and make you purchase through more expensive re-sellers? (Or is it something else like tariffs?)

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/starting-a-business-with-a-...

That page has a few anecdotes. In summmary:

Case one: $35 (product cost) + $40 (international UPS shipping) + $100 (import and administration taxes)

Case two: "I bought one R-Pi from Farnell Brazil (http://www.farnell.com.br/) and I paid R$185,50 ( ~ U$90) with taxes and postage."

I remember trying to help some Brazilian users find the cheapest way to get a hold of one a couple of years ago, and I heard similar stories: high import taxes even when there were official distributors operating in the country, and high shipping charges when there weren't and they needed to order the devices internationally. I don't think that it's resellers trying to fleece their customers. I think it's just a fact of the Brazilian government's policies.

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

#180

Post by cptskippy » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

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?

The big thing about Arduino is that it makes embedded electronics more accessible to people.

Arduino is a C Framework for interacting with hardware that is portable across microprocessors. Arduino also offers an IDE that's modular and allows vendors to package up their Workflows for programming their Microprocessors and easily integrate it.

What this means is that a naive user can pickup any Arduino compatible board, configure the IDE to be able to program that board via a single URI from the vendor, write some code in C using the Arduino framework, and push it to the board with the click of a button.

So if you have had an idea for a piece of hardware, Arduino makes it ridiculously easy to prototype it. And since it's based on standard microprocessors, if the overhead of Arduino is too much then you can replace it with the microprocessor OEM's workflow and port your code over. It's a very accessible RAD environment.