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

blog.pimoroni.com

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

#201

Post by elcct »

soapdog wrote: post #194
elcct wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Your manufacturers could focus on something more profitable. What's the point in making another Arduino like board? Supporting non innovative shops is not good in short and long run.

It is like China and the shanzai spirit, first you clone then and make it sustainable then you innovate... (this is my personal opinion, I may be wrong). I believe that supporting local non innovative shops is better than having no local shops at all.

But this is a result of that country politics. You should rather press government to make it possible to compete with Chinese (by for example lowering taxes, lessening the amount of bureaucracy - I heard this is a nightmare in Brazil). Throwing money at economy that is full of flaws will just delay the agony and not solve anything.

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

#202

Post by marcosdumay »

soapdog wrote: post #91
VMG wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations?

My recommendation is a bit different, instead of that, try looking for a local manufacturer and support them. Here in Brazil, people go for the cheap aliexpress clones to the point where some of our own manufacturers are closing shop. In these cases, strengthening the local ecosystem might be interesting and wiser in the long run.

Hum... I've never seen a Brazilian Arduino clone. Didn't even expect it to exist.

Where can I get one?

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

#203

Post by dan1234 »

seizethecheese wrote: post #115
dan1234 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve built a few ESP8266[0] (so not Ardunio but same space) based sensors and have them distributed throughout a building so we can see how changes in one part affect the temperature and humidity in other parts. They’re very cheap to build (we only use the project boards to prototype, final builds are on PCBs) and they can be run on small batteries when they’re just doing simple data collection. [0] https://en.wikipe…

Any tips for going from a project board to a PCB?

I used KiCad[0] PCB design software and followed a lot of Youtube tutorials. This[1] one was the best tutorial I found, it seems pretty trivial at first glance but touches on all the parts of the process.

I use OSH Park for the actual PCB production[2], they're pretty cheap and good quality boards but be prepared for a bit of a wait. There's also a good price comparison site[3] for alternate suppliers.

[0]http://kicad-pcb.org

[1]https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2022BX6Esr6yxwDzhqY...

[2]https://oshpark.com

[3]http://pcbshopper.com

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

#204

Post by ourcat »

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?

Many get them to learn to program and get acquainted with a Linux command line. Especially kids at school.

Personally, I've been learning how to utilise my software skills to controlling hardware. Lots of fun.

Also opens up a new horizon of ideas.

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

#205

Post by centrinoblue »

win_ini wrote: post #138
manyxcxi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're much friendlier to get started for the novice, most of the widespread examples seem extremely trivial to someone with experience. Now- I'm DEFINITELY not an expert, probably barely mediocre with the EE fundamentals, but I did take a lot of EE and some robotics at Uni to get my degree in Computer Engineering. I am nothing more than a hobbyist but some of my cooler projects have been: - Autonomous 4WD r…

Similar to the nerd question - could you describe your approach to the freezer monitor? I have a cabin I don't live nearby to, and I basically can't keep anything in the freezer. It seems to go out often enough to unfreeze then refreeze the ice cube water. I was thinking a flat thermistor. Then I started thinking - what if it's not the power, but the freezer itself? Now I'm getting into a battery to log when power is…

I dabbled in designing a cooler/freezer monitoring setup for a local farmer not too long ago.

The 2 biggest constraints I found were power and communication from within the freezer.

One promising approach was - a BLE enabled temp. sensor beacon with a coin lion battery - a nearby externally mounted unit (RaspberryPi) plugged into a wall socket as a relay - a small central 'black box' SSD/Wifi/router ground-station to collect, store and push the data to the internet

The biggest question was whether the beacon signal could get through the freezer walls. If not then I was going to look into the idea of some super flat cable to enable a wired sensor connection without compromising the freezer seal (like a meat thermometer in an oven)

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

#206

Post by chris11 »

ploxiln wrote: post #77
jklinger410 wrote: post #30

TLDR: Reseller is pissed that "Genuino" has to be sold as "Arduino" in the US and that they have separate SKUs. Also Genuino seems to have poor B2B/reseller support. Is this post really that petty or am I missing something?

Engineers don't like needless restrictions. Can't sell "Arduino" in the EU because of underhanded legal reasons? Ok, fine, that's life. Can't sell "Genuino" in the US? I thought this painful brand switch was to fix stupid legal problems?! But Genuino did this to itself?!! screw it

The two groups are headed in different directions, they are just selling the same product now. I'd be annoyed as a customer if I needed to figure out the difference between two companies products and it wasn't clear. They need some way to make the distinction.

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

#207

Post by misnome »

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?

It's neat to have a nice, easily controllable small board, but yeah - I went to a Maker Fair last year and one stand was showing off an "Arduino-powered doorbell". It's possible to take it too far.

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

#208

Post by reportingsjr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #193
catdog wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3,3V is a pretty common if not prevalent voltage level with this type of embedded Hardware, nothing weird. Also these USB to Serial converters are pretty common.

Weird from the POV of an electronics noob, who sees ESP8266 recommended as Arduino-killer. One of the two plugs straight into PC and doesn't require a soldering iron to use...

The NodeMCU is absolutely no different than an arduino. The ESP chips are the equivalent of the AVR chips that are on an arduino. When people say "use an ESP chip" they really mean one of the many ESP based boards.

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

#210

Post by fapjacks »

soylentcola wrote: post #178
manyxcxi wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Precisely. I immediately started thinking about Arduino-powered counter-battery fire.
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