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Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

blog.arduino.cc

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Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#191

Post by parsimo2010 »

curious_one wrote: post #187
Zagitta wrote: post #137

In my opinion Arduino and "pro" does not belong in the same sentence. I work as an embedded software engineer who's tasked with ripping all the terrible arduino code out of a fairly large codebase where I work and the arduino core libraries are the lowest quality code I've ever had the displeasure of working with. It's full of awful decisions everywhere in the arduino core libraries such as defining min and max macro…

So what should one use if they want to make interesting yet useful products? I am new to this space, and have only heard of Rasberry Pi, MicroPython and Arduino.

I’m not trying to denigrate you, but “real” products produced at moderate scale will source their own microcontrollers/microprocessors, have their own pcb design, and have the BOM cost-optimized.

A Raspberry Pi or Arduino is fine for early prototyping and hobbyists, but if you’re going to make a million of something then you aren’t going to stuff a Raspberry Pi in your product unless the ecosystem is one of your selling points. Otherwise, using a Raspberry Pi means that you’re paying for USB ports, Ethernet ports, WiFi, Bluetooth, led lights, header pins, and every other component on the board and your produce probably doesn’t need them all. Including a bunch of components that you aren’t using is just leaving profit on the table.

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#192

Post by turbinerneiter »

AWildC182 wrote: post #130
turbinerneiter wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try it. MicroPython/CircuitPython is the funnest thing ever. And you can do all the serious things you need. There is nothing you can't do in MicroPython. And if you need to do stuff fast, writing C libraries is quite easy. It's totally fair to not like it and for sure it has strengths and weaknesses, problems where its a good fit and problems where it is a bad fit - but don't dismiss it. It's simply to good for that…

I know it's heresy but I don't really enjoy python in general. I only really use it for tooling and I find the environment is really annoying. I'm generally a big rust for uC advocate though.

Rust is really great for microcontrollers, the Embedded WG is doing great work!

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#193

Post by petra »

contingencies wrote: post #180
petra wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The fact nobody else has bested them is a sad comment on industry. I wouldn't say nobody has bested them. The real professional Arduino is the Mbed, run by ARM. It's for professionals, by professionals, and it shows in good quality. But, you pay for the abstraction - it's inefficient with hardware resources. Another alternative is modm.io. It's a modern take on the hardware abstraction layer, claimed to be very ef…

I must respectfully disagree based on research conducted within the last 2 weeks. Everyone claims their IDE is the business, in fact all the closed source ones are all crap, poorly documented and only allow you to easily taget a subset of platforms from a subset of development environments. For example, out of the box MBed Studio doesn't support many lower and mid range chips in the STM range. If you want to buy a hi…

// only allow you to easily taget a subset of platforms from a subset of development environments

I'm not sure the mbed is intended for products with a deep focus on price.

So less hardware selection might fit.

But modm.io does have support for some low end devices.

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#194

Post by contingencies »

petra wrote: post #193
contingencies wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must respectfully disagree based on research conducted within the last 2 weeks. Everyone claims their IDE is the business, in fact all the closed source ones are all crap, poorly documented and only allow you to easily taget a subset of platforms from a subset of development environments. For example, out of the box MBed Studio doesn't support many lower and mid range chips in the STM range. If you want to buy a hi…

// only allow you to easily taget a subset of platforms from a subset of development environments I'm not sure the mbed is intended for products with a deep focus on price. So less hardware selection might fit. But modm.io does have support for some low end devices.

modm.io looks interesting, thanks. Unsure I agree with the premise that using a value line 32 bit MCU implies a "deep focus on price". To me, that would mean something like EM78P173NSO MDT10P509S11 SN8P25D HR7P155 PMS150C or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_packaging#Glop-top

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#195

Post by Youden »

sz4kerto wrote: post #38
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought that the real competition was the ESP32. It stays in the microcontroller space (no OS to manage, should stay lower power, etc.), dirt cheap, ships with wifi+bluetooth.

Fortunately ESP32 does have an OS, so you can use all kinds of niceties (multitasking, bootloader, etc.).

Which OS are you referring to? FreeRTOS or something else?

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#196

Post by jdietrich »

mbanzi wrote: post #120
jdietrich wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phrasing is snarky, but you make a reasonable point. Arduino performance is already atrocious with C and it's only going to get worse with a higher-level language.

atrocious ??, maybe on an 8 bit 8mhz device you can go faster if you write optimised assembly code but this is a 240Mhz+480Mhz device it's a different world....

The entire point of using bare-metal MCUs is to achieve efficient, deterministic performance with tight control over timing. All that goes out of the window if you're using a software stack that uses 30 instructions to toggle a digital output pin.

If you're going to use something that's basically a late-90s desktop and develop on the basis that you can afford to burn cycles, you might as well use a proper RTOS and enjoy all the affordances that come with it.

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#197

Post by jdietrich »

spookthesunset wrote: post #150
mdszy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using more powerful hardware as an excuse to make shitty software is incredibly flawed.

What a bunch of gatekeeping fuddy-duddy nonsense. Give me a break... If newer hardware makes it cheaper and easier to make cool shit while maintaining the price point and power budgets of previous generations, who gives a shit? This new stuff makes tinkering with hardware way more accessible than before and that is a good thing for everybody.

We have every right to gatekeep when Arduino are targeting industrial IoT developers. I don't want "tinkerers" designing products that could control industrial equipment or have access to sensitive user data.

Arduino is excellent for what it was originally designed for - an easy, accessible platform for artists and non-engineers to experiment and prototype. Arduino are now reaching well beyond that market and targeting more serious applications, so we are entirely right to question whether a) Arduino's design trade-offs are acceptable in mass-market products and b) whether we really want to lower barriers to entry in this area.

Personally, I think the answers are a) no and b) absolutely not. If you need the hand-holding that Arduino offers, you have absolutely no right to ask a user to plug your widget into their network. Engineers are in a position of trust and we have a moral obligation to treat that position with absolute seriousness.

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#198

Post by dwild »

contingencies wrote: post #176
dwild wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At small volume with assured availability right now you can plug together off the shelf microcontrollers and ethernet modules for $3-5 per node. Source? I'm looking for that right now and can't find any cheap microcontrollers that include an ethernet jack. The price I find make a Raspberry Pi a viable solution... which is quite sad.

Not included. Use external module, eg. ENC28J60 (dominant and open source drivers for ~all platforms) which is cheapest, SPI based and 10M limited. For higher throughput look at Wiznet modules or bigger MCUs with MII/RMII which gets much pricier - with low end MCUs you can't generate or process that much data anyway.

Thanks! I didn't know the ENC28J60 could be that cheap. I had seen it in the past but it was always 10-15$ and with a microcontroller, that made it quite expensive. Next time I order a bunch of ESP8266 from China, I will add a bunch of them too.

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#199

Post by contingencies »

dwild wrote: post #198
contingencies wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not included. Use external module, eg. ENC28J60 (dominant and open source drivers for ~all platforms) which is cheapest, SPI based and 10M limited. For higher throughput look at Wiznet modules or bigger MCUs with MII/RMII which gets much pricier - with low end MCUs you can't generate or process that much data anyway.

Thanks! I didn't know the ENC28J60 could be that cheap. I had seen it in the past but it was always 10-15$ and with a microcontroller, that made it quite expensive. Next time I order a bunch of ESP8266 from China, I will add a bunch of them too.

To get a sense of realistic prices use 1000 piece quantities quoted on electronic component stockists in Guangdong such as http://lcsc.com (or via https://jlcpcb.com/quote#/parts which is a significant subset thereof) and http://hqchip.com (but avoid the red=import results). For a popular component such as a network module, roughly assume chip cost plus 1-2RMB for the PCB, resistors and socket and assembly. Same approach works for microprocessors.

Re: Arduino Goes Pro at CES 2020

#200

Post by sigmaprimus »

magicalhippo wrote: post #53
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the vast majority of these iot applications are something like “read; send; sleep 60”. But your point stands that people needing high precision and timing probably won’t reach for this.

That's the point of having the M4 cores alongside the M7 though, isn't it? Let the M4's handle real-time stuff like driving motors, and the M7 do communication and/or user interface.

I am very interested in your comment about different core functionality. If I understand you correct there are different functions for specific cores, if this is true, I would humbly request that you create a blog/post covering this topic as these traits have been totally been missed by me. This is probably the result of my biased opinion towards ARM devices but I would genuinely like to know this information.
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