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Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

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Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#301

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

nic547 wrote: post #26
geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Additionally, they're launching their first joint product, the $44 Uno Q SBC, which has a Dragonwing SoC and STM32 microcontroller on an Uno form factor board[1]. It seems like Arduino will keep their brand, maintain their existing product lines, and continue building devices using other vendor's chips (besides Qualcomm), etc... but as with all acquisitions—I wonder how long that state of affairs will last. Alternati…

STM32 MCUs are 3V3, not 5V right? Arduino really isn't great with naming, a Uno can be an AVR or ARM based board, now either 3V3 or 5V based and also a SBC rather than just a MCU.

Yes, but many (most?) of them are 5V-tolerant.

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#302

Post by sgerenser »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #103
jsheard wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's vertical integration is formidable but Google are still really struggling with their execution, their Tensor SOCs are consistently years behind Snapdragon in performance and efficiency even after their switch to TSMC this generation. Qualcomm is probably safe at the high end of the Android market for a while yet.

The gap between Google’s and Apple’s SoCs is insane. Current Pixels bench at around a third of what current iPhones do. Not that performance matters to all users, but with how much Pixels cost you have to ask yourself what it is you’re paying for. Even if you don’t care for Apple, for a little more you can get a competitor for a Snapdragon.

It's definitely not that bad for the Pixel 10. One source[0] shows Geekbench 6 scores of 3701 single core and 9460 multicore for iPhone 17 (maybe add 5% more on each on the iPhone 17 Pro). While the Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10 is at 2345 single/6581 multi. So around 63-70% of the speed of the latest iPhone. Still a pretty poor showing but a far cry from 1/3 the speed.

[0] https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphone-17-vs-pixel-10

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#303

Post by beachy »

mikepurvis wrote: post #144
estimator7292 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trouble is, this kind of trivial throwaway application is all that Arduino is really good for. Because the framework is designed to support thousands of chips, it supports none of them well. Any arduino code you write is easily 5x more terse than any of the native libraries, but it's also 10x slower. If you don't care, you don't care. But if you do care, Arduino is the least appropriate way to make a microcontroller…

The pin mapping shenanigans are another annoying footgun with Arduino. Even in native development you're dealing with a physical pin number and the logical assignment (PA5, PA6, etc), but now Arduino maps that all again to an Arduino board pin number, and it's all shuffled to ensure the peripherals are in the right place to enable I2C, ADC, and PWM pins to function as expected.

Same deal exactly for the various ESP32 boards. With the added wrinkle that some of them (like T-Display) have had pins swapped in the doc at various stages.

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#305

Post by mbac32768 »

phoehne wrote: post #55
chpatrick wrote: post #29

ESP stuff is so damn cheap and capable now I'm not sure what you would use Arduino for these days.

Don't look at just the specs. You also need to look at the board design and programming environment. I've used the ESP32 native tools and they are a lot more complex than Arduino. But I'm an embedded firmware developer, so it's kind of what I expect. But I used an Arduino, with 5V tolerant outputs, to light up Halloween costumes for years. I do it in 1 page of code that's I write in their IDE. I don't have to set up…

May I ask what your go-to battery is for light up wearables?

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#307

Post by numpad0 »

andoando wrote: post #280
atoav wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well which board do you select then? ESP32 boardfiles do not come with the Arduino application per default. Sure, to you and me this may seem trivial, you paste the URL into the prefs, but there are people who will get stumped by this and with an Arduino there is one less step you can forget, not know about or do wrong. As someone who teaches those things at an University level I can assure you that does make a diffe…

I don't quite remember, but I don't think I installed anything extra for ESP32. But PlatformIo with VSCode has it and was extremely easy to setup.

You must have done File -> Preferences... -> Additional board manager URL -> OK, and clicked Tools -> Board -> Board manager... -> esp32 by Espressif Systems -> Install.

And that's like, I think installing VSCode itself can be more scary, so...

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#308

Post by ferguess_k »

xphos wrote: post #186
webdevver wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

genuinely, what is the survival story for qualcomm entering the next decade? - completely missed out on AI - phones become commodity, push for complete vertical integration from apple, google - squeezed by chinese soc vendors from 'below' (mediatek, unisoc) they're cooked, right? there's no way out, surely.

I think the AI bit is overblown. Why does every large company have to do everything in technology, AI is horribly over valued in the market right now. The other issues are much more important as those are threats to Qcom's current profit method mostly MediaTek squeezing the lower tier market. It's unclear if Qcoms going to be able to dominate upper tier where they own like 60% of market share if they don't also compe…

"With the money they earn, they can buy more police and political power. Then they come after us. We have the unions and gambling, and they're the best things to have, but narcotics is the thing of the future. If we don't get a piece of that action, we risk everything we have. Not now, but in ten years".

-- Tom Hagen

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#309

Post by j45 »

chpatrick wrote: post #29

ESP stuff is so damn cheap and capable now I'm not sure what you would use Arduino for these days.

Arduino is an ecosystem of pushing solutions. This is likely what is partially the appeal.

My hope and wish is Arduino sincerely remains accessible as it's always been and not solely drift into B2B or enterprise spaces.

There is a lot of chip building and delivery capacity being aligned this year.

Re: Qualcomm to acquire Arduino

#310

Post by j45 »

andoando wrote: post #171
phoehne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't look at just the specs. You also need to look at the board design and programming environment. I've used the ESP32 native tools and they are a lot more complex than Arduino. But I'm an embedded firmware developer, so it's kind of what I expect. But I used an Arduino, with 5V tolerant outputs, to light up Halloween costumes for years. I do it in 1 page of code that's I write in their IDE. I don't have to set up…

What's hard about programming an ESP32? I plug the USB in and its the same as an Arudino, can even use Arduino IDE, but I prefer VS Code with the PlatformIo extension. You can even use the Arduino Library (#import And a ESP32C board with wifi/bluetooth is like $8 https://www.amazon.com/Seeed-Studio-XIAO-ESP32C3-Microcontro... (and thats from amazon, on alibaba its like couple bucks if that) As a side note, you can po…

It's not about whether it's hard for you.

Lots of people don't program.

More people don't know how to program than do know how to program.

In that way, just because I can't imagine it being hard, doesn't mean I understand everything there is to understand.

This creates a gap and opportunity for products to make technology more approachable for the majority, instead of the minority (programmers).

Making things accessible to more people instead of less people seems to increasingly be the way.

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