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

blog.pimoroni.com

51–60 of 247 posts

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

#51

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'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.

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

#52
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.

One abstraction layer above in fact. It's like saying a farm tractor and a pickup truck are the same thing because they both can move you from point A to B.

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

#53

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?

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.

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

#54
post #11
post #2

Cool. Now i can buy the cheap offbrand clones from Aliexpress without thinking i should have supported the actual creators.

Any recommendations?

FastTech have some called "Arduino Compatible" they are indistinguishable from the original ones except for the text on them. I suspect they come from the same factory.

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

#55
post #36

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 not "the next big thing", as much as it's a lot of little things. There's always been a gap between software and the physical world; the Arduino lets people easily bridge that gap. Though the typical projects are trivial as you suggest, the effect of being able to easily construct such projects is significant. That said, I think there are other MCs aside from the Arduino that are more interesting today, because…

"other MCs aside from the Arduino that are more interesting today" Can you give a few links? Thanks in advance.

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

#57
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

AVRs have much better sleep modes (single digit microamps) and predictable performance (to the exact clock cycle) by default. If you need long battery life or hard real-time performance then they're probably a better choice than the Raspberry Pi.

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

#58

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 used one to control a pair of candy machines for a Watson demo - there was a laptop with a microphone that did sentiment analysis on your speech, and then it told the Arduinos to give you either sweet or sour candy. The next version is probably going to have a Raspberry Pi replace both the laptop and the Arduinos, but they were a good starting point to get the project up and running.

RaspPis are startlingly cheap these days, and surprisingly capable.

For less than a tank of gas, I just built a retro ROM console, and the new version 3 boards are beefy enough to run video through Kodi without missing a beat or play any old console games I've tried up through the PS1/N64 era.

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

#59
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing a microcontroller (Arudino) with a computer (pi). They aren't the same thing.

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.

The big difference here is power drain. With Arduino you can use the Atmel ATmega328 microcontroller, which can run for months on 2xAA batteries.

https://www.openhomeautomation.net/arduino-battery/

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