[HN Gopher] Arduino raises $32M Series B round
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Arduino raises $32M Series B round
Author : marc__1
Score : 159 points
Date : 2022-06-10 17:35 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.arduino.cc)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.arduino.cc)
| duskwuff wrote:
| Hot take: I don't see this working out.
|
| Arduino's approach has historically been to sell breakout boards
| for commodity microcontrollers. They do not have any history of
| success in any of the fields they're proposing to enter, and
| particularly not in IoT services or AI.
|
| Arduino has made approaches to industry before, e.g. with the
| Portenta series of boards. They have generally been unsuccessful,
| in large part because their approach to industry has generally
| been "look, we're using industrial temperature range ICs" --
| hardly a compelling offering.
| fest wrote:
| Me neither. In industry, Arduino is almost an expletive- mostly
| associated with projects where someone is trying to use the
| hardware in a way that's not actually fulfilling an
| underspecified set of requirements, or where someone has
| stepped on one of many foot-guns in it's software ecosystem.
|
| An example for the first group: trying to save a couple hundred
| USD/EUR and using it where a PLC would be universally better
| choice (IO protection, EMC assurances, maintenance).
|
| Examples of the second group: delay functions disabling
| interrupts leading to missed serial data, (L)GPL'd library
| code, lack of debugging support (until recently), any sleep
| mode support.
|
| Don't get me wrong- there is a lot of good stuff in there- some
| of the libraries and projects built around it are really useful
| but effective use of them requires deeper knowledge than
| getting an intern "just doing it on an Arduino".
| alar44 wrote:
| I was offered a controls gig to design a very complicated
| machine that was to be used by consumers in shopping malls.
| Many moving parts. Many pinch zones, safety concerns etc. All
| in all probably 100 drives and maybe double as many sensors.
| They were hell bent on using an Arduino to "save money". I
| ran as fast as I could.
| the_biot wrote:
| It's not obvious to work out what exactly the plan is, as the
| press release has a fairly thick coat of corporate speak on it.
|
| However I assume they'll want to take a chunk out of the
| Raspberry Pi market -- whose hardware always was shit, but
| whose execution has lately been terrible as well, what with the
| years-long scarcity of boards.
|
| The Pi's secret to its success is arguably its community
| support, and I think only Arduino can match that.
| Iv wrote:
| If only that could make them support a bit more their
| surprisingly cheap and good robot arm, the Braccio!
| cercatrova wrote:
| How will Arduino make multiples off $32MM? That's always the
| question I have for VC-raising startups.
| aresant wrote:
| It is hard to think of a more transformative piece of hardware
| for hackers than Arduino
|
| I have observed hobbyists innovating in really cool ways in all
| sorts of corners - musicians, athletes, retro computer
| collectors, etc
|
| Very glad to see they're being well funded and can continue
| building
|
| PS - I elect this as the greatest current Arduino contribution to
| humanity - The Furby Organ -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYLBjScgb7o
| jandrese wrote:
| It's really impressive for a technology that started out as a
| student project to bring cheaper microcontrollers to younger
| students.
| ignoramous wrote:
| A student project where the student was booted out, no less:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212021
| kurupt213 wrote:
| Another circle of hell missed by Dante
| glouwbug wrote:
| Now we need the FPGA equivalent. The FPGA industry is still
| very much stuck in what was the pre-GNU era of software
| IshKebab wrote:
| I dunno, Vivaldi is quite good. Or did you mean open source?
| In which case I 100% agree. Still full of tools that are only
| usable by masochists and the people that wrote them.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Vivaldi is quite good
|
| You mean Vivado?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Err yes oops!
| sbierwagen wrote:
| https://store-usa.arduino.cc/products/arduino-mkr-
| vidor-4000...
| flaviut wrote:
| The magical part of Arduino isn't hardware with the Arduino
| branding, but a great set of open source core libraries & a
| easy to use toolchain.
|
| This hardware unfortunately doesn't have either of that; it
| requires Intel Quartus for design and synthesis.
| kanwisher wrote:
| Look at MisterFPGA they are doing a lot of cool stuff to make
| fpga a bit more mainstream with emulating game consoles,
| https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html
| wiml wrote:
| There are! I've used the fomu and the tinyfpga, both with the
| open source stack.
|
| (In the past I've tried running the commercial products under
| WINE, like most people did at the time, and it worked but was
| definitely terrible.)
| [deleted]
| armatav wrote:
| Yes - someone make something for macOS/linux that's actually
| usable
| back7co wrote:
| It started with Arduino for me, which led me to Adafruit, who
| has gone on to make their own Open Source Hardware and the
| Circuit Python platform. The scene now is multi-vendor and very
| healthy, but I'll admit I stopped using Arduino when it was
| very hard to get a genuine one... which I think is a solved
| problem by buying direct now.
| suyash wrote:
| Adafruit has done to Arduino what Arduino did to Wiring.
| Adafruit is pushing it's own custom python called 'Circuit
| Python' for it's new hardware so there is no Arduino code
| examples to go with thier products anymore which is a big
| disaster.
|
| We should stick to standard Arduino code that should run on
| all compatible Arduino devices.
| OnionBlender wrote:
| I lost respect for Adafruit after their data leak and they
| announced they would not be emailing their customers to
| notify them about the data leak. Although they later
| changed their mind after people criticised their decision.
|
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/adafruit-
| disc...
| bri3d wrote:
| > We should stick to standard Arduino code that should run
| on all compatible Arduino devices.
|
| Why should the entire hobbyist hardware space be an Arduino
| monoculture?
|
| IMO the Arduino proto-language and framework are quite
| mediocre and it's time to move on. For beginners, embedded
| hardware has gotten much more powerful and more familiar
| languages can be employed. For more advanced users and
| larger projects, using a real RTOS with a real task system
| unlocks development velocity in a huge way.
|
| I don't really love CircuitPython, but I don't see how this
| is comparable to the Wiring/Arduino situation, nor do I
| really see it as a step backwards.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| quasi-python is a lot easier for beginners than quasi-C imo
| skybrian wrote:
| Switching to PlatformIO is a nice way to go if you want a
| more sane version of Arduino package management.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Adafruit appears to still be supporting the Arduino IDE and
| ecosystem with their new boards.
|
| https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/04/20/new-guide-adafruit-
| esp3... "Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best
| Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython,
| MakeCode, and Arduino."
| NonNefarious wrote:
| I have an Uno, but I've moved away from Arduino because an
| Uno costs as much as a Raspberry Pi. Granted, they serve
| different purposes, but now there's the Pi Pico for $5.
|
| Nothing against the Arduino folks; they really opened up a
| great avenue for exploration. But it doesn't seem cost-
| competitive at the moment.
| martin_a wrote:
| Have a look to Arduino "inspired" other boards, then. The
| ESP8266 comes to mind which brings onboard WIFI for around
| $5 or less and is probably a great start into anything IOT-
| like.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Remember that Arduino is OSHW so clones & alternate
| implementations are everywhere at far lower cost. You're
| better off starting with a Black Pill or ESP32 based unit
| these days anyway. The overall ecosystem and common framework
| is far more valuable than any individual piece of hardware.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Arduino is to commercial embedded development as what Javascript
| is to Java.
|
| I had the first Arduino model with a COM port bought to me by my
| late mother to spike my interest into computer stuff when I was
| in high school.
|
| I grew a bit over confident with what I can do, when on my first
| job I went on to fix an MP3 player firmware so it don't crash
| from Russian in ID3 tags.
|
| I told the boss the fix is trivial, then it took me 3 month to
| find out that whatever you knew of garden variety C++ is not
| working in the world of hardcore C, and that hardware needs
| control down to clock cycles, registers, and assembly
| instructions. It was a sink, or swim experience.
| inamberclad wrote:
| Arduino positively transformed me. I thought code was cool, but
| then getting an Arduino and being able to blink an LED from
| software, control a motor, move dials and buttons... it's
| amazingly empowering.
| beckingz wrote:
| This won't end well. Time to double down on the ESPs.
| rasz wrote:
| Which one? Because there was a huge drama with two incorported
| Arduinos, one by a guy who has nothing to do with a project other
| than running a PCB house making boards for them and then silently
| filing trademarks all over Europe and suing original project.
| 2xpress wrote:
| I bet in a little bit they'll do yet another press release
| regarding how "excited" they are to sell themselves to Microsoft
| or Oracle or something similar to "transform" "enhance"
| "integrate" and "optimize" "enterprise cloud services" with "new
| AI capabilities" or similar.
| qorrect wrote:
| "Whether you're a Gen Z or a Millennial engineer..."
|
| Seriously ?
| contingencies wrote:
| _Any piece of engineering design is a statement. By the
| designer without the user._ - Michael Sean Mahoney
|
| ... via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder, how many people really identify with their "gen name"
| type name?
|
| Maybe folks do and it's just me that finds that weird.
| Clubber wrote:
| >I wonder, how many people really identify with their "gen
| name" type name?
|
| It about as useful as their astrological sign.
| brink wrote:
| "How do you do, fellow kids?"
| martingoodson wrote:
| It's essential to read Hernando Barragan's perspective. His ideas
| and work were stolen and turned into Arduino:
|
| http://arduinohistory.github.io/
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| Is this the original team or the venture by the guy who bought
| the rights to the name? Wasn't there some controversy about the
| original developers and team being pushed out? Maybe someone else
| remembers the whole story?
| rvense wrote:
| There was a rift between the founders that led to a new company
| being formed, but it has been resolved and the companies have
| merged.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Yeah, but nobody cares. We're too busy building stuff :-)
| duxup wrote:
| I didn't even realize Arduino was a VC venture.
|
| For some reason I was under the impression they were a non-profit
| or some corporate supported education related thing.
|
| Outside of selling a few boards that can be hard to get a hold of
| how do they make all this money back? Just about as soon as I
| started playing with one Arduino I found other third party
| hardware better suited my needs. I don't really see any reason to
| use Arduino's hardware over anyone else's compatible hardware
| ....
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| They took investment from ARM a few years ago, they didn't
| start out as a VC funded company IIRC:
| https://hackaday.com/2017/10/05/who-owns-arduino/
| fartcannon wrote:
| Did the intellectual property stuff ever get ironed out?
| https://lwn.net/Articles/637755/
|
| arduino.org redirects to arduino.cc so maybe?
| shakna wrote:
| Yes. In 2017, BMCI acquired all of the Arduino trademarks. [0]
|
| [0] https://techwombat.com/bcmi-acquires-arduino-ag-makers-
| breat...
| bmitc wrote:
| I feel terrible for Hernando Barragan who invented Wiring, only
| for it essentially to be stolen by his advisor Massimo Banzi and
| renamed Arduino, leaving out the inventor. Given that Banzi and
| the Arduino team never referred any credit to Wiring, I can only
| assume it was due to ego reasons since they credited Banzi's
| previous project as the source of Arduino.
|
| https://arduinohistory.github.io/
|
| Then the Arduino team had their own further battle about rights.
| The Arduino folks don't seem to be the most honest of folks. I
| have always avoided Arduino due to this history.
| moralestapia wrote:
| This kind of intellectual theft is extremely common in
| academia, particularly between <an immigrant from a different
| country> vs. <someone who is a national wherever this happens>.
|
| Recommended movie, Dark Matter [1].
|
| 1: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416675/
| anaclet0 wrote:
| Source?
| mannanj wrote:
| Ah this is sad, and makes me too want to avoid arduino. Wonder
| if those below would consider similar if they knew.
| sieabah wrote:
| It's open source, you can't really steal open source software
| unless it was never "free and open source" to begin with.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| You can still be a jerk by making millions of dollars
| without crediting the work of _your own grad student_
| bmitc wrote:
| Should we abide our lives by what lawyers say is right or
| wrong?
| iosjunkie wrote:
| Assuming what lawyers say is a reflection of what the
| governing law states or allows for, yes?
|
| Want to reign in the lawyers? Start with your
| governments.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| I think that it's fair to consider Arduino's complicated
| history (the legal battles, the Wiring history, etc.) while
| also acknowledging how revolutionary it's been to hobbyist
| electronics.
|
| I'm not sure what would be improved by trying to avoid
| Arduino at this point. Especially considering that it has
| spawned a very large and versatile ecosystem: all of the open
| source libraries that have been created for it (some random
| amazing ones: [0], [1]), the compatible shields and
| accessories [2], tutorials & courses, etc.
|
| It remains an extremely important and useful platform, and
| for good reason.
|
| [0] https://github.com/Avamander/arduino-tvout
|
| [1] https://github.com/sensorium/Mozzi
|
| [2] https://www.adafruit.com/category/21
| pilgrimfff wrote:
| And suddenly that twinge of guilt I felt when buying knockoff
| Arduino boards is... gone.
| suyash wrote:
| Thanks, did not know about this shady history.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| While it's regrettable if Massimo broke his trust, this is open
| source software/hardware, and its ethos is about sharing and
| forking the designs, so you can't really "steal" it. Also for
| context, Wiring was a further development of the open source
| Processing language, and Hernando is no more a "thief" for
| doing that.
|
| Also, the first inventor is only one part of any product, and
| it's hard to argue that Massimo did wrong to the community by
| popularizing Arduino, and people still know what Wiring is.
| bmitc wrote:
| The point is that there was no reason not to just contribute
| to Wiring and take it from there. The nefarious thing is that
| they took the project and rewrote its history to make it seem
| as if it was their own work, meanwhile still taking new
| Wiring development and incorporating it into Arduino, all
| without credit. So it was about control and ego. I would
| assume that even some open source licenses were broken.
|
| Also, Banzi wrote this:
|
| https://blog.arduino.cc/2013/07/10/send-in-the-clones/
|
| lamenting this exact thing when it came to people doing it to
| Arduino.
| palmetieri2000 wrote:
| Great link! Thanks.
|
| Slightly off topic but in Banzi's article (subheading
| Counterfeits) he mentions the now well known problem of
| Amazon cohousing different manufacturers products and then
| effectively sending a random one to the client. I think
| this is interesting as it still seems to be a problem
| nearly a decade later.
| gspr wrote:
| Something being open source typically doesn't mean you can
| copy and use it without attribution.
| _jal wrote:
| I would say proper attribution and credit is even more
| important in open source development than elsewhere.
|
| My day job takes credit for my work, but compensates me in
| money. Pretty much the only "pay" for the vast majority of
| open source work is credit.
|
| > it's hard to argue that Massimo did wrong to the community
| by popularizing Arduino
|
| So who made that argument? I haven't seen anyone claim his
| marketing efforts were unethical.
|
| But let's say you wrote a significant part of a book. I took
| your work, completed it, and published it as solely my work.
| It becomes wildly successful. Have I done anything wrong?
| tpmx wrote:
| I have zero qualms about buying cheap Arduino clone boards
| because of this.
|
| Although lately I've found myself requiring basic IP/wi-fi for
| almost every usecase, so I've turned to ESP8266/ESP32 boards
| instead of AVR boards.
|
| Here's hoping for a low-cost wi-fi-enabled Raspberry Pi Pico. I
| wonder what the wi-fi IP licensing cost is like for companies
| that actually need to pay attention to things like that.
| alar44 wrote:
| Well yeah I mean "Arduino" is just a couple #defines to make
| a sort of custom C++ version. After a couple months playing
| with it, most people shouldn't need anything Arduino anymore.
| farisjarrah wrote:
| There are RP2040 based boards with wifi are starting to come
| out. While they aren't horrendously expensive, they are
| double or triple the cost of a regular base raspberry pi pico
| model.
|
| Here is one I have seen, but I haven't used or played with
| it.
|
| https://thepihut.com/products/challenger-rp2040-wifi-chip-
| an...
| tpmx wrote:
| "The WiFi section on this board is based on the Espressif
| ESP8285 chip which basically is an ESP8266 with 1MByte
| FLASH memory integrated onto the chip".
|
| I suppose I'm wishing for an Espressif-like approach. A
| (low-power?) RPxxxx core fully assigned to running a Wi-Fi
| software stack, in the same RPxxxx chip, along with having
| the analogue RF aspects handled by the same chip/package.
| duxup wrote:
| I've found ESP8266 boards really suit my needs more than a
| "full" Arduino boards, just a few wires and some built in wi-
| fi is all I want for the most part so far with how I've been
| using / playing them.
| tgarv wrote:
| I completely agree, with the exception of wanting easy
| support for powering from a lipo battery and also charging
| that battery without disconnecting it. This has led me to
| use the Adafruit Feather RP2040 lately because it has a
| builtin lipo charger and will automatically switch between
| USB and battery power as needed, but of course it doesn't
| work for projects that need WiFi. I'm hoping that we'll get
| a board that easily combines the two soon.
| [deleted]
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