Qualcomm acquires Arduino

[madires]

Qualcomm acquires Arduino:
- Qualcomm acquires Arduino in surprising move which puts it right on the edge and at the helm of a 33-million strong maker community - https://www.techradar.com/pro/qualcomm-acquires-arduino-in-surprising-move-that-puts-it-right-on-the-edge-and-at-the-helm-of-a-33-million-strong-maker-community
- Qualcomm Buys Arduino, Will Bring AI Tools to Your DIY Tech Projects - https://www.pcmag.com/news/qualcomm-buys-arduino-will-bring-ai-tools-to-your-diy-tech-projects

[JPortici]

 

[ejeffrey]

I don't get it.  Has Qualcomm ever shown any interest in the maker community before?

On the other hand I guess will all the 9 figure acquisition going on, maybe this is just chump change for some VPs pet project?

[ataradov]

RIP.

Yeah, CEO's son said he wanted Arduino, so dad bought it for him.

[UnijunctionTransistor]

In a press release, Qualcomm mentioned that Arduino would become an “independent” subsidiary.

Yeah, right. Color me skeptical.

Arduino will cease to be independent, when the Qualcomm C-suite dictates to Arduino to meet EBDITA levels which are aligned with the corporate expectations. If the Arduino guys can’t, they will then receive the “assistance” from corporate black belts that will be focused on “extracting value”.

It is all downhill from there.

[ataradov]

The only hope is that Arduino is so insignificant compared to Qualcomm's overall cash flow that they are not the largest optimization target.

At the same time, they will obviously be inclined to use Qualcomm devices, which are proprietary as hell, so this is not going to work. There is no chance of them becoming mass market products. The same way as Renesas giving them $10M to put their MCU into the next board did not result in a good product.

Qualcomm is also a huge patent troll, so I don't see that being accepted well by a large community. And I'd be interested in seeing what they do about all the clones. They might clamp that down too.

[Siwastaja]

What difference does it make? It's not like Arduino is actively maintained (in any significant meaning). Arduino "maker" community just buys clones from Ebay and random shields everywhere. What difference does it make who happens to own the official brand?

[ataradov]

While a lot of random people buy clones, a lot of education programs are based on Arduino, and they typically buy real devices in bulk.

This is the play here - get in early and make future engineers hooked on your devices. The only issue is that is works when your devices are not some undocumented crap that requires NDAs. But management is typically too delusional to see that.

At the same time, a lot of educational stuff moved to Pi Pico, so not a huge loss.

[Siwastaja]

While a lot of random people buy clones, a lot of education programs are based on Arduino, and they typically buy real devices in bulk.

How weird. The whole Arduino was supposed to be an example of open source hardware. That's also one of its educational points. It would be weird if educators have trouble sourcing a "clone" - made from those same open-source design files, as originally intended by the Arduino folks.

So in case of Arduinos, clones are not only legal, they are the whole point.

I could imagine that if the new owner for some reason kills the milking cow and stops manufacturing the boards, then surely some others will fill that void and start manufacturing and selling them with some more appealing premises (maybe their own branding) than random Aliexpress shop. That should be trivial, if there is need.

[ataradov]

They don't have troubles, they are just not that price sensitive and they can get guaranteed quality from the vendor.

I never said that clones were illegal. But given that  Qualcomm runs the show now, they very well may become illegal, or require some aggressive agreement to be legal. This is how Qualcomm operates, they can't do it any other way even if they wanted to.

Even Microchip constantly struggled with this. They've got this huge captive community handed to them, and all they could think about is how they can monetize that directly.

[themadhippy]

What difference does it make?

Indeed.However if Qualcomm bought microchip or forced then to only sell the 328 to them then maybe  id be a bit concerned,

[hamdi.tn]

This is bad ... soon, sign an NDA and contact your sales representative to blink a hello world LED.

This is a bizarre acquisition, what make Qualcomm interested in maker community hardware, mostly entry level electronics.

Even more bizarre than Renesas acquiring Altium !

I never said that clones were illegal. But given that  Qualcomm runs the show now, they very well may become illegal

Basically Qualcomm will put the kibosh on accessible, low cost, open source hardware !

[rteodor]

Every time you say 'AI' god kills an independent project.

[ataradov]

They are not interested in maker community, but they are interested in  selling their "AI" garbage because if it does not sell, stock price drops.

That board is closer to Raspberry Pi than anything Arduino ever did. And it might be a reasonable replacement for some RPis, but the interfaces on the board suck. It would be way better if they just made a cheap SBC under their own name. For $45 I would get one to play with.

[flylowEE]

Qualcomm is creating a commercialization path for students, getting their Dragonwing in the hands of engineering students is probably not the worst business decision.

The downside is losing the distinction between embedded processors and lightweight computing. Most here are astute enough to understand the benefits of not running an OS when you don't need an OS but I doubt that's true in education or non-professional maker circles.

Qualcomm's first product is UNO Q, an SBC running Debian, seems to indicate Arduino was acquired primarily for name recognition.

[floobydust]

Qualcomm is creating a commercialization path for students, getting their Dragonwing in the hands of engineering students is probably not the worst business decision.

The downside is losing the distinction between embedded processors and lightweight computing. Most here are astute enough to understand the benefits of not running an OS when you don't need an OS but I doubt that's true in education or non-professional maker circles.

Qualcomm's first product is UNO Q, an SBC running Debian, seems to indicate Arduino was acquired primarily for name recognition.

Welcome to the forums

Yeah but Qualcomm Arduino is now competing with Raspberry Pi (stock down -36% YTD  "gloomy performance").

The new Arduino UNO Q "dual-brain" is the usual Lego block approach that MBA's and investors can understand somewhat.
"Qualcomm DragonWing QRB2210 SoC running Linux and an STMicro STM32U585 MCU for real-time control, as well as the Arduino App Lab integrated development environment"
I like the MMC just plopped on the backside of the PCB, is that a fake pic lol. HDMI output. Oh Uno.

"Qualcomm said Tuesday that it has reached an agreement to acquire open-source hardware and software firm Arduino in a move to boost its edge business."

Nothing to do with makers or students aside from increasing profit and market share.
Autodesk did the same shit, bought Instructables and Eagle etc. leaving them headless zombies for the slow death.
They continue to borrow borrow borrow to do acquisitions, massive debt. But they can't manage it at all, and who cares- everyone collects a paycheque.

You can't buy creativity, innovation or makers.

[SiliconWizard]

Did they mention the amount for which they bought Arduino?
Possibly questionable move, but probably very good deal for the founders of Arduino. The guys are now rich.

[floobydust]

What about the developers? The whole deal could piss off a lot of contributors, it usually does because they get little or none of the Pi 

[ataradov]

I don't know how much individual contribution there was in Arduino core code. Addons from companies that are competing with Qualcomm may suffer. But addons from people or companies making peripheral devices may not be affected. Unless they see ecosystem die, so it becomes pointless to maintain them.

But Qualcomm likely does not care, they have enough resources to throw at this if they wanted. But I really don't see them going forward with ATmega stuff for much longer.

[TAMHAN]

Hi,
this actually is a reprise of an old operation - both the Arduino Yun and the Arduino Summit in 2016 where Qualcomm people spoke come to mind.

Put a few images from my archive in the video at





In general, I see this as an ecosystem play more than anything...if Qualcomm manages to piss off too many people, their investment becomes worthless. Selling boards is not the profit center...

[Nominal Animal]

I suspect Arduino will become the PR arm for Qualcomm, just like the Raspberry Pi Foundation is and has always been the PR arm for Broadcom. 

All joking aside, the ecosystem has already evolved beyond one vendor, both hardware and software (PlatformIO), so even if Arduino stalls/crashes/burns, users have even better options available already.

I for example haven't used a single non-clone Arduino board at all, simply because I've found the clones (of SparkFun Pro Micro, ATmega32U4) and non-clone original boards like Teensys, superior.

[ataradov]

It is likely to become worthless. And they won't be able to figure out why it happened. They are simply not aligned in any way with open source. They only value it as far as they can exploit it.

Even Arduino struggled to get past the original ATmega board. All the new board they released never took off.

This monstrosity has no chance. Why even bother with STM32? Just make a decent integrated SBC, and it will have a place and won't need an awkward IDE.

[coppercone2]

somehow because of this I forsee the re-rise of PIC products

I am not excited because my one commercial prototyping venture with arduino went full on dumpster fire because of EMI issues. And code-re-use is a legal nightmare (better write your own, more learning & no lawyers). Half of the conveniance hacks you might want to use at work are technically license TOU violations...

[ataradov]

How so? I doubt classic PICs are going to get any more popular. And I don't see PIC32C getting any more popular either.

They are not buying AVR devices, just a board using them. And that board has been trying to move away from AVR for years now.

[coppercone2]

I am just suspicious about the company. I don't know how they can wreck it, but I suspect its possible or even likely. If it was broadcomm (as full owners, instead of partners), then we could speculate on the method

Something to do with NDA, pricing, comparability, etc


I wonder if they feel threatened by small network devices that are made on those little boards.


https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/01/raspberry_pi_price_hikes/

I wonder if we will see a similar article for arduino soon.