Everyone with an Arduino project has, starting as of NOW, six months to look for a replacement.

If you don't start right away, I can point out someone who will be in a lot of pain in a few months.

Believe me...

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2025/10/qualcomm-to-acquire-arduino-accelerating-developers--access-to-i

I know this will play merry hell with the 3d printer and mechanical keyboard scene. Innumerable hardware will die from this takeover.

#arduino #qualcomm

@urmel Qualcoomm is a company that is extremely happy to sue everyone. Wherever they suspect the IP (they just bought) is in use will get an invoice.

@masek avrdude, avr-gcc toolchain and a myriad of chinese clones make this deal completely worthless.

@urmel Sorry, my bad. I changed the tag. Thank you for pointing that out.

@masek @f4grx you think the community is going to jump onto one of those manufacturers?

@lambtor @masek I wish.

@masek Who owns Teensy? (It’s a US company, IIRC?) Beyond that, there’s the Raspberry Pi Pico, and possibly some Chinese boards (which may or may not be an issue)

@acb @masek

Teensy is very small, I think its basically one couple with some employees to help out.

Their website (pjrc.com ) is glorious, a complete throwback to the old web. It's their personal website with holiday pictures from the 1990s or so on it, mixed with the company info.

@Zamfr @acb @masek pjrc did 8051 stuff way before arduino was conceived.

@masek

#qualcomm is notable for backdooring every single phone their shit goes into. Including surveillance in unpowered phone mode.

I can see how #openhardware was gnawing at the dark heart of fascist #broligarchy

#arduino

@f4grx @Zamfr @acb @masek Yup. In other words, I'm old.

@acb I think @PaulStoffregen is still the person behind PJRC (Well, half of PJRC!)

The Teensy boards are great, but often overkill in terms of features and price for what I need. They used to have an LC (Low Cost) board but all their boards now are easily double the price those were.

@rasterweb @acb SparkFun is now pretty involved in Teensy since we've partnered with them for manufacturing.

Before March 2025 Robin & I used 2 contract manufacturers, who soldered everything on consignment (we purchased all parts). With hourly workers we hired every Teensy was tested, packaged and shipped from Oregon, USA.

As Teensy grew that became unsustainable for us.

On paper, Robin & I still own Teensy. We still control the tech decisions. But reality is SparkFun deeply involved now.

@masek

If you use Arduino IDE and libraries, save a copy fo the installer and you're fine. It's a simple install, no phone-home nonsense.

Arduino and done vrey good things before this. That they are failing now is not a reflection on them. It was a wonderful project that wa wildly successful. It was never a growth corp.

(Lol, their forum got toxic with knowitall gatekeepers a few years ago, but there's plenty of others.)

Arduino spawned a revolution and that's all that matters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone

@tomjennings @masek The current Arduino IDE checks for board and library updates every time you launch it.

If I were intent on evil, I could see a few ways to use that. I could issue malicious updates or just malicious license changes. I could demand subscription fees to keep it working. Or I could just refuse to let 3rd parties ever update their boards and libraries and let the whole thing rot.

Replacing the Arduino IDE is a bigger deal than the hardware.

@masek

WOW! Surprise! lol

Everything's a TAZ...

The Arduino project was wonderful. I switched from the classic command line make system to Arduino IDE about 2005. For modest sized projects its unity and simplicity is great. The editor is at least consistent and decent for what it does.

Adruino was also hardware -- but that diversified immediately, and now that ecosystem is broad, healthy, and not going away -- and the money's not been going to arduino.cc

Then... 5? year ago they upated the IDE, from version 1.8xx to 2.0xxx and it was broadly *hated*. The changes are awful, it took away the separate debug window. They moved the free download stuff further and further from view, added feetch no one wanted, compiling online, etc iotw classic enshittification.

I assmy my experience in 2025 is common enough: I still use the IDE, but the old version, 1.8x, and almost none of the libraries I use, and none of the hardware, comes from Arduino; I'm using PJRC Teensy 4.1 (600 MHz ARM) or Adafruit (SAMDx1).

I suspect users will contribute to the software ecosystem for some time.

I truly do not want to go back to the make system, I know it's a macho (sic) thing amongst professionals but it's like gardening with a bulldozer to me. I like the simplicity of the IDE even for moderately complex code.

I'm surprised Arduino has lasted this long; nothing but fond memories of them, and all things die eventually. Their demise seems to be part of their success.

@tomjennings Agree with pretty much everything you've said... I did get used to the new 2.0 IDE and I don't totally hate it now. (Serial Monitor in the main window is still *super* annoying!)

Getting to the hidden settings did manage to help.

https://rasterweb.net/raster/2023/03/25/advanced-preferences-settings-in-arduino-ide-2/

@rasterweb @tomjennings Those settings are obscure! I never would have guessed.

@masek given the number of clones there are, do you really think this is a problem?

@gim You have to decide to switch to clone. Then there will be some problems. Those will be solvable, but need time. Time you won't have if you have to do it in a hurry. That's why I recommend to start now.

@masek Arduino is open source. There are tones of "Arduino compatible" things available on the internet. The brand of Arduino will die, the hardware will not. The know-how, the designs, the idea is out there. Everyone will just be using generics. There will be "mega 2560" not "Arduino mega 2560"

@licho Yeah, but you do have to do the change. And for some projects that will be the straw to break the camels back. Some will delay and will have to do it in a hurry or fold. That's why I am saying: start thinking about it now.

@masek
As someone who is very close to this: Martin, this is BS.

@ChrisF Please explain...

What motivated my message:

• Qualcomm is a big company, with no strategic interest in the small DIY/maker scene.
• Qualcomm has a history of very aggressively enforcing IP issues.
• Qualcomm is not a company known for caring about fairness but only about their revenue.

@masek

To all those "Arduino Fans" that bought "clones" for one dollar from China because it's cheaper: This is a great moment to reflect 😃