Arduino SRL (formerly known as Smart Projects SRL) sent out a letter to its distribution partners yesterday. If you’ve been following along with the Arduino vs Arduino story (we’ve previously published two installments), the content isn’t entirely surprising; it’s essentially a tactical move to reassure their distribution channels that Arduino SRL is the “One True Arduino”. That said, there’s still some new tidbits buried inside. You can skip down to read the full text below, but here’s our take.

The Business History of Arduino

A quick summary of the legal situation. Arduino LLC was formed in April 2008 by the original five founders to provide a corporate entity behind the Arduino project. Smart Projects SRL, controlled by one of the founders, was tasked with the actual production of the boards. It turns out that Smart Projects had trademarked the Arduino brand in Italy in December 2008, before Arduino LLC got around to filing in April 2009 in the USA. But everyone was friends, right? As long as the licensing fees keep flowing.

Fast-forward to September 2014, when Arduino LLC filed a lawsuit in Italy against Smart Projects claiming that they had infringed LLC’s trademark and that they had recently stopped paying licensing fees on their use of the Arduino name. In October, Smart Projects filed with the USPTO to revoke Arduino LLC’s trademark. In late 2014, Smart Projects changed its company name to Arduino SRL (a “Società a responsabilità limitata” is one form of Italian limited-liability company) and hired a new CEO, [Federico Musto].  Around the same time, Arduino SRL opened up the website arduino.org (different from long-existing arduino.cc) but with nearly identical style. In January 2015, Arduino LLC filed a lawsuit in the US, claiming their right on the Arduino name.

The Gist of it

In short, Arduino LLC has been working on developing the Arduino platform, software, and community while Smart Projects / Arduino SRL was the major official producer of the hardware for most boards. Both are claiming to “be” Arduino, and going after each other in court. So it’s not strange that Arduino SRL would like to try to keep its hold on the distribution channels. Which brings us to their letter to distributors.

March 27 Letter

A good portion of the letter reads to be a very carefully worded defense of why Arduino SRL is the true Arduino:

“Arduino Srl (aka Smart Projects Srl), as you know has been from the  beginning of the Arduino® project, the place where the ideas were turned into reality and into a business.”

This is of course strictly true — Smart Projects was certainly the largest manufacturer of Arduino boards. But it sidesteps the issue at hand in the trademark suits: whether they were simply a licensed producer of the boards or whether they’re “Arduino”.

Similarly, in the questions section of the letter, they ask if there are actually two “Arduino” product manufacturers, and answer “not really”. Of course, that’s true. Arduino LLC doesn’t manufacture boards, but exists to license their trademark out to fund development.

The only real news in the letter is that Arduino SRL is replacing its old distribution and logistics company, Magyc Now, with a new one named CC Logistics. Both Magyc and CC Logistics are named as defendants in the US lawsuit filed by Arduino LLC, so it’s unlikely that this change is due to legal fallout.

What this Means

In conclusion, Arduino SRL’s letter to its distributors seems to essentially follow the line of reasoning in their trademark lawsuit in the US against Arduino LLC: since Arduino SRL is doing the manufacturing and using the Arduino name, they’re the true Arduino. Whether or not this will stand up in court, or whether Arduino LLC can make its case that SRL was simply a licensed manufacturer, remains to be seen.

We’ve embedded the contents of the letter after the break. You can also download the original PDF.

Ivrea (TO) , March 27, 2015

Dear Partners,

At this time we feel it necessary to update our partners on the state of Arduino® products and the distribution business which you are a key part of.

Arduino Srl (aka Smart Projects Srl), as you know has been from the beginning of the Arduino® project, the place where the ideas were turned into reality and into a business. The first Arduino® models were made and initially distributed to schools of interactive design all over the world.

Arduino® products were then offered to the first DIY enthusiasts, contributing concretely, as one of the first open source electronic boards, to found and promote the Makers Movement: your strong efforts and contribution have made this great new movement a success and has grown in many new exciting areas like IoT and m2m. A realization that will change the world of electronics and communications in the physical world.

The family of Arduino® boards has helped professional and non-professional developers to prototype electrical projects and learn in a way that is accessible and possible for everyone.

Currently, Arduino Srl continues to be the only designer and manufacturer of original Arduino® products.

Open Source is the environment we want for millions of designers, engineers, makers and Arduino® lovers around the world. We hope to continue to help children and newbies learn about electrical engineering and computer programming, in order to develop and grow their ideas for today and tomorrow.

This fantastic story and these ideals will continue on the new website Arduino.org, which has been developed to ensure we stay true to the vision of the beginning of Arduino® and Arduino Srl and our distribution of these cool products.

Beginning in 2015 new changes have been put into place to ensure that our companies can continue to grow with the popularity of the Arduino® product line. The production of these high quality products continue to be done in Europe and specifically Italy which has been very successful.

Our distribution and logistics are going through a change for a couple of reasons, to help with faster deliveries and lower transport costs, we have a new company structure cc logistics that have offices and warehouses in three continents, EMEA Cham Switzerland, North American Boston Massachusetts and APAC Honk Kong and Taipei.

Additionally lots of work are being completed to get inventories in line with demand. New personnel are being added to in many areas for response to your buying needs but also in the sales and support areas to ensure we are creating demand for Arduino products and for our distribution channel. These new sales people from time to time will be in contact to forge closer working relationships.

To help inform our partners of some questions recently raised in the press and other areas:

Q: Are there two “Arduino® ” branded products manufacturers?

A: Not really, the only company that ever designed and manufactured the “Arduino® ” branded product is Arduino Srl (formerly Smart Projects Srl). Others, for a number of reasons, have created in USA and Switzerland “Arduino” named companies. Some have been involved in completing contracts for web site development and PR (namely Arduino SA – Switzerland take cares of the web site arduino.cc has been one of those). Clearly this has been the place to go for open source info in the past, but we will make arduino.org your new comprehensive location for this info and other valuable resources and services.

Q: I have heard in the press that there is a disagreement going on amongst initial founders of the open source project which inspired the Arduino® business.

A: Yes, there is a disagreement between the initial founders of the open source project (which have never been shareholders of Arduino Srl) and the actual management of Arduino Srl. We are confident that these issues will come to a conclusion shortly. Frankly some of these issues are complex because related to the validity of the registration of the trademark “Arduino® ” in some areas of the world and cannot be summarized in few words. In this respect just bear in mind that Arduino Srl (aka Smart Projects Srl) has been the sole manufacturer of the original “Arduino® ” branded products, selling and distributing them world wide for 10 years.

Q: Will cc logistics replace Magyc as distribution points ?

A: That is the big plan but exceptions may happen due to the nature of doing a worldwide distribution. cc logistics will help our makers to produce and distribute their projects in a world wide arena.

Q: Will Arduino make new products and new software?

A: Yes, new software and new products are the life blood of Arduino® . Recently new products, Arduino® Zero Pro, Arduino® , 9 Axes shield partnership with Bosch and many more are coming.

Q: Will Arduino forge technology partnership?

A: Arduino is in the forefront of new exciting fields like IoT and m2m which is an exciting direction of the type of prototyping done with present day Arduino® products. We are in constant contact with major companies exploring these exciting fields. The Arduino YUN with its wifi capabilities and open source processing has ignited lots of new opportunities.

Q: Arduino EMEA, APAC and NA Distributors Sales Meeting

A: We are planning and will notify you of the details of the first global annual meeting

Q: Is there a New Management structure in Arduino ?

A: As it happens in every company that grows as fast as the Arduino environment, additional expertises and capabilities are needed to help steer the company in the correct direction. Federico Musto is the new CEO of Arduino group and he has a strong background in the open source business.

You are Arduino and we are honored and privileged to work with you – Arduino isn’t the company, nor the board, nor the software nor the founders – the Arduino is YOU – You made Arduino® what it is today and you’ll continue to make it what it will be in the future.

Thank you in advance for your help and support

Arduino team

Arduino Srl
legal adress: Via Romano, 12 – 10010 Scarmagno (TO) Italy
shipping address: Via Kennedy, 36 – 10019 Strambino (TO) Italy

Since our last article covering the Arduino v. Arduino case, we’ve received a couple of tips, done some more digging, and learned a lot more about what’s going on. We thought it was time to share the story with you as it develops.

The Players

In short, there are two companies calling themselves “Arduino” at the moment. One, Arduino LLC was founded by [Massimo Banzi], [David Cuartielles], [David Mellis], [Tom Igoe] and [Gianluca Martino] in 2009, runs the website arduino.cc, and has been directing and releasing the code that makes it all work. Most of these folks had been working together on what would become the Arduino project since as early as 2005.

The other “Arduino” used to be called Smart Projects and was the manufacturing arm of the project founded and run by [Gianluca Martino]. Smart Projects changed their name to Arduino SRL in November 2014. (A “Società a responsabilità limitata” is one form of Italian limited-liability company.) They have been a major producer of Arduino boards from the very beginning and recently registered the domain arduino.org.

Around the time of the name change [Martino] sold his shares to a Swiss firm Gheo SA and [Federico Musto] was appointed CEO. Gheo SA is owned and directed by [Musto], who also runs a design consultancy based in the US and Taiwan called dog hunter, LLC.

dog hunter and [Musto] helped develop the Arduino Yun, a mashup of an Arduino with an OpenWRT-compatible WiFi router. dog hunter also runs the Linino.org website to support the Linux distribution that’s running on the router part of the Yun.

In short, on one side is Arduino LLC, run by the original Arduino Five and hosting arduino.cc. On the other is now called Arduino SRL, run by a former co-developer [Federico Musto] who bought out the largest producer of Arduino boards and opened up arduino.org.

The Legal Situation

When we previously reported that Arduino LLC brought a lawsuit against Arduino SRL, we only had half of the story. This suit, filed in January 2015 and still pending, is predated by an earlier trademark action filed by Arduino SRL against Arduino LLC.

The trademark case is a petition to cancel Arduino LLC’s trademark on Arduino, filed by Smart Projects SRL on October 3, 2014. This case is also still pending, and because it’s in front of the USPTO, it’s entirely visible. Here’s what we know.

The claims to invalidate Arduino LLC’s trademark on “Arduino” (PDF) can basically be summarized as follows: “We filed for trademark in September of 2014 and have been producing boards labelled Arduino since 2005. Arduino LLC only came into being in 2009 and wasn’t in control of the name at the time it applied for the trademark.”

To which Arduino LLC’s response (PDF) essentially reads “We’ve had the trademark on the word Arduino longer than you have, and we deny all the rest.”

The timeline for the case is laid out here (PDF). Basically, the discovery phase lasts until June 2015, and there’s not going to be a decision until after Christmas unless they settle early.

We’re not lawyers, but it looks like the case is going to revolve around whether or not Arduino LLC actually controlled the “Arduino” name at the time it trademarked it, and whether the extensive production of boards labelled “Arduino” by Smart Projects invalidates that trademark. The relevant trademark law can be found here and if you know your stuff on this, please feel free to illuminate us in the comments or with a direct e-mail to us directly or through the tip line.

So to recap the story so far, two websites, two “Arduinos”, and two lawsuits.

A Tale of Two Internets of Things

Not surprisingly, both groups have differing versions of where to go from here, but both sides are betting on the Internet of Things. Arduino LLC has partnered with Intel on the Galileo and more recently is working with BeagleBoard.org on the forthcoming Arduino TRE. Arduino SRL is sticking with the WiFi router MIPS solution that powers the Yun and keeping it in-house.

As previously mentioned, the Yun was at least co-designed with [Musto] and dog hunter. And now on arduino.org, there’s a placeholder product photo for the “Arduino Yun Mini” with the date April 30, 2015 attached. The Yun Mini looks exactly like the Linino One in a different color scheme, and it doesn’t take much of a hardware detective to put two and two together, given that [Musto] is now CEO of both dog hunter (which runs Linino.org) and Arduino SRL. The Yun Mini is, naturally, conspicuously lacking from the arduino.cc product lineup.

The next step up from the Yun on the arduino.cc site is the Arduino TRE, which is also a Linux-based solution coupled with an ATmega32u4. In this case, however, the Linux computer comes in the form of a 1-GHz Sitara AM335x processor, essentially a Beaglebone/Arduino mashup. And one can’t help but notice the tagline on the TRE page: “Arduino TRE, the first Arduino board manufactured in the U.S.” which is a dramatic shift away from the proudly “Made in Italy” silkscreens that adorn the Smart Projects / Arduino SRL boards.

Is this the reason for the schism? Massimo Banzi has said that he’s interested in working with many other producers to get newer and better Arduino products out there and would even like to be able to sell in China, land of the clones. (translate)  [Martino] and now [Musto] clearly have a vested interest in keeping production in Italy, while Arduino LLC’s interests are better served by going global. Perhaps it’s only natural that the two part ways.

The Code

Finally, the story takes a slightly cheeky turn in the most recent version of the Arduino IDE, released on March 10. As of version 1.6.1, there’s been a patch to the Arduino codebase that pops up a warning dialog when an “Arduino” with the USB Vendor ID (VID) 0x2A03 is flashed. The pop-up message reads “This board comes from an uncertified manufacturer. We won’t be able to provide any support if it doesn’t work as expected.”

You may not be surprised that USB VID 0x2A03 belongs to “dog hunter AG”.  The Arduino IDE pops up the “uncertified manufacturer” warning any time that this VID is used, on any board type. Conspicuously missing in all of this are any of the VIDs in use by the various other counterfeit “Arduino” boards running around out there. Either there are too many of them to address directly, or this is a targeted, tactical strike against the Arduino SRL camp.

If you don’t have a board with VID 0x2A03, you can see the changes to the IDE on GitHub for the commit “Added warning for uncertified boards“.  Scroll on down to the changes to the file “hardware/arduino/avr/boards.txt” and you’ll see what’s going on. (And smile if you don’t have to code in Java for a living: nearly 600 lines of code added just to implement a simple pop-up dialog!)

Apparently, at least a couple of people with an UNO and a Mega256 have seen the warning and claim to have bought their devices through reputable retailers, including Mouser.

Now this isn’t an FTDI-style bricking; it’s just a pop-up dialog. What’s even nicer is that it comes with a “Don’t show me again” button so that you’re not constantly nagged. And it does recognize the boards so that they function normally, but it’s definitely a scare for users when they first stumble upon it.

The Future

So what does all of this mean for the future of Arduino as we know it? There’s certainly been a code fork and there are at least two divergent hardware design approaches to the IoT and strategic visions for the two firms. The trademark issues may not be resolved until 2016, though, so in the mean time there’s going to be significant market confusion. Not to mention the two similar websites.

You can certainly bet that both companies will be pushing themselves to get good product to market and trying to keep hold on the community. Maybe that will all be good for us in the end? Post your wild guesses and conspiracy theories in the comments.

We’ll keep you posted when we learn even more.  If you’ve got leads that you’d like us to chase down, hit us up on the tip line.

And thanks very much to [Concerned User] for the tipoff to the trademark filing and to [Another Anonymous Tipster] for the tip to the IDE version 1.6.1 changes.

Arduino LLC is suing Arduino Srl (the Italian version of an LLC). Sounds confusing? It gets juicier. What follows is a summary of the situation as we learned it from this article at Heise.de (google translatrix)

Arduino LLC is the company founded by [Massimo Banzi], [David Cuartielles], [David Mellis], [Tom Igoe] and [Gianluca Martino] in 2009 and is the owner of the Arduino trademark and gave us the designs, software, and community support that’s gotten the Arduino where it is. The boards were manufactured by a spinoff company, Smart Projects Srl, founded by the same [Gianluca Martino]. So far, so good.

Things got ugly in November when [Martino] and new CEO [Federico Musto] renamed Smart Projects to Arduino Srl and registered arduino.org (which is arguably a better domain name than the old arduino.cc). Whether or not this is a trademark infringement is currently being heard in the Massachussetts District Court.

According to this Italian Wired article, the cause of the split is that [Banzi] and the other three wanted to internationalize the brand and license production to other firms freely, while [Martino] and [Musto] at the company formerly known as Smart Projects want to list on the stock market and keep all production strictly in the Italian factory.

Naturally, a lot of the original Arduino’s Open Source Hardware credentials and ethos are hanging in the balance, not to mention its supply chain and dealer relationships. However the trademark suit comes out, we’re guessing it’s only going to be the first in a series of struggles. Get ready for the Arduino wars.

We’re not sure if this schism is at all related to the not-quite-open-source hardware design of the Yun, but it’s surely the case that the company is / the companies are going through some growing pains right now.

Thanks [Philip Steffan] for the pointer to the Heise.de link. (And for writing it.)

Everyone has a bad day right? Monday was a particularly bad day for the folks at Sparkfun. Customer support tickets started piling up, leading to the discovery that they had shipped out as many as 1,934 MicroViews without bootloaders.

MicroView is the tiny OLED enabled, Arduino based, microcontroller system which had a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year. [Marcus Schappi], the project creator, partnered up with SparkFun to get the MicroViews manufactured and shipped out to backers. This wasn’t a decision made on a whim, Sparkfun had proven themselves by fulfilling over 11,000 Makey Makey boards to backers of that campaign.

Rather than downplay the issue, Sparkfun CEO [Nathan Seidle] has taken to the company blog to explain what happened, how it happened, and what they’re going to do to make it right for their customers. This positions them as the subject of our Fail of the Week column where we commiserate instead of criticize.

First things first, anyone who receives an effected MicroView is getting a second working unit shipped out by the beginning of November. Furthermore, the bootloaderless units can be brought to life relatively easily. [Nate] provided a hex file with the correct bootloader. Anyone with an Atmel AVR In-System Programming (ISP) programmer and a steady hand can bring their MicroView to life. Several users have already done just that. The bootloader only has to be flashed via ISP once. After that, the MicroView will communicate via USB to a host PC. Sparkfun will publish a full tutorial in a few weeks.

Click past the break to read the rest of the story.

So what went wrong? The crux of the problem is a common one to manufacturing: An incomplete production test. For many of their products, Sparkfun loads a single hex file containing the production test and the optiboot bootloader. The test code proves out the functionality of the device, and the bootloader allows the customer to flash the device with their own sketches. The problem is the bootloader normally connects to a PC host via USB. Enumerating a USB connection can take up to 30 seconds. That’s way too slow for volume production.

Sparkfun opted to skip the bootloader test, since all the pins used to load firmware were electrically tested by their production test code. This has all worked fine for years – until now. The production team made a change to the test code on July 18th. The new hex file was released without the bootloader. The production test ran fine, and since no one was testing the bootloader, the problem wasn’t caught until it was out in the wild.

The Sparkfun crew are taking several steps to make sure this never happens again.They’re using a second ATmega chip on their test fixture to verify the bootloader without the slow PC enumeration step. Sparkfun will also avoid changing firmware during a production run. If firmware has to change, they’re planning to beta test before going live on the production line. Finally, Sparkfun is changing the way they approach large scale production. In [Nathan's] own words:

Moving from low volume to mid-volume production requires a very different approach. SparkFun has made this type of mistake before (faulty firmware on a device) but it was on a smaller scale and we were agile enough to fix the problem before it became too large. As we started producing very large production runs we did not realize quality control and testing would need very different thinking. This was a painful lesson to learn but these checks and balances are needed. If it didn’t happen on Microview it would have happened on a larger production run someday in the future.

Everyone has bad days, this isn’t the first time Sparkfun has lost money due to a mistake. However, they’re doing the right thing by attacking it head on and fixing not only the immediate issue but the underlying thought process which allowed the problem to arise.

Arduino has made a name for itself by being easy to use and has become an excellent tool for rapid prototyping of an idea. If one wakes up in the middle of the night in a eureka moment and hammers out a contraption – using an Arduino as the brains is about as fast and easy as it gets.

With that said, the WIDGEDUINO aims at making this process even faster and easier. Bristling with an array of meters, graphs and data entry widgets, the WIDGEDUINO is sure to be a hit with hackers, makers and engineers alike.

It’s based on the .NET framework and was designed with Visual Studio Windows Presentation Foundation. The user simply writes a sketch using the WIDGEDUINO library, and connects to a PC via serial or Ethernet to gain access to the assortment of awesome widgets.

You can find a few examples here. We hope the creators will keep us updated on the progress of this impressive project. Be sure to stick around after the break for a video demonstrating what the WIDGEUINO can do.

[AwesomeAwesomeness] wanted a low cost quadcopter, so he built one from scratch. Okay, not quite from scratch. [AA's] cookie mix came in the form of an Arduino Uno and some motors. He started with motors and propellers from a Hubsan X4 quadcopter. Once the power system was specified, [AA] designed a frame, arms, and motor pods in Solidworks. He printed his parts out and had a sweet quadcopter that just needed a brain.

Rather than buy a pre-made control board, [AA] started with an Arduino Uno.  An Arduino alone can’t source enough current to drive the Hubsan motors. To handle this, [AA] added a ULN2003A  Darlington transistor array. The 2003A did work, but [AA] had some glitching issues. We think FETs would do much better in this application, especially when running PWM.

On the control side of things, [AA] added an MPU-6050 Triple Axis Accelerometer and Gyro breakout from SparkFun. The 6050 has 3 gyros and 3 accelerometers in one package. Plenty for a quadcopter.

All this left was the coding. Multicopters generally use Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control loops to maintain stability in the air. [AA] used the Arduino PID library for his quadcopter. He actually created two PID instances – one for pitch and one for roll.

[AA] doesn’t have any videos of his quadcopter in action yet, and we’re guessing this is due in part to weight. Lifting an Uno, a perfboard, and a frame is a tall task for those motors. Going with a one of the many tiny Arduino’s out there would help reduce weight. In addition, [AA] could use a gear system similar to what is used in the Syma X series quadcopters. Stick with it – you’re on the right track!

This telepresence upgrade lets an employee take part in the office from more than four thousand kilometers away. It’s an upgrade of their previous setup which used a laptop on a rotating platform to add a bit of control to the video conferencing experience. But all that original version could do was swivel, this one lets you drive your virtual self around for fifteen hours between battery charges.

The real work is in the base of the robot, as the audio and video are handled by a tablet independently from the locomotion. The team spent about four hundred bucks to throw the thing together. It starts with a hunk of plywood. Two 3A motors were mated with lawnmower wheels for the front of the bot. Dragging under the back of the base are a couple of casters that make it possible to turn without skidding. A motor shield and a WiFi shield for the Arduino make it possible to control the thing over the Internet. They even added some functionality on the client side to use a PlayStation 3 controller. Check out the completed machine in the clip after the break.

After a long wait, Arduino DUE is available for 39 Euro plus taxes: an aggressive price for ambitious makers.

The key factor for Arduino success has been the ease of use and a very smooth learning curve. Thanks to its basic set of functionalities, a clear hardware design and the multiplatform Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Arduino has become the reference device for many projects: from simple LED based gadgets to sophisticated projects that follow the Internet of things approach. Currently Arduino boasts a huge community of users that across the globe, with forums, interest groups and a variety of pages. In more than 5 years, the community has developed so many projects that it is easy to find an inspiration or an almost finished solution for the majority of the common needs.
With its 8 bit avr core and the IDE framework for libraries, Arduino has been the solution of choice for many, but sometimes its limits in terms of code space and hardware resources were too tight to reach the desired result. These limits are well known by Arduino Team and the long awaited Arduino DUE should represent the quantum leap needed for more complex projects. Arduino Mega was a first step towards a more powerful hardware and computing platform, but a 32bit ARM Cortex-M3 SAM3X8E is a completely different story.

Arduino Style
It took some time to set up the whole project for DUE as it involved every single aspect of the Arduino architecture. In the design process, the Team had some clear objectives, as the look and feel of IDE, the hardware pin strip compatibility with existing Shields and the programming style. It wasn’t easy and the timing for the whole process was rescheduled more than once. At the end the result is a very interesting “evolved Arduino” that shares many of the successful traits of UNO, but it also rises the bar for designers.

The full description of Arduino DUE is available for Arduino Website at “http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDue” and the shortlist of technical specification is the following:

• Microcontroller AT91SAM3X8E
• Operating Voltage 3.3V
• Input Voltage (recommended) 7-12V
• Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V
• Digital I/O Pins 54 (of which 12 provide PWM output)
• Analog Input Pins 12
• Analog Outputs Pins 2 (DAC)
• Total DC Output Current on all I/O lines 130 mA
• DC Current for 3.3V Pin 800 mA
• DC Current for 5V Pin 800 mA
• Flash Memory 512 KB all available for the user applications
• SRAM 96 KB (two banks: 64KB and 32KB)
• Clock Speed 84 MHz

IDE version is 1.5.0 and supports the new multi core architecture, where AVR and ARM now have separate folder hierarchies to host different compilers and different libraries. IDE 1.0.1 will become obsolete soon and all the efforts will continue with this new release. Apparently a lot of the IDE looks the same, but the code behind it is quite different as the SAM3X8E requires a new programming procedure that the software has to perform in order to maintain the same “one click” programming experience.
New instructions have been added to support the USB Host and DAC, while CAN bus has still to be implemented through libraries that are under development. Serial ports hardware based are now four and may be used concurrently.
All these changes and new implementations have been carefully evaluated in the design process to limit the amount of changes a sketch needs to be ported form UNO to DUE.

Hardware issues
The main concern about Arduino DUE is the 3,3V architecture, already foreseen and planned with the UNO design, but the IOREF Pin hasn’t got the expected attention from Shield designers and each shield might work straight away or cause some issues (even the microcontroller damage) if it sends signals to digital and analog input ports at 5 volts. The IOREF pin is indeed the reference provided by designers so that any “well behaving” shield may test this pin and find out if it has to work and interact at 5 or 3,3V.
Any shield has very good chances of finding proper voltage as power supply as DUE supports 5V on its 5V power I/O pin, but any attempt to feed that level to the Arduino DUE digital or analog input will be fatal: the shield works but kills the DUE.

USB all new
The two ports labelled as Programming USB and Native USB are very interesting in terms of computer and peripherals interfacing as they allow new roles of DUE, as USB Host and Client. Again more details on Arduino website (http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/USBHost and http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/MouseKeyboard).
Also programming has been redesigned, with a bootloader pre-programmed on the SAM3X8E before it leaves ATmel factory. It doesn’t occupy FLASH memory and there is no easy way, or need, to reprogram it. Program memory and RAM share a linear addressing space, while Flash can be fully erased pressing the new “Erase” button on the board. This allows a failsafe recovery of the programming functionalities when everything else doesn’t work.

No comments before a real test
The availability of the board has just been announced and everybody is waiting for the first shipments. We hadn’t the chance of running any test, therefore we keep the comments for a more detailed forthcoming story.

After a long wait, Arduino DUE is available for 39 Euro plus taxes: an aggressive price for ambitious makers.

The key factor for Arduino success has been the ease of use and a very smooth learning curve. Thanks to its basic set of functionalities, a clear hardware design and the multiplatform Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Arduino has become the reference device for many projects: from simple LED based gadgets to sophisticated projects that follow the Internet of things approach. Currently Arduino boasts a huge community of users that across the globe, with forums, interest groups and a variety of pages. In more than 5 years, the community has developed so many projects that it is easy to find an inspiration or an almost finished solution for the majority of the common needs.
With its 8 bit avr core and the IDE framework for libraries, Arduino has been the solution of choice for many, but sometimes its limits in terms of code space and hardware resources were too tight to reach the desired result. These limits are well known by Arduino Team and the long awaited Arduino DUE should represent the quantum leap needed for more complex projects. Arduino Mega was a first step towards a more powerful hardware and computing platform, but a 32bit ARM Cortex-M3 SAM3X8E is a completely different story.

Arduino Style
It took some time to set up the whole project for DUE as it involved every single aspect of the Arduino architecture. In the design process, the Team had some clear objectives, as the look and feel of IDE, the hardware pin strip compatibility with existing Shields and the programming style. It wasn’t easy and the timing for the whole process was rescheduled more than once. At the end the result is a very interesting “evolved Arduino” that shares many of the successful traits of UNO, but it also rises the bar for designers.

The full description of Arduino DUE is available for Arduino Website at “http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDue” and the shortlist of technical specification is the following:

• Microcontroller AT91SAM3X8E
• Operating Voltage 3.3V
• Input Voltage (recommended) 7-12V
• Input Voltage (limits) 6-20V
• Digital I/O Pins 54 (of which 12 provide PWM output)
• Analog Input Pins 12
• Analog Outputs Pins 2 (DAC)
• Total DC Output Current on all I/O lines 130 mA
• DC Current for 3.3V Pin 800 mA
• DC Current for 5V Pin 800 mA
• Flash Memory 512 KB all available for the user applications
• SRAM 96 KB (two banks: 64KB and 32KB)
• Clock Speed 84 MHz

IDE version is 1.5.0 and supports the new multi core architecture, where AVR and ARM now have separate folder hierarchies to host different compilers and different libraries. IDE 1.0.1 will become obsolete soon and all the efforts will continue with this new release. Apparently a lot of the IDE looks the same, but the code behind it is quite different as the SAM3X8E requires a new programming procedure that the software has to perform in order to maintain the same “one click” programming experience.
New instructions have been added to support the USB Host and DAC, while CAN bus has still to be implemented through libraries that are under development. Serial ports hardware based are now four and may be used concurrently.
All these changes and new implementations have been carefully evaluated in the design process to limit the amount of changes a sketch needs to be ported form UNO to DUE.

Hardware issues
The main concern about Arduino DUE is the 3,3V architecture, already foreseen and planned with the UNO design, but the IOREF Pin hasn’t got the expected attention from Shield designers and each shield might work straight away or cause some issues (even the microcontroller damage) if it sends signals to digital and analog input ports at 5 volts. The IOREF pin is indeed the reference provided by designers so that any “well behaving” shield may test this pin and find out if it has to work and interact at 5 or 3,3V.
Any shield has very good chances of finding proper voltage as power supply as DUE supports 5V on its 5V power I/O pin, but any attempt to feed that level to the Arduino DUE digital or analog input will be fatal: the shield works but kills the DUE.

USB all new
The two ports labelled as Programming USB and Native USB are very interesting in terms of computer and peripherals interfacing as they allow new roles of DUE, as USB Host and Client. Again more details on Arduino website (http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/USBHost and http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/MouseKeyboard).
Also programming has been redesigned, with a bootloader pre-programmed on the SAM3X8E before it leaves ATmel factory. It doesn’t occupy FLASH memory and there is no easy way, or need, to reprogram it. Program memory and RAM share a linear addressing space, while Flash can be fully erased pressing the new “Erase” button on the board. This allows a failsafe recovery of the programming functionalities when everything else doesn’t work.

No comments before a real test
The availability of the board has just been announced and everybody is waiting for the first shipments. We hadn’t the chance of running any test, therefore we keep the comments for a more detailed forthcoming story.

Hackaday reader [Tom Price] often uses Skype to communicate with family near and far, but he was getting tired of adjusting his webcam each time his kids moved out of frame. While the solution he came up with isn’t fully automated, it is hands-free, which is good enough for his purposes.

[Tom] was looking around for an electronic foot pedal of some sort when he came across a wireless 3rd party Guitar Hero peripheral that happened to fit the bill. Using an Arduino library created by [Bill Porter], he was quickly able to get the toy to communicate with an Arduino-flashed Atmega8, but things kind of fell flat when it came time to relay signals back to his computer. Using another Atmega8 along with the PS2X library, he was able to emulate the Guitar Hero controller that his foot pedal was looking for.

With the pedal portion of his project wrapped up, he focused on his webcam. [Tom] mounted the camera on a small servo, which he then wired up to the receiving end of his foot pedal rig. As you can see in the video below, he can now pan his camera across the room with a tap of his foot, rather than leaning in and manually adjusting it.