alt.hn

7/18/2026 at 2:37:56 AM

Arduino Launches Plug-and-Play Modules for Long-Range Sensor Projects

 https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/arduino-launches-plug-and-play-modules-for-long-range-sensor-projects/

by WaitWaitWha

7/21/2026 at 12:47:47 PM

From Arduino's Terms & Conditions [1], Section 8.2:

"8.2 User shall not:

- translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify the algorithms and logic of the Platform’s operation, unless expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license agreements; or

- extract or make copies of the information contained in the Platform (except with respect to Content owned by other users), make derivative works from the Platform, reuse the Platform, or make any other use of the Platform other than as set forth in these Terms or as permitted by applicable law."

Does anyone really want to use an "open-source" maker/tinkering platform with such egregious rules against tinkering?

[1] https://www.arduino.cc/en/terms-conditions/

by ninjagoo

7/21/2026 at 2:00:23 PM

The “Platform” is just the website. They are saying don’t hack our servers. There is a caveat for content published under an open source license (like the docs).

by deckar01

7/21/2026 at 4:32:19 PM

> The “Platform” is just the website

Arduino is the platform, not the website.

  From the same terms and conditions, in the first 2-3 paragraphs where they define the terms:

  "The use of the Arduino Platform and the Services (each as defined below) available on, from, or through Arduino.cc (“Site”) ..."

  "By using the Site, the Platform, or the Services, you declare to have read and accepted ..."

  "If you are under 18 years of age, you may use the Site, the Platform, and the Services only with the consent and supervision of your parent or legal guardian."
Further, in section 1.1:

  " ... and to further develop the Arduino open source ecosystem (collectively, the “Platform”). The use of the Site, the Platform, and the Services is governed by these Terms ... "

by ninjagoo

7/21/2026 at 1:48:06 PM

Consider yourself Qualcommified.

by bobmcnamara

7/21/2026 at 1:45:56 PM

And with such poor value for the money. When an Arduino costs as much as a Raspberry Pi 4, it's eliminated from contention.

by VerifiedReports

7/21/2026 at 5:58:47 PM

Does this actually stop anyone?

by matheusmoreira

7/21/2026 at 3:50:20 PM

can I "teach" my llm on it though?

Later in court: it wasn't me! It was my agent. LLM agent

by p0w3n3d

7/21/2026 at 12:54:22 PM

"Long-Range" sensor projecs?

Is the long range in the room with us? It is I2C not very well known for long ranges. Especially with motors and electric drives and their EMI I2C is not the best decision.

From the title I was more in "Oh, what type of long range wireless they have opted for?" and didn't expect I2C.

For long range wired I would consider more a RS485 or CAN. Short ranges like in a small robot arm, a small car, and alike I2C maybe enough.

by PinguTS

7/21/2026 at 3:58:37 PM

There is really no good reason to ever use I2C, except if that's the only interface your peripheral supports. Debugging a stuck I2C bus, and attempting to un-brick the bus for a stuck slave (disabling ISRs, unhooking DMA, reconfiguring pins to GPIO, clocking the slave out of its coma and then doing everything in reverse) is just not worth it.

EDIT: I was hoping for HaLow WiFi!

by donquichotte

7/21/2026 at 4:10:32 PM

Yeah there's a reason why all of the high reliability chips I use only come with SPI interfaces. The last time I used i2c for anything but hobbyist stuff was in college.

by wildzzz

7/21/2026 at 4:14:22 PM

They offer some sort of booster module for runs up to 30m. Not exactly long range but it is for i2c. Although at that point, I'd rather just do something different than buying two of these extenders for super long runs.

by wildzzz

7/21/2026 at 1:41:27 PM

For "long range", at least longer than wired i2c, I was expecting current gen zigbee, zwave800, or something LoRA based.

by walrus01

7/21/2026 at 6:11:59 PM

I really, really wish that CAN had caught on more for sensor networks in the hobbyist community.

It's so much nicer than I2C in so many regards: much longer range, masterless (any node can talk directly to any other node), packet prioritization built-in, deliberately designed to be more or less impossible to wedge, possible to do IC-to-IC on a board without transceivers by using a shared open-drain bus (like I2C, but with only one wire!)... and plenty more.

Really the only downside to CAN is that the spec requires timing that's tight enough that everything has to have a crystal on board. Ah, to have an alternate reality where CAN's timing requirements were relaxed enough for that not to be a requirement and it had caught on as the IC-to-IC interconnect standard instead of I2C...

by javawizard

7/21/2026 at 10:30:47 AM

What I liked about the older, simpler Arduino was that you could move an ATmega328p project from an Arduino board to a chip on a breadboard then to a custom PCB with minimal complexity - with just hobbyist-level skills.

But the boards and modules just seem to be getting ever more complex, with lots of tiny SMD components, removing that path.

by bluescrn

7/21/2026 at 1:31:17 PM

There are modern MCUs that require a total of 5 passives and a dream. Sure, they're still QFN at best, but they're within that "hand soldering" range.

Not to mention that both factory made custom PCBs and pre-assembled PCBs are cheaper than ever nowadays.

by ACCount37

7/21/2026 at 11:03:28 AM

Sometimes you get lucky and the smd components have larger packages you can hand solder, but the price for assembly in a Chinese pcb shop is so cheap I don’t think I want to hand solder

by engineer_22

7/21/2026 at 10:46:31 AM

Robotic pick and place board assembly means through-hole components are going the way of the dodo. Sorry.

Adafruit sells breakout boards for various SMT packages so that with a little solder reflow work you can adapt that shiny new chip to your breadboard. https://www.adafruit.com/category/475

by relaxing

7/21/2026 at 11:40:09 AM

>pick and place board assembly means through-hole components are going the way of the dodo

The factories willing to do SMD mixed with through-hole high-power electronics is shrinking. However, package constrained power dissipation limits on SMD technology is real.

Depends on what your firm builds. =3

by Joel_Mckay

7/21/2026 at 4:43:39 PM

long range as in the wire is long vs. sensing long distance right?

by ge96

7/21/2026 at 3:10:13 PM

Title made me think elrs receivers

by boguscoder

7/21/2026 at 3:56:34 PM

Yeah I also figured this would be somwthing based on LoRa or some other IoT wireless protocol for devices you can stick a battery onto and throw in the middle of nowhere

by yonatan8070

7/21/2026 at 10:48:22 AM

A bit of topic , but I wonder if people who are starting in this field not directly start on esp32 platforms. It's so damn easy to develop with AI on these platforms. In the past we spend a week on lcd drivers alone. Now one can build an entire application that controls other devices via serial, has its own fancy UI, has all kind of useless features like 40 languages, its own webserver, OTA, demo modes and more. With Arduino I am not sure what you get these days

by holoduke

7/21/2026 at 1:43:20 PM

I predict the AI enabled MCU development wave will lift all ships.

AI has absolutely crushed the barrier to entry for using this gear. It's a spectacular turn of events and I suspect sales have never been better, if my own behavior is any indication.

Arduino ships an STM32 which is really feature rich btw.

I really can't get over how many things in life do not require an OS but people used them anyways because it's easier to develop on.

by delabay

7/21/2026 at 5:11:37 PM

>AI has absolutely crushed the barrier to entry for using this gear

Sure, now people can make more frequent dangerous assumptions with twice the overconfidence. =3

by Joel_Mckay

7/21/2026 at 11:07:34 AM

I just started with esp-idf because I can't stand all the bloat of Arduino/Platform.io/ESPHome. Especially now where working with unfamiliar tech stack is easier than ever.

by ivanjermakov

7/21/2026 at 12:04:05 PM

The Esp FreeRTOS projects are a great little ecosystem, and will offer quite a bit more insight than Arduino pseudo-C++ silent-polled architecture.

In general, it depends what you want out of the ecosystems. For quickly setting up a proof of concept, an Arduino used to be good for the exhaustive documentation, examples, community, and labs.

The modern Arduino integrated product line is now similar to other locked ecosystems like FPGAs. It no longer lets students learn by burning out $10 parts they made. The only people having fun now are the folks building those trademarked modules.

Probably wise to avoid LLMs if you are a student, and check out the $6 Pi Pico 2 if interested in low-level firmware build processes (it also supports the old Arduino IDE if you get stuck.)

Best of luck =3

Lab:

https://learn.adafruit.com/using-raspberry-pi-pico-pico-2-wi...

Pico 2:

https://www.mouser.com/en/new/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-pico...

https://www.mouser.com/en/ProductDetail/Raspberry-Pi/SC1632?...

Breadboard and common components to build and blink LED lights (set everything at 3.3v to start exploring):

https://www.amazon.com/EL-CK-002-Electronic-Breadboard-Capac...

by Joel_Mckay

7/21/2026 at 12:08:39 PM

Yeah I did a project with ESP32 and micropython recently and getting the proof of concept up was very very quick. The agent I was using also had no problem writing drivers for peripherals that didnt already have micropython drivers (I seem to recall it ported C or Arduino reference code)

by ac29

7/21/2026 at 12:26:57 PM

Pull off the C/C++ band-aid already, it will give you a clearer understanding of how these chips actually function. =3

by Joel_Mckay

7/21/2026 at 1:44:25 PM

Not everybody has time or needs to understand how these chips function. I don't need to know how a CPU functions to write python.

by delabay

7/21/2026 at 2:46:36 PM

Yeah how dare he suggest you improve yourself or learn more about the thing you seem to be interested in operating. I could understand if we were on a website about technology and curiosity, but this is just hacker news.

by bschwindHN

7/21/2026 at 5:29:19 PM

Why are you responding as if that was an attack? Not everyone needs to know every intricate detail of a system to use it. Nor should they.

That type of thinking is like saying unless you can cook a gourmet restaurant quality meal you don't deserve to eat at a gourmet restaurant. Absurd.

by iamatworknow

7/21/2026 at 2:18:22 PM

The first ESP32 board I worked with had some damn WiFi stack running in the background—not nearly as "bare metal" as I had come to expect from having just stepped out of the Arduino world.

(I've since learned, from an LLM, ha ha, how to turn that off if you don't need it.)

by JKCalhoun

7/21/2026 at 4:50:57 PM

Well esp is wifi baked in the chip. If you want determenstic clock cycles then go for stm32. If you want easy quick setups. Like an interface for a fatbikes, washmachine, dashboard for a car, then go for esp

by holoduke

7/21/2026 at 10:42:38 AM

I thought arduino was on everyone's shit lists for trying to go closed source? Did that change?

by superxpro12

7/21/2026 at 2:19:11 PM

Not for me, still in Camp-Teensy.

by JKCalhoun

7/21/2026 at 10:48:38 AM

Qualcomm still sucks, but there’s not much Qualcomm in this.

by relaxing