<div id="readability-page-1"><div>//php echo do_shortcode('[responsivevoice_button voice=&#34;US English Male&#34; buttontext=&#34;Listen to Post&#34;]') ?&gt; A quick visit to the Arduino Project Hub reveals more than 6,000 projects, ranging from simple sensor experiments to near production-grade systems. So, when Qualcomm acquired Arduino last month, design engineers around the world wanted clarity on how firmly Arduino would hold on to its open-source philosophy after becoming part of a proprietary, fabless semiconductor company.EE Times spoke to Guneet Bedi, SVP of Arduino, who was unequivocal in saying that Arduino’s governance structure had remained intact even after the acquisition.“As a business unit within Qualcomm, Arduino continues to make independent decisions on its product portfolio, with no direction imposed on where it should or should not go,” Bedi said. “Everything that Arduino builds will remain open and openly available to developers, with design engineers, students and makers continuing to be the primary focus.” That assurance matters because Arduino’s appeal has always rested on accessibility. Bedi pointed out that Arduino has long been the largest open-source ecosystem for embedded electronics, built around simplifying complex technologies. While the company had made steady progress with microcontrollers and a broad vendor ecosystem, one gap had become increasingly obvious. “Developers who had mastered basic embedded workflows were now asking how to run large language models at the edge and work with artificial intelligence for vision and voice, with an open source mindset,” he said. According to Bedi, this was where Qualcomm’s technology became relevant. “Qualcomm’s chipsets are high performance while also being very low power, which comes from their mobile and Android phone heritage. Despite being great technology, it is not easily accessible to design engineers because of cost and complexity. That made this a strong fit,” he said.The most visible outcome of this acquisition is Uno Q, which Bedi described as being comparable to a mid-tier Android phone in capability, starting at a price of $44. For Arduino, this marked a shift beyond microcontrollers without abandoning them.Arduino Uno Q. (Source: Arduino)<h3>What changes for engineers</h3>A couple of years ago, I set out to design an IoT-based home automation project. What began as a typical Linux board-based setup paired with an Arduino Nano quickly turned into a tangle of boards, cables and timing workarounds.That personal experience helps frame what Uno Q is really trying to change. It is not that Arduino has suddenly become more powerful, but that it has become less fragmented. Instead of forcing developers to stitch together a Linux board for compute and a separate microcontroller for real-time control, Arduino has collapsed both roles into a single platform.“At the end of the day, we have not gone away from our legacy,” Bedi said. “You still have a real-time microcontroller, and you still write code the way Arduino developers are used to. What we added is compute, without forcing people to change how they work.”Uno Q combines a Linux-based compute system with a real-time microcontroller from the STM32 family. “You do not need two different development environments or two different hardware platforms,” Bedi added.That unification is delivered through App Lab, which extends Arduino’s familiar sketch-based approach into the Linux world. Rather than introducing a customized operating system, Arduino chose standard Debian upstream.“We are not locking developers into anything,” Bedi said. “It is standard Debian, completely open.”App Lab introduces reusable Linux components that play the same role sketches once did in embedded development. “The goal is not to teach people Linux from scratch,” he said. “It is to let them use compute the same way they learned embedded.”<h3>Edge AI without lock-in</h3>That philosophy also shapes how Arduino is approaching edge AI. Pre-built models covering tasks like object detection and voice recognition run locally on the board. App Lab acts as an abstraction layer for acceleration on Qualcomm SoCs, starting with the Qualcomm DragonWing QRB 2210.While the first reference design uses Qualcomm silicon, Bedi was careful to stress that this does not define the roadmap. “There is zero dependency on Qualcomm silicon,” he said. “The architecture is portable. Tomorrow, we can run this on something else.”That distinction matters, particularly for developers wary of vendor lock-in following the acquisition.Uno Q does compete directly with platforms like Raspberry Pi and Nvidia Jetson, but Bedi framed the difference less in terms of raw performance and more in flexibility.“When you build on those platforms, you are locked to the board,” he said. “Here, you can build a prototype, and if you like it, you can also get access to the chip and design your own hardware.”With built-in storage removing the need for external components, Uno Q positions itself less as a faster board and more as a way to simplify what had become an increasingly messy development stack.Concerns that Qualcomm’s backing might push Arduino toward aggressive monetization or enterprise-only services were, in Bedi’s words, “misplaced.” He was quick to point out that Arduino’s enterprise footprint predates the acquisition by several years.“Arduino had already been serving enterprise developers well before the acquisition through its businesses—makers, education and Arduino Pro. Arduino Pro was launched three years ago with large silicon vendors and enterprise customers. Today, around 40 to 50 percent of our developer base consists of professional design engineers, including teams inside large automotive companies,” Bedi said.What Uno Q introduces, he explained, is a bridge between those professional use cases and Arduino’s maker roots. “We do not just want to stick to reference designs. We want to redefine prototyping in the age of physical artificial intelligence,” he said.<h3>Early reactions and market direction</h3>Bedi pointed out that early reactions to the Uno Q announcement suggest strong interest in robotics and industrial automation, with home automation emerging as another major area. He cited use cases like local voice-controlled assistants and facial recognition doorbells that operate without cloud dependency.Consumer devices requiring more compute than a simple microcontroller, including kiosks and point-of-sale systems, are also showing traction. Agriculture, somewhat unexpectedly, has emerged as another area of experimentation, with developers using edge compute to process sensor data and control irrigation systems affordably.Geographically, Bedi said the pattern is broadly similar in India, though industrial automation adoption has been slower.“Home automation, agriculture and robotics dominate, alongside experimentation with extended reality devices and payment terminals,” he said.Looking a year ahead, Bedi believes developers should experience continuity rather than disruption. The familiar Arduino approach to embedded and real-time systems remains unchanged, while extending naturally into more compute-intensive applications.Several early demonstrations hint at what that future might look like. Bedi cited a 3D-printed vehicle controlled entirely by Uno Q, where the developer implemented an advanced driver assistance-style system capable of detecting obstacles and responding in real time. Other examples include non-cloud-dependent home automation using onboard voice models, agricultural systems that process sensor data locally, and vision inspection setups that read labels and detect damage on shipping boxes.Taken together, Bedi’s comments suggest that Arduino’s post-acquisition direction is less about changing what Arduino is, and more about expanding what it can realistically be used for, without abandoning the simplicity that made it relevant in the first place.<h5>See also:</h5>Preparing Electronics Engineering Students for IndustryPlugging the Electronics Skills Shortage the U.K. Way With UKESF </div></div>

QCOM

Qualcomm's acquisition of Arduino has raised questions about Arduino's open-source philosophy. Guneet Bedi, SVP of Arduino, assures that Arduino's governance remains intact, continuing its focus on accessibility and open-source development. The acquisition introduces Uno Q, a unified platform combining Linux-based compute with real-time microcontroller capabilities, enhancing development flexibility without vendor lock-in. Arduino aims to simplify development processes while maintaining its legacy, with Qualcomm's technology supporting edge AI applications.

- Qualcomm's acquisition of Arduino raised concerns about the future of its open-source philosophy, but SVP Guneet Bedi assured that Arduino's governance remains intact, with continued independence in decision-making.  
- The introduction of the Uno Q platform unifies Linux-based compute and a real-time microcontroller, aimed at simplifying development while maintaining accessibility for developers.  
- Early reactions show strong interest in applications like robotics and home automation, as Arduino continues to expand its capabilities without sacrificing its core principles of simplicity and openness in design.

What Comes Next for Arduino after Qualcomm’s Acquisition?