Planet Arduino

In the latest Arduino Education update, we’ve made the Arduino Create app free for Chrome. From today, as many educators, students, and parents around the world as possible can now access the Arduino Create Agent.

What is Arduino Create (soon to become Arduino Cloud)?

Arduino Create is an online platform that lets students write code, access tutorials, configure boards, and share projects. 

Designed to provide users with a continuous workflow, Arduino Create connects the dots from inspiration to creation. This means students can manage every aspect of their projects right from a single dashboard.

Get the app for Chrome and Chromebooks

The app lets you use the Arduino Create on Chromebooks. You can then code online and save your sketches in the Cloud. Then you can upload them to any Arduino board connected to your computer, and do it all without having to install anything locally.

Developed with the classroom in mind, the Arduino Create app runs on Chrome OS. It enables you to teach and play with Arduino electronics and programming in a shared environment. Because it’s a Cloud-based environment, you can also be sure it’s always up-to-date. All the contributed libraries are automatically included, and any new Arduino boards are supported out-of-the-box.

Arduino’s CEO, Fabio Violante, says, “The aim of Arduino Education is to put technology into the hands of every student around the world. Making Arduino Create free, and therefore more accessible, is a step towards doing this. We’re proud to provide open-source software, and want to inspire students and educators in STEAM learning.”

Download the Arduino Create app here, and join us on the forums to tell us about your experiences.

The post Now free! Get the Arduino Create app for Chrome classrooms appeared first on Arduino Blog.

It’s been a while since the last release of the Arduino Create Agent.

We tried to give some love to this awesome tool, in order to enhance the experience with the Create ecosystem.

Finally, we have a brand new CI/CD pipeline based on GitHub Actions.

Highlights of this release include:

• New status bar icon
• We used gomodules to better handle dependencies
• Refactor system tray menu
• UX improvements
• Now we ship both 32 and 64-bit Windows binaries
• Added crash report generation
• Added Virustotal scan to help users with false positives antivirus detections
• We decided to uniform the naming to “Arduino Create Agent” and remove the mentions to “Plugin” or “Bridge”

If you are interested in the complete changelog, you can find that here.

For the upcoming releases, we will tackle the stability/crash problems. So please help us discover and find bugs by enabling crash report and including it in the GitHub issue.

To help individuals work remotely and share their designs with team members, we’re providing a free three-month upgrade to the Arduino Create Maker plan to all 1.4 million users of Create as well as new subscribers to the service. With Arduino Create everything is ready to go; there is no need to install libraries and you can quickly share your sketch with teammates via just a URL. 

To gain your free three-month upgrade* all you need to do is go to Arduino Create choose the “Maker” plan with the default monthly option and enter the voucher code “CREATE4FREE” during the purchase process.

Arduino Create enables users to write code, access content, configure boards and share projects. Features such as an always up-to-date online IDE and the ability to share builds and receive feedback from other facilities means you can work from home efficiently and effectively. If you don’t want to start a project from scratch there’s always the option to tap into the power of the community on the Arduino Project Hub by browsing projects and making them your own. 

The ‘Maker’ plan comes with the added benefits of up to 250 sketches allowed in your sketchbook along with 200MB space to store those sketches and libraries. You can manage more connected objects (five ‘things’) with up to 20 properties per ‘thing,’ enabling the development of complete IoT solutions. Automating processes remotely is further enabled by the Maker plan including access to set up and remotely control 5 of each cloud enabled Arduino board, three cloud-enabled Linux devices, and one cloud-enabled generic third-party board.

Find out more details about Arduino Create and all the features included in the Maker plan here.

*The ‘free 3-month upgrade to Create Maker is applicable to the monthly plan and is limited to new subscribers only. Voucher code “CREATE4FREE” expires June 30th, 2020. 

Please note the first monthly payment will start three months after you purchase the plan, and you are able to cancel your subscription at any time.

Arduino Create, the integrated online platform that enables makers and professional developers to write code, access content, configure boards and share projects, now offers users the ability to upgrade their service by opting for the Create Maker plan to experience the Arduino IoT Cloud to the fullest.

Aside from no ad interruptions in their working space, for a monthly fee of $6.99 USD (plus applicable taxes), Create Maker plan subscribers will enjoy an array of extra features and benefits over the free Create plan.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what subscribers can look forward to:

• 250 sketches allowed in your sketchbook
• 200MB space to store sketches and libraries
• Unlimited compilation time to verify code and upload it to your board
• Five ‘things’ (connected objects) and 20 properties per each ‘thing’
• Access to set up and remotely control five of each cloud-enabled Arduino board type 
• Access to set up and remotely control three cloud-enabled Linux devices
• Access to set up and remotely control one cloud-enabled generic third-party board
• Custom library editing
• Web Editor support for third-party boards (ESP8266)
• Access to Arduino Create Chrome app

All of the above are in addition to the standard features that are available to all Arduino Create users, such as an always up-to-date online IDE and the option to tap into the power of the community on the Arduino Project Hub by browsing projects and making them their own. Users can share their builds and receive feedback from others, while the in-depth guided flows make it easy to configure online services like the Web Editor and Cloud.

Ready to subscribe? If you’re fortunate enough to be one of the first 500 to do so, we’ll include a FREE MKR WiFi 1010 board with your monthly plan!

Today, at Embedded Linux Conference 2018, Arduino announced the expansion of the number of architectures supported by its Arduino Create platform for the development of IoT applications. With this new release, Arduino Create users can manage and program a wide range of popular Linux® single-board computers like the AAEON® UP² board, Raspberry Pi® and BeagleBone® as if they were regular Arduino boards. Multiple Arduino programs can run simultaneously on a Linux-based board and interact and communicate with each other, leveraging the capabilities provided by the new Arduino Connector. Moreover, IoT devices can be managed and updated remotely, independently from where they are located.

To further simplify the user journey, Arduino has also developed a novel out-of-the-box experience for Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone boards, in addition to Intel®  SBCs, which enables anyone to set up a new device from scratch via the cloud without any previous knowledge by following an intuitive web-based wizard. Arduino plans to continue enriching and expanding the set of features of Arduino Create in the coming months.

“With this release, Arduino extends its reach into edge computing, enabling anybody with Arduino programming experience to manage and develop complex multi-architecture IoT applications on gateways,” said Massimo Banzi, Arduino CTO. “This is an important step forward in democratizing access to the professional Internet of Things.”

“At Arduino we want to empower anyone to be an active player in the digital world. Being able to run Arduino code and manage connected Linux devices is an important step in this direction, especially for IoT applications that need more computing power, like AI and computer vision,” added Fabio Violante, Arduino CEO.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Arduino Create is now available for schools with Chrome OS devices in their classrooms.

With Arduino Create, students and teachers will be able to tinker with Arduino hardware and programming in a collaborative, always up-to-date environment. You can learn how to subscribe using this tutorial.

Last June, we launched Arduino Create for Chrome OS; however due to limitations with Google Apps for Education (GAFE), educational institutions were unable to purchase subscriptions on the Chrome Web Store.

The new Arduino Create subscription site allows schools to purchase and manage subscription plans for their students, starting at $0.20/student per month. All you need is a credit card and the email addresses of the students you would like to enroll. We also have a solution for students under the age of 14 who might not have full access to emails.

The Google Admin console can be used by IT administrators to bulk install the app on a fleet of Chrome OS devices.

Arduino Create will continue to be available for regular Chrome OS users at $0.99 per month on the Chrome Web Store. Both versions support the following boards: Uno, 101, Mega, Mega ADK, Esplora, Nano (ATmega328), Micro, Zero, MKR1000, MKR Zero, MKR Fox 1200, MKR GSM 1400, MKR WAN 1300, Pro, and Pro Mini (ATmega328).

Visit the new Arduino Create subscription site to get started. If you have any questions or comments, write to us on this Forum page. We look forward to hearing your feedback!

We’re excited to announce a new update to the Arduino Create web platform, which will enable fast and easy development and deployment of IoT applications with integrated cloud services on Linux-based devices.

What this means is that users will be able to program their Linux boards as if they were regular Arduinos. Multiple Arduino programs can run simultaneously on a Linux board and programs can communicate with each other leveraging the capabilities of the new open source Arduino Connector. 

Arduino Create Cloud now allows users to manage individual IoT devices, and configure them remotely and independently from where they are located. To further simplify the user journey, we’ve also developed a novel “out of the box” experience that will let anyone set up a new device from scratch via the cloud without any previous knowledge by following an intuitive web-based wizard

The initial release has been sponsored by Intel® and supports X86/X86_64 boards. As a reference implementation, a simplified user experience has been designed for the AAEON® UP² board, although other platforms are already supported by the Arduino Create Cloud platform, such as the Intel® NUC, Dell Wyse®, Gigabyte™ GB-BXT.

In the coming months, we plan to expand support for Linux–based IoT devices running on other hardware architectures. Until then, you can find more information here and follow the tutorials below to help get you going:

• Getting Started with Intel-Based Platforms on Arduino Create
• Interacting with a TI SensorTag from an Intel NUC
• Intel Math Kernel Library on Arduino
• Arduino ? Linux (on UP2 Board) with Intel Mraa

Arduino Create is now available to everyone on Chrome OS devices, with $0.99 per month subscription. An Arduino account and Google ID is all you need to use it, just follow the Create Getting Started guide on your Chrome OS device. We are actively working on specific licensing and pricing for schools, so stay tuned.

The new Arduino Create Chrome App enables students and other users to write code, access tutorials, configure boards, and share projects. Designed to provide a continuous workflow from inspiration to implementation, Makers can easily manage every aspect of their project right from a single dashboard.

Developed with the classroom in mind: The Arduino Chrome App allows you to teach and tinker with Arduino electronics and programming in a collaborative, always-up-to-date environment.

Built for Chrome OS: Code online, save your sketches in the cloud, and upload them to any Arduino connected to your Chrome OS device, without having to install anything locally. All the contributed libraries are automatically included.

The following Arduinos are currently supported: Uno, 101, Mega, Esplora, Nano (ATmega328), Micro, Zero, MKR1000, MKR Zero, MKR Fox 1200, Pro and Pro Mini (ATmega328). We are actively working with the Chromium team to restore support for the Arduino Leonardo in a future Chrome OS release.

The launch of this app would not have been possible without the following open source components:

• avrgirl-arduino by Suz Hinton
• dapjs by Microsoft,
• browser-serialport by Glen Arrowsmith
• browser-usb by Jacob Rosenthal

As usual if you encounter any bugs, issues, or have an idea on how we can improve the Chrome app, please open a discussion thread on this Forum page.
Please note that this app will work only on Chrome OS, if you click on the Google Store link on any other OS you will not be able to install it.

Some useful updates on the Arduino Web Editor!

Are you sticking to the desktop Arduino IDE because all your work is saved locally? That’s no longer a problem! Our brand new import tool enables you to upload your entire sketchbook with just a few clicks on the Arduino Web Editor. It is particularly handy because it lets you move all your sketches and libraries to the cloud in a single flow.

Once your sketches and libraries are online, they will be available on any device and backed up. For details on how to migrate all your code online, check out this tutorial.

Sadly, Codebender is shutting down. You can use the import feature also to easily migrate to the Web Editor. (More details here.)

If you have a big sketchbook, you may want to clean up or categorize things once in awhile. With our bulk action tool, you can delete, move, or download multiple sketches at the same time. Go to the Sketchbook panel, hover on the sketch icon, and select all the files you want to act on. Doubts on how this will work? Learn more in this guide.

What’s coming next?

We are currently working on a super streamlined way to edit your libraries within the Web Editor, and looking for the best way to implement the Chromebook plugin. Stay tuned!

The Arduino Web Editor has got some exciting new features! 

First of all, you just need to have Arduino account to use it. We completely removed the invite system, making it accessible to everyone. (Don’t have an Arduino account? Sign up!) This Arduino profile can also be used to post on our official Forum, buy products on our online stores, add comments on our blog, as well as create tutorials on the Arduino Project Hub.

What’s more, we’ve added the Library Manager to the online IDE; meaning, all the community-generated libraries are now available for your sketches without having to install anything. The Arduino community has written over 700 libraries, which you can browse through in the Library Manager and favorite the ones you like the most. All the libraries available in the Library Manager are automatically detected, so you’ll never need to install them to get your code to compile.

Since all the contributed libraries are up on our servers, if you use them and then you share your sketch with someone, they could simply add a copy of your code to their sketchbook and will be able to compile it without having to do anything else. We know that sharing a sketch and its related libraries can be cumbersome; fortunately, the Web Editor can really speed up this process. Take this Themostat Bot sketch, for instance, which uses a variety of contributed libraries.

But what if you want to select a specific version of a library? Look for it on the Library Manager and star it. It will show up on the the “favorites” tab of the “libraries” panel. From there, you can choose a particular version and include it in your sketch. We are adding metadata to the sketch about the version number, so we can tell the Arduino Builder to pick the one you really want.

When building your sketch, we will always look at your custom libraries first, your favorites next, and then Arduino built-in libraries. If you favorite a library, you can see its related examples, get more information and a link to the GitHub repository, and download it.

Last but not least, you now can use the Arduino Web Editor on Microsoft Edge.

What’s next?
We are adding a quick way to import your whole sketchbook in one click, so you can save all your sketches and libraries in the cloud, having them available on any device and backed up. In addition to that, we are working on a feature that will allow you to see a library source code and modify it, as well as a ‘secret tab’ where you will be able to store all your sensitive data and share them securely.

As aforementioned, all the sketches you create on the Arduino Web Editor are public–anyone with the link can access them. We are also developing a private sketch feature… more on that soon.

We would love to hear your feedback!
We are keeping a close eye on the Web Editor’s Forum page, and would love to hear from you if you encounter any bugs, have any input, or want to share a couple ideas with us. Interested in learning more? You can find a getting started guide on how to use the Web Editor here.

Tech notes
We are happy to announce we are completely decoupling frontend and the backend of the Arduino Web Editor, resulting in a faster loading time. In the future, the new architecture will let us distribute the application all over the world using a CDN. On the server side, we now have a set of full REST API for both compiling and obtaining user info like sketches and libraries. The full REST API will enable our Web Editor to speak with a new ecosystem of applications and third party integrations.