In a shock move, Qualcomm has acquired Arduino, the open-source hardware and software company. The move marks one of Qualcomm’s most significant steps yet toward expanding its influence beyond smartphones and computing, and into the rapidly growing markets of Internet of Things (IoT), edge computing, and STEM education. What’s more, the two companies are already launching their first product: the Arduino UNO Q.
The Arduino UNO Q packs Qualcomm’s Dragonwing QRB2210 (matching the part number of the company’s RB1 platform) alongside a low-power STM32U5 MCU. It starts at $44 for 2 GB RAM and 16 GB of eMMC, and goes to $59 for 4 GB RAM and 32 GB eMMC.
Qualcomm and Arduino have both stated that they are committed to openness, and schematics and design files for the UNO Q will be released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. As well, the new Arduino App Lab, App CLI, Bricks and example software will be released under GPL3 and MPL licenses. These licenses are consistent with Arduino’s past releases.
Arduino is an industry leader in open-source hardware
And it seems like it’ll stay that way
Arduino, founded in 2005 and headquartered in Monza, Italy, has become synonymous with accessible electronics education and rapid prototyping. Its boards and software are at the heart of millions of DIY projects, classrooms, and research labs worldwide. With an estimated 33 million active users, Arduino has built one of the largest open-source hardware ecosystems on the planet, and one that Qualcomm now seeks to bring under its technological umbrella.
For Qualcomm, best known for its Snapdragon system-on-chip (SoC) platforms, this acquisition represents a strategic expansion beyond mobile and automotive into a much broader developer and education market. According to Qualcomm, “Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission,” though users will be provided with a “a clear path to commercialization” thanks to Qualcomm.
While the acquisition is certainly unexpected, it makes a lot of sense. Arduino has long been a gateway for engineers and developers entering the embedded systems world, and Arduino boards are found literally everywhere: from classrooms to the homes of DIY enthusiasts, most people in the tech sphere have at least heard of Arduino. With this acquisition, Qualcomm gains a direct line to education and maker markets, provides a platform for rapid IoT and edge AI prototyping, and can enhance its own open-source developer outreach.
In a sense, this acquisition allows Qualcomm to better compete with the likes of Nvidia’s Jetson boards, Raspberry Pi, and even Espressif’s ESP32. After all, Qualcomm is no stranger to developer boards like these, and the company’s “DragonBoard” series with the 410c and the 820c (which was a prototype and never widely released) didn’t really take off in the same way that those competitors did.
Arduino’s success has always stemmed from its transparency, vendor-neutrality, and collaborative development model, and it appears that Qualcomm, at least for now, doesn’t want that to change. Massimo Banzi, a co-founder of Arduino, said that “By joining Qualcomm Technologies we’ll bring cutting-edge AI tools to our community while staying true to what has always mattered most to us.”
The Arduino UNO Q is the most interesting Arduino board yet
The most affordable Arduino board to run Linux
Arduino’s UNO Q is particularly interesting as it runs Debian, and can be used as its own device without a computer through the USB-C port. While Qualcomm did not share whether it used DisplayPort over USB-C, the illustration the company shared of this particular use-case shows the UNO Q plugged into a USB-C hub. The Dragonwing QRB2210 has some pretty beefy specs for a board like this:
Quad Cortex-A53 @ 2.0 GHz
Dedicated DSP
Adreno 702 @ 845 MHz
720 × 1680 at 60 Hz
2x ISP
1080p 30fps 8-bit HEVC (H.265)/H.264 encode and decode
Concurrency: 1080p30 decode + 720p30 encode
Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 (2.4 GHz only)
Qualcomm Sensing Hub
The only other powerful Arduino board capable of running Linux is the Arduino Portenta X8, which cost almost $250 at launch in 2023. It packed the NXP i.MX 8M Mini (a quad-core Cortex-A53), up to 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and 16 GB eMMC storage. This is the first low-cost board from Arduino that can run Linux in a decade, as the only other low-cost options from the company were the Arduino Yun and Arduino Tian, launched in 2013 and 2015 respectively. The Arduino Tian was powered by a Qualcomm Atheros AR9342 MIPS processor, so a Qualcomm-powered Arduino board isn’t a totally new thing.
Hardware wise, the UNO Q has practically everything you could ever want from a development board for prototyping and building new hardware. It has a serial programmer, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, an LED matrix built-in to the board, Arduino UNO-specific headers, SPI 3v3 connectivity, a Qwiic 4-pin JST SH port, and more headers for further connectivity.
The Arduino App Lab is an all-new IDE for developing on Arduino, which you can run on the UNO Q itself or on a computer with the UNO Q connected. You can combine your usual Arduino sketches, Python scripts, and AI models, and you can run programs on the STM32U585 running Zephyr OS as a part of your development workflow.
Qualcomm’s acquisition of Arduino has come as a surprise, but the hardware that the two have built together looks to be incredibly powerful. There’s a lot that the UNO Q is capable of, and you can use it as a programmable SBC dedicated to building new projects, or simply as a computer, all while deploying your own local AI models and building your own devices with it.
If you’re lookinmg to buy one of the new Arduino UNO Q boards, the 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage option is available for purchase today, and will ship by October 25th. The 4 GB RAM and 32 GB storage option will be available for purchase in November, and will ship before the end of the year.