Some interesting controversies around the project.
Firstly my assumptions may be horribly wrong, but it seems that:
- Microduino(The company) is the suppliers of Microduino(s).
- They previously sold it to companies that would sell it to consumers, a example is Hobby Components.
- Starting with the Kick Starter project they started to warn prospective customers of companies that sells "fake" Microduino.
- zhouyisu, posted a link to a Chinese company(distributor/supplier?) that also sells it. Is theses Microduino fake?
Keeping the above in mind, arduino was designed with open hardware in mind. So you can easily get spinoff project like these.
But there is also a risk that other people will be able to work off your hard work, which I don't think is really wrong.
Because I believe value is not in the physical product but the support. So buy it from the cheapest company, but don't expect support from another company.
In regards to Microduino using kickstarter they way it is using it at the moment, I don't believe their doing something wrong. After all they are crowd-funding.
But leaving it there I did not found any indication on the kick starter page that it is new, and their pledge goal of $20,000 does not feel like they want to rip someone off.
I perceive it has the company itself want to start to sell to the "consumer" directly, and kick-starter is a great way to test if there is any interest.
What I want to know is does anybody see something wrong with Microduino to use kick starter like this?
Don't think you need to. From the dates on the feedback, it's obvious even without speaking Chinese that this has been for sale since March, and after running both the current description and archived versions through Google Translate there's no disclaimers I can see about it being a sample or beta or anything.
thats fast. SO basically, take existing product start kickstarter + nice profit margin, and claim the credit if I understand correctly. Not that its wrong or anything...
I don't know about claiming credit, It seems that they were a supplier that now wants to become a distributor of their own product, but correct me if I'm wrong.
What is questionable is how they are informing the public about other distributers.
No, the DigiSpark is based on an ATTiny85 microcontroller, the Microduino is ATmega328P/ATmega168PA-based (Core) or ATmega644PA/ATmega1284P-based (Core+), like the Arduino Uno and Arduino Mega2560, respectively.
Back a few years ago when your choices were: Cypress, SiLabs, I forget who else; FTDI was the first one that could be made to work relatively trouble-free on all three major OS platforms.
I agree with you here, but it is easy to screw it up. Early Arduino UNO models had to have the USB bridge's firmware updated because someone forgot a compiler flag, which resulted in a difficult to troubleshoot bug that would effectively 'brick'[1] some boards. http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/DFUProgramming8U2
[1] Not really bricked, but bricked to someone who is expecting an Arduino, and new to microcontrollers.
It's Microduno Studio, we has been working on the small, elegant boards over one year. We love Microduinos and are putting much time and effort to improve and balance Microduino’s performance, usability and appearance. Microduino is made very small and elegant without sacrificing its functionality. Sometimes we revised the PCB, just because there were components not aligned well on PCB board. We want everything to be perfect so you would love it. We enjoy every minute we design/test/use Microduino and want to share Microduino with more people, which is why we go to Kickstarter. There many great makers/geeks like you can share brilliant ideas and designs together.
To clarify things regarding the agent or distributors, there are some basic facts of Microduino:
1. Since we set up Microduino Studio in 2012, Microduino studio has NEVER authorized any agent or distributor to sell any Microduino product.
2. Microduino started to promote Microduino brand and products since May 2013. Initially we were targeting to start Kickstarter project on Aug 22, 2013, but finally launched it on Sep 9, 2013. We paid special attention not to contact or authorize any agent or distributor before and during Kickstarter campaign, to avoid any potential issue.
3. From May 2013, we had provided some Microduino samples to our community members with prices equal or even lower than our cost. That was for Microduino modules testing and user experience purpose only, never for resale. Those early versions have some problems and bugs (check details in our product wiki history). And thanks for the feedback from community members, we have modified our design many times to improve everything. Seveal revisions have been made since then. Actually many potential distributors and agents have contacted us. Our answer has always been: we're not ready. We must focus on design itself so that we can provide perfect products to all community members.
4. We don't know from which channel Hobby Components got some samples of Microduino. We checked our sample distributing record. There is a Microduino Chinese user, who bought 20 Microduino sample sets in June 2013 from us, and finally sold them to a “Europe user”. This user had never told us any detail about this Europe user before. Until now, we guess that was “Hobby Component”.
5. We have sent message to “Hobby Components” to ask them stop selling any Microduino modules without our authorization.
Many statements of “Hobby Components” are not true at their website. Below please find our comments:
“Hobby Components has been selling Microduino products since the beginning of June this year and these products were manufactured and purchased from by Microduino Studios. That Microduino Studios were fully aware that these boards were purchased for the purpose of resale. At no point has Microduino ever conveyed that their products were not intended for resale.”
[Microduino:] It’s not true! The boards are made by Microduino studio, but they were not directly purchased from Microduino Studios. We didn’t know why and from which channel “Hobby” got these samples.
“It is the belief of Hobby Components that Microduino Studios have been producing batches of module, have knowingly sold them for resale, and that they changed this policy as a result of the Kickstarter project. That Microduino knowing that existing availability of its products would have a significant effect on its ability to raise funding via its Kickstarter project, consciously decided to hide this fact by denouncing our website as “fakes”, “frauds” and “scams”.”
[Microduino:] It’s not true! Since we began to promote Microduino, our goal was to launch Microduino Kickstarter project. We made a very clear schedule/milestone and task assignments, and we followed it step by step.
“Microduino Studios have also made contact with us several times in the past via our supply chain prior to the kickstarter project regarding placing of orders, availability of their products and feedback.”
[Microduino:] It’s not true! We didn’t know who their supply chain was. We didn’t even know the “Hobby Components” name before. We just heard this name after we received a message from a backer on Kickstarter.
After all, if Hobby Components wants to sell Microduino products, it should have directly contacted us to get authorization, not the other way around.
We strongly request Hobby Components to stop spreading untrue statements against Microduino Studio. We hope this issue can be resolved as quickly as possible. However, if it continues, we will take every action we see necessary to protect ourselves.
If you still have any question regarding this issue, you can contact us directly at makermodule@gmail.com.
You can reach us through Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Wiki for more Information.
I am having trouble finding information about how this "open source" project is licensed. Could you clarify your licensing? Searches of the Kickstarter pages and the "microduino.cc" pages aren't getting me any licensing-related information.
Without proof, it is very difficult to find out who is telling the truth, and I sincerely hope that this situation will be solved asap for the product's sake.
From a more technical point of view, the Microduino board looks like an interesting idea, but as Open Hardware, you won't be able to prevent people rolling their own board, although you can block them from using a registered name (is "Microduino" registered like "Arduino" is?).
Firstly my assumptions may be horribly wrong, but it seems that:
- Microduino(The company) is the suppliers of Microduino(s).
- They previously sold it to companies that would sell it to consumers, a example is Hobby Components.
- Starting with the Kick Starter project they started to warn prospective customers of companies that sells "fake" Microduino.
- zhouyisu, posted a link to a Chinese company(distributor/supplier?) that also sells it. Is theses Microduino fake?
Keeping the above in mind, arduino was designed with open hardware in mind. So you can easily get spinoff project like these.
But there is also a risk that other people will be able to work off your hard work, which I don't think is really wrong.
Because I believe value is not in the physical product but the support. So buy it from the cheapest company, but don't expect support from another company.
In regards to Microduino using kickstarter they way it is using it at the moment, I don't believe their doing something wrong. After all they are crowd-funding.