Arduino is an electronic platform with a diverse number of development boards available to communicate between real and programming worlds. It allows students, beginners, teachers, and engineers to design academic and real time projects to solve modern problems. Apart from Arduino’s vast scope it has some limitations also. Nothing is 100% perfect in this world! Like every electronic gadget Arduino has also some restrictions to work with.
Arduino is designed to make the microcontroller world more accessible. It is based upon ATmega AVR microcontrollers. Arduino platforms consist of circuit boards like UNO, normally referring to microcontrollers and the development part known as IDE. Using IDE, Arduino boards can be programmed using C++ language.
The Arduino platform has multiple learning opportunities due to its vast usage and advantage over microcontrollers but along with good there is always a chance of bad things.
What are the Advantages of Arduino
Arduino has been used for a long time in electronic projects and it has been the favorite board of beginners in the electronic world. Here are some advantages of Arduino due to which it is so popular.
Easy to Use
Arduino is super easy to learn. Any beginner can learn Arduino with little or no knowledge of programming. It uses a simplified version of C/C++ language which is easily adaptable. It is an ideal board for beginners. Arduino is a plug and play electronic board with a simple and minimalistic hardware interface.
Inexpensive Hardware
Arduino boards are available at low cost. To start building our first program we just need an Arduino board as its development tool IDE is freely available. There is no need for any external hardware, multiple projects can be made using single Arduino boards which cut overall project cost by a great margin.
Active User Community
Arduino is an open-source community with many online supports available on Arduino forum. Thanks to open-source nature of Arduino projects, as a lot of work on multiple topics has already been done. Multiple Arduino projects starting from fan controllers to smart homes have been designed already.
Cross Platform Support
Arduino is not only limited to Windows it is also available across multiple platforms like Linux and macOS. Most of the microcontrollers can only be programmed using Windows but not in case with Arduino.
Tons of Libraries
Many Arduino libraries are available to control external sensors, modules, and motors. Functionality of Arduino boards can be extended using these libraries. Libraries provide the user free hand to play with hardware and manipulate data easily.
What are the Disadvantages of Arduino
Arduino boards are not always the best choice, with so much to offer Arduino has some disadvantages too. Here is a brief description of a few shortcomings Arduino have.
Lack of Multitasking
Arduino boards are limited to run only a single program at a time. Other competitor boards like Raspberry Pi offers multitasking functionality. Like multicore CPUs that can run multiple programs without slowing the speed of the overall system, Arduino lacks this ability and we must close one sketch to execute the other one.
Not Optimized for Performance
Microcontrollers used in most Arduino boards are not ready to give their full performance. The Arduino development environment is optimized for beginners so they can easily create sketches. All this optimization comes at the cost of reducing the microcontroller’s overall power ability. If the same microcontroller is used with AVR development the performance will be increased by manifolds.
Lack of Communications
Arduino boards are limited in terms of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. Popular Arduino boards like UNO don’t have in-built communications support; we must interface external hardware modules to enable these functions. Arduino ships few boards with these technologies, but overall cost increased compared to other boards available in the market.
Limited Support for Programming Languages
Arduino boards are mostly programmed in C or C++ language. Arduino lacks support for some very famous languages like Java, Python and JavaScript. Although Arduino doesn’t directly support Python with IDE but can be programmed using some open-source libraries like pySerial.
Less Memory Storage Capacity
One of the main features which Arduino lacks is it has limited memory storage. Arduino UNO has 2kb of SRAM and 32kb of flash memory which can only store sketches with hundreds of lines. Due to this Arduino has limited scope in the robotics world and cannot be used in industrial scale projects.
Conclusion
Arduino is a microcontroller-based platform used for rapid prototyping. Arduino is a starter package for beginners and designed for students to get into the programming world however Arduino is not designed for a harsh industrial environment. Arduino has limited processing power that cannot meet industrial requirements. If you must design a complex project that demands rapid and high processing ability, then a microprocessor board like Raspberry Pi is the best choice which has a lot more functionality. To learn more about Raspberry Pi click here.
