Arduino boards, uncertified manufacturer?

Arduino boards, uncertified manufacturer?

*BTW, if you are using CT-UNO, please ignore this tutorial. CT-UNO does not have compatibility issue with any version of the Arduino IDE :)

* Updated on 16 May 2015, with the Arduino IDE v1.6.4, the message of "Uncertified Manufacturer" disappeared. So do download it here :)

As you might have know, Arduino vs Arduino, the Arduino team is splitting off into two companies. Currently there are arduino.cc and arduino.org, both are original Arduino suppliers. 

This is Arduino.cc website, it looks like this when I visit today. 

cc website

 

And this is what Arduino.org looks like:

org website

 

Quote from Hackaday: Arduino v Arduino Part II

Arduino LLC is the company founded by [Massimo Banzi], [David Cuartielles], [David Mellis], [Tom Igoe] and [Gianluca Martino] in 2009 and is the owner of the Arduino trademark and gave us the designs, software, and community support that’s gotten the Arduino where it is. The boards were manufactured by a spinoff company, Smart Projects Srl, founded by the same [Gianluca Martino]. So far, so good.

Things got ugly in November when [Martino] and new CEO [Federico Musto] renamed Smart Projects to Arduino Srl and registered arduino.org (which is arguably a better domain name than the old arduino.cc). Whether or not this is a trademark infringement is waiting to be heard in the Massachussetts District Court.

According to this Italian Wired article, the cause of the split is that [Banzi] and the other three wanted to internationalize the brand and license production to other firms freely, while [Martino] and [Musto] at the company formerly known as Smart Projects want to list on the stock market and keep all production strictly in the Italian factory.

Naturally, a lot of the original Arduino’s Open Source Hardware credentials and ethos are hanging in the balance, not to mention its supply chain and dealer relationships. However the trademark suit comes out, we’re guessing it’s only going to be the first in a series of struggles. Get ready for the Arduino wars.

Today, when one of our engineers downloaded Arduino IDE v1.6.1 from Arduino.cc and uses it with the original Arduino UNO board that we bought from Italy, a message appears that it is Arduino UNO besides the com port number which is nice! But there is an extra message saying it is uncertified, Why?

*BTW, if you are using CT-UNO, please ignore this tutorial. CT-UNO does not have a compatibility issues with any version of the Arduino IDE :)

New Port

When you upload a sketch, there is a message popping up before the uploading process started. It reads: "This board comes from uncertified manufacturer. We wouldn't be able to provide any support if it doesn't works as expected."

new upload

 

 

 

Anyway, after clicking OK, the upload process proceeds and Arduino UNO executes the program as expected. But this sounds serious. Cytron is purchasing and selling original Arduino boards including UNO, Leonardo, and Mega from Italy (Arduino.cc) all the while. We produce Cytron's version of Arduino UNO and name it CT-UNO. We did not violate any terms and conditions by Arduino. So I checked with Cytron's purchasing department while searching the Internet for similar cases. Purchasing department confirms that we are purchasing from Italy Arduino all this while and never change suppliers. We are still the official distributor of Arduino.cc website:

cc distributor

 

Anyway, to verify the problem, we got some older Arduino UNO board and tested them, some does not have the "uncertified" message, and some have! We have also verified it under Arduino IDE v1.6.0 (older version), there is no such message either on the old or new board. 

This is the Arduino IDE v1.6.1 with an older (a few months ago) Arduino UNO. It looks nice and loads without a problem!

cc uno on 1-6-1

 

This is all the original Arduino UNO (Older or new) that we have on Arduino IDE v1.6.0. It does not show "Arduino UNO" side to COM41, but there is no "uncertified" message. The sketch was compiled and loaded without problem into both older and new Arduino UNO. So it is because Arduino IDE version?

1-6-0 IDE with Org

 

We are not alone. Searching the Internet reveals more information, the whole wide world is having the same problem! From Hackaday: Arduino v Arduino part II shows more information. Quoted from the article:

Finally, the story takes a slightly cheeky turn in the most recent version of the Arduino IDE, released on March 10. As of version 1.6.1, there’s been a patch to the Arduino codebase that pops up a warning dialog when an “Arduino” with the USB Vendor ID (VID) 0x2A03 is flashed. The pop-up message reads “This board comes from an uncertified manufacturer. We won’t be able to provide any support if it doesn’t work as expected.”

You may not be surprised that USB VID 0x2A03 belongs to “dog hunter AG”.  The Arduino IDE pops up the “uncertified manufacturer” warning any time this VID is used, on any board type. Conspicuously missing in all of this are any of the VIDs in use by the various other counterfeit “Arduino” boards running around out there. Either there are too many of them to address directly, or this is a targeted, tactical strike against the Arduino SRL camp.

If you don’t have a board with VID 0x2A03, you can see the changes to the IDE on GitHub for the commit “Added warning for uncertified boards“.  Scroll on down to the changes to the file “hardware/arduino/avr/boards.txt” and you’ll see what’s going on. (And smile if you don’t have to code in Java for a living: nearly 600 lines of code were added just to implement a simple pop-up dialog!)

Apparently, at least a couple of people with a UNO and a Mega256 have seen the warning and claim to have bought their devices through reputable retailers, including Mouser.

From my understanding, Arduino.org is handling the production of Arduino boards, they are producing Arduino boards and sell on Arduino.cc. The production team set up another company and register their website at arduino.org. They can still produce and sell the Arduino board. But since most of the software and designs are from the earlier team which is currently at Arduino.cc, and to let the whole world know about the fighting, Arduino.cc released another version of Arduino IDE that detect PID/VID of Arduino UNO from Arduino.org, further pop up a special message. Older IDE will not detect the VID/PID on Arduino IDE, thus there is no issue.

To verify further, I visited both Arduino.cc and Arduino.org download pages (Where Arduino IDE is downloaded). The Arduino.cc has released Arduino IDE v1.6.1, while Arduino.org is using Arduino v1.0.6.2 and I believe this is Arduino.org's version of the modified Arduino IDE.

Arduino.cc released Arduino IDE v1.6.1

cc download page

Arduino.org using Arduino IDE v1.0.6.2

org download page

 

Anyway, if you get an "uncertified" message, do not worry, this is a fight between two companies, the boards from Cytron are original, ignore the message and use it as a normal Arduino board. Or you can use Arduino IDE v1.6.0 if you don't like to see the message.

As for the Arduino logo and trademark ownership, they will take some time to settle.

How can you know whether your Arduino is from Arduino.cc or Arduino.org? Let's have a look. I have taken a few Arduino UNO box, also the board from RnD and sales to do a comparison. Let me share the differences.

 

Here is the top view of both Arduino UNO box (left is UNO from Arduino.org, right is from Arduino.cc)

DSC00381

 

The bottom view (left is UNO from Arduino.org, right is from Arduino.cc), do you notice where I highlight it with red color? There is ARDUINO.CC vs ARDUINO.ORG

box bottom

 

How about the PCB or the actual Arduino UNO board?

This is the view from the top layer of PCB, left is UNO from Arduino.org, right is from Arduino.cc. No difference!!

 

This is a view of the PCB bottom layer, the left is UNO from Arduino.org, right is from Arduino.cc. Did you see what I highlighted in red color? Yup, if you see ARDUINO.CC, you are getting the board from the design team and it should not have an "uncertified" message from Arduino IDE v1.6.1. 

bottom PCB

 

Again, as I highlighted, both are original boards from Arduino Italy, just they split up and having conflict, for now! There is also a discussion in Arduino forum.

We do not see any compatibility issue and we will update you update from time to time!