A useful reminder, excerpted from Brian Profitt:

“Arduino’s openness means that the micro-controller board can be found in the heart of a lot of open source hardware devices today, including 3D printers, toys and thousands of projects within the maker community. Commercial vendors and do-it-yourselfers alike are picking up Arduino boards and customizing them for their projects with the eventual launch of some compelling devices.

While this kind of technology is obviously a boon to the DIY communities that have formed around the Instructables and Thingiverse communities, they are starting to pick up commercial steam, too. Matternet takes former military drone technology and with modifications based on Arduino hardware, uses these cheaply made unmanned aerial vehicles to deliver vital goods across developing nations’ territories via a “roadless network.”

Arduino’s openness is also starting to fuel vendors’ innovation to make devices and launch them at a fraction of the normal costs associated with prototyping and general manufacturing. Search for “Arduino” and “Kickstarter,” and you will get a small taste of vendor dependence on Arduino.

Making it easier, faster and cheaper to produce physical objects could fundamentally shift the manufacturing paradigm. As 3D printing, powered by Arduino and other open source technologies, becomes more prevalent, economies of scale become much less of a problem. A 3D printer can print a few devices – or thousands – without significant retooling, pushing upfront costs to near-zero.”