A lot. The official uno r3 is around $30 while the clone can be as cheap as $5.
replyWhich does not sound much, but to someone living in less developed country, that matters a lot
On a $1000 hacker project that's only a 2% percent cost increase.
replyIn most of the world $1000 is startup capital, not a hobby project
replyRegardless of where you live - you're not building a household robot for much less than that.
replyNot every project costs $1000. In fact, most arduino project i saw cost less than $200 in BOM.
replyI’m sure the Arduino isn’t the only thing you’d save money on with this approach. Keeping the same ratios, it’s a 600% cost increase.
replyChinese clones of Arduinos are normally between 3x-6x cheaper, and if your project uses dozens or hundreds or thousands of them, especially in developing countries, that's a major price delta.
replyI assume at those scales it quickly becomes economical to design a custom board instead of using modules that are probably seated on cheap custom PCBs anyways.
replyBoard or not, it's the chip here that is expensive.
replyIf you have a bit of time to learn the skills, it’s economical to design a custom board even for 5-10 units. An integrated controller module like an ESP32 can basically just be plonked onto a board with a voltage regulator and used like an Arduino.
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