Change Release Notes
Hello World! We at Synthiam have been working hard developing ARC and all the amazing features that make your robot smarter. We've been trying to keep up with developing feature requests as well! However, millions of lines of code takes a lot of time and effort - and it's not something we can afford to do for free any longer. We've been exploring a variety of ways to implement a financial compensation model around the ARC software that doesn't dent your wallet - which we've released today
.
Inspired by many conversations on the forum and in real life, we've identified a great model that serves us all. We hope you're excited to participate in the licensing model to help fund additional features! I can tell you that we're really excited as well.
You Can Do It!
Please do us a huge solid, visit the ARC product page and press that 'Buy' button while we start checking off feature request items to make your robots even more awesome!
And for those of you who can't afford to support us with a license, ARC can still be used with basic functionality for free.
New ARC Editions You may notice a few other changes, such as removing the ARC Beta. That's because we've implemented an internal beta program for testing bugs before they get to you (fingers crossed). This allows us to split ARC into two editions, for those who love immediate new features and bug fixes and those who want months before updating. They've been named ARC Pro and ARC Free respectively.
Premium Support In addition to the new licensing model - we've also implemented a premium support system. This is real cool because it allows you to directly work with one of us to solve a programming, hardware or design problem (over email, of course). You get 1 free premium support per month with a license, and you can purchase additional requests. Or, if you don't have a license, you can still purchase a request (but it costs more).
Let's Get Robot'ing! This new change allows us to focus our time where it counts - developing ARC software features! Now that we won't have to worry as much about keeping the lights on, we can spend more time programming! Beep bleep boop
Upgrading All of your preinstalled plugin skills will require to be updated. With an internet connecting during ARC’s loading, you will be prompted. Due to a number of improvements, the legacy plugin system isn’t compatible with the new ARC.
Sincerely,
- DJ, Jer, Valentin, & Amin
ARC Downloads
ARC Free
Free
- Includes one free 3rd party plugin robot skill per project
- Trial cloud services
- Free with trial limitations
For schools, personal use & organizations. This edition is updated every 6-12 months.
ARC Pro
Only $8.99/mo
- 2 or more PCs simultaneously
- Includes unlimited skills
- Cloud backup
- And much more
Experience the latest features and bug fixes weekly. A Pro subscription is required to use this edition.
Runtime
Free
- Load and run any ARC project
- Operates in read-only mode
- Unlimited robot skills
- Early access fixes & features
Have you finished programming your robot? Use this to run existing ARC projects for free*.
- Minimum requirements are Windows 10 or higher with 2+gb ram and 500+MB free space.
- Recommended requirements are Windows 10 or higher with 8+gb ram and 1000+MB free space.
- ARC Free known-issues can be viewed by clicking here.
- Get more information about each ARC edition by clicking here.
- See what's new in the latest versions with Release notes.
Compare Editions
| Feature | ARC FREE |
ARC PRO |
|---|---|---|
| Get ARC for Free | View Plans | |
| Usage | Personal DIY Education |
Personal DIY Education Business |
| Early access to new features & fixes | Yes | |
| Simultaneous microcontroller connections* | 1 | 255 |
| Robot skills* | 20 | Unlimited |
| Skill Store plugins* | 1 | Unlimited |
| Cognitive services usage** | 10/day | 6,000/day |
| Auto-positions gait actions* | 40 | Unlimited |
| Speech recongition phrases* | 10 | Unlimited |
| Camera devices* | 1 | Unlimited |
| Vision resolution | max 320x240 | Unlimited |
| Interface builder* | 2 | Unlimited |
| Cloud project size | 128 MB | |
| Cloud project revision history | Yes | |
| Create Exosphere requests | 50/month | |
| Exosphere API access | Contact Us | |
| Volume license discounts | Contact Us | |
| Get ARC for Free | View Plans |
** 1,000 per cognitive type (vision recognition, speech recognition, face detection, sentiment, text recognition, emotion detection, azure text to speech)
Upgrade to ARC Pro
ARC Pro is your gateway to a community of like-minded robot enthusiasts and professionals, all united by a passion for advanced robot programming.
ok thanks Jeremie
Well, i understand that everything costs money and i really appreciate all your work you all have done for us. So thanks for that guys
But, for now, i have one major problem: I dont own a credit card, and without getting something like Paypal or Skrill or anything else as a payment-option, all of my year-long work is now gone and useless, because i cannot pay for the subscription! For example, ive been working on my Rover-Robot for a few weeks now, and now i cannot even open my old project without having a subscription
It would be great if you offer more payment options, and if you would have gave us more time to "adapt" to your new business model, because i havent read anything about it before... it would also be great if you would offer your long-time-robot-developers some "welcome-discount" for the first year of subscription...
Btw, what about a "one-time" license? Like, you pay for the software including upgrades for 1 year, and if you want to get another year of support and upgrades, you can pay for another year?
So, please try to get more payment options, i really would like to support you and build my robot but now i am totally stuck
D.J. and team, I am happy that you have come up with a business model that keeps the business moving. I know you have been searching for that since the EZRobot/ARC split. I see this as a positive development. There will be some initial shock and perhaps rightfully so as some of the core features that were free move to pay. I guess one of your options could have been to not have a free version at all so we will have to keep that in mind. You do have a good point about reasonable cost. I look at all of the money we put into these bots. $100 for fully supported software seems about right.
I'll have to process this and figure out what is and is not included now but once again, it is good to see movement at ARC.
Perry
Thanks Perry - and you'll have AIML 2 soon
. I'm working on it this week
I downloaded the new version, it did not work
Hi @EzAng, looks like you downloaded the early access version that requires a Pro subscription.
oh no, I thought you said do a new download?
PTP's stuff does not work anymore - DarkNet YOlO not working now
You have to download the correct one. Teams is the one you want because you don’t want to pay. If you wanted to pay us for our work, you could use the Early Access
Ptp said he’ll be updating his plugin soon