Change Release Notes
Important update that migrates ARC to use Synthiam's new and improved cloud server - with backup and project version history. The previous server will be shut down in a few days. Previous versions of ARC may still load, but cloud services will be offline unless you update to this or a later version.
Huge bug fixes and stability improvements
Performance improvement for Blockly UI
JavaScript compiler performance improvement
updated to latest python libraries
camera performance improvement
improved memory management
ARC Downloads
ARC
FREE- 1 third-party plugin skill per project
- Trial cloud services
- Personal, DIY & education use
- Updated every 6–12 months
Download
ARC
PRO- Use on 2+ PCs simultaneously
- Unlimited robot skills
- Cloud backup & revision history
- Weekly features & bug fixes
- Business use permitted
ARC
RUNTIME- Load & run any ARC project
- Read-only mode
- Unlimited robot skills
- Includes early access fixes & features
- Minimum requirements: Windows 10 or higher, 2 GB RAM, 500 MB free disk space.
- Recommended: Windows 10 or higher, 8 GB RAM, 1 GB free disk space.
- Prices are in USD.
- More about each edition: Download & install guide.
- Latest changes: Release notes.
Compare Editions
| Feature |
ARC
FREE
|
ARC
PRO
|
|---|---|---|
| Get ARC Free | View Plans | |
| Usage | Personal · DIY · Education | Personal · DIY · Education · Business |
| Early access to new features & fixes | — | ✓ |
| 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 recognition phrases * | 10 | Unlimited |
| Camera devices * | 1 | Unlimited |
| Vision resolution | max 320×240 | Unlimited |
| Interface builder * | 2 | Unlimited |
| Cloud project size | — | 128 MB |
| Cloud project revision history | — | ✓ |
| Create Exosphere requests | — | 50 / month |
| Exosphere API access | — | Contact Us |
| Volume license discounts | — | Contact Us |
| Get ARC Free | View Plans |
* Per robot project
** 1,000 per cognitive type: vision recognition, speech recognition, face detection, sentiment, text recognition, emotion detection, azure text to speech
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@Nink you don't need to re-upload anything. The data has been migrated
My biggest concern with storage on a distant server that I don't control is losing my data. Not privacy. I don't lose sleep over it but it's a nagging thought in the back of my head.
I do love the convenience on cloud storage and also the power of computing in the cloud. Bing Speach is mind-blowing. But what if someday it shuts down? That part of my robot is useless.
I won't stop using these tools though. I'm not stupid. Lol!
We have a pretty massive cloud infrastructure and it resides in both California and New York. The servers are hosted at Microsoft’s data center and backed up every evening.
As for services like bing speech and such, those are provided by pretty massive companies. In this case it’s Microsoft as well. The chance of it "going away" is very slim
and don’t worry - we’re not going anywhere either! I’ve been resilient enough to last this long... it’ll take a lot to stop me! The foot print I’m leaving in history has barely begun. Now that this business model has been validated, there’s a bunch of stuff in the works. Lately the focus has been stability and performance.
Im on boarding a new hire who will be attracting new technology partners so we can start throwing even more features/robot skills at ARC. See how much we can pile on before it collapses. (It never will! Muhahahaha)
"You can’t build a reputation on things you’re going to do" - Henry Ford
All seriousness, it’s too early to say. We’re experimenting with a few things on the side. Our highest priority right now is to continue with making the product better with increased reliability and new features by using partner technologies as robot skills. There’s so many neat technologies out there that have great potential in robotics, whether the manufacturer knows it is not.
I’ll continue maintaining my mission of using Synthiam’s platform to connect robot builders and technology creators. We’re starting to grow the technologies, which means more robot skills. The community feature requests have helped direct us on what everyone wants. Also the non community customers are schools and companies also share a lot.
That's very cool. Its fun to see what will come next. I like seeing what skills get added, as long as a cool piece of hardware goes along with it. The hardware side of things is, for me, my favorite part of the robot. Wiring it all up and flipping the switch is the fun part, then throw in a little software to make it all do something makes it all worthwhile.
You may want to reconsider US locations for your cloud due to the fact you market your platform globally. US is not recognized as a country providing GDPR "Adequacy Status" so you may find some trouble operating with Europe. Canada on the other hand does. Also the US homeland security regulations in regards to the governments rights to data hosted on US soil is also a challenge.
If you want to discuss hosting in say Montreal and Toronto with a fully fault tolerant highly available multizone / multiregion cloud I can help you out.
Thanks, @nink, that's good to know for scaling. The current infrastructure has been in place since 2013 and fulfilling our needs presently. Those are good considerations for the future!