Today I learned prototyping on an Arduino makes my product more real

Are you planning on selling it?

You misunderstood what he was saying.

Allow me to rephrase: If you are prototyping for mass production, $16 is probably a rounding error in your prototyping costs.

It sounds like you're saying price doesn't matter while prototyping, so choose what's convenient. But what's better for prototyping? A Raspberry Pi Pico W has a better SDK and better documentation, so why not go with that? (It's also $6.)

Power consumption. Maybe not so much on the Dev board, but IIRC I can get an ESP32 down to lower power consumption on a custom board.

So I might well start developing on an ESP32 board knowing that my final target is an ESP32 custom board.

It doesn't even have on chip wireless and the drivers are proprietary. Also external flash that can't be protected using fuses. If's fine for hobby level stuff, but that's about it. If you want to make a product and not have it cloned and the firmware copied, good luck. Also the ESP32 has a power management coprocessor allowing it to.operate on batteries, wake up and do stuff, then go to sleep.

The RP2040's highlight is the PIO and the ease of deployong the firmware, although I find flashing the ESP chips much more straightforward.

Anyway, there are still issues with the official 1.20 and 1.19 micropython esp32 spiram images throwing random guru meditation error messages from esp-idf. I'm using it them with several ESP32 WROVER modules, they all crash in the same ways. Maybe I waste 19€ plus shipping on a Nano ESP32 to see if it still crashes on the U-blox module.

Everyone is talking specs, which might be a reason someone picks a product over another, but I'll offer another anecdote:

The last time I bought some prototyping gear, there were a half-dozen options that met my technical criteria. The option we ended up choosing was the first place to answer the phone, discuss our specific needs, and give us a delivery date.

There's a lot of good prototyping boards out there, I'd bet a lot of buyers are making decisions based on how quickly they can get back to business, rather than taking a fine-tooth comb to a spec sheet.

So, again, what's the benefit? Support and documentation?

I haven't dealt with Arduino the company, but even for two entirely identical products, there may be reasons why someone would choose one vendor over another. It really depends on the purchaser's specific priorities and requirements. A significant benefit could even be something a simple as "they have the same business hours"

Are Aruinos really aimed at the professional prototyping market? I’ve always had the impression they are aimed at students and hobbyists. These two groups are generally more price sensitive but do also value ease of use.

For these non-professional groups, what are the benefits of a $20 Arduino ESP32 vs. one of the many $4 ones?

You (usually) don't use an Arduino in production, you take the ATMEGA chip, or in this case an ESP32 and you make your own custom board from it.

This doesn't answer the question: which industry professionals prototype their embedded products using an Arduino?

Like, you want their names?

The only two examples I can thing of are not Arduino and not prototypes (these are production units) but the Wi-Fi module for Garo EV chargers is a Raspberry Pi with an angled GPIO header.[0]

Also, the Wi-Fi module for Ebeco floor heating thermostats is a custom PCB with a SMD mounted ESP32 board. They never show that side of the PCB in the photos online but I have one and that's what it is.[1]

[0]: https://www.garo.se/sv/proffs/produkter/e-mobility/tillbehor...

[1]: https://www.ebeco.com/products/accessories/eb-connect-wifi

You... don't?

You use Arduino for their super good support and documentation while you're building your device. It's only for prototypes.

You can buy $4 boards off Aliexpress, but then you have to deal with poor documentation, clone boards, buggy code, etc.

I lost 4 days trying to make an SPI screen just "work", until I realized my clone board was outputting the signals offset due to a hardware bug.

Not a product in itself but I've seen one used to prototype an automated testing solution for existing hardware.

I'm not sure why it'd be particularly surprising? Their whole thing is being easy to use and quick to iterate with.

People use arduinos in real professional prototypes, yes. Some prototypes are held together with pieces of string inside.

Edit: if you want an example industry, the one I can remember is a bean to cup coffee machine. I guess having multiple small systems that need controlling in consumer appliances is a good fit for something like an Arduino