LabVIEW Interface for Arduino Discussions
Product Manager for LIFA?
Eric,
Feel free to PM me with your questoins for the LIFA 'Product Manager' (I'm about the closest thing there is 
)
-Sam K
LIFA Developer
All,
I wonder how NI views the Arduino Interface, if it's not officially supported and just a project created by their employees.
A very good question.
I started working on the LabVIEW Interface for Arduino in Late 2010 (Dec I think). At the time a lot of people at NI were talking about Arduino, how it compared to some of NI's products, how it is different from NI's products, and generally how cool it is. I was actually working on similar hobby project to create a an interface between LabVIEW and a microcontroller (PIC18F4550 at the time) for my own use. Ben_J and I met for tea one day (as we often do) and started brainstorming what would eventually become LIFA.
Over the next 5 months Ben and I used our 'free time' at work to develop LIFA. Ben focused on user experience, features and usability while I did Firmware and LabVIEW development (Ben did the Arduino Auto detect stuff in the Init VI, he will have a fit if he reads this and I don't point that out ). In May / June of 2011 we launched LIFA.
One of the main reasons that LIFA 'Support is provided by a Community Forum and a FAQ' is because at the end of the day it is not an 'official' NI product. Ben and I know the toolkit well, but we didn't create extensive training for users, or NI AE's or the other documentation and extensive testing NI requires for all of its 'official products'. Unfortunatly we just don't have time to put give it the polish it needs to be a fully supported (official) NI toolkit (we both have other full time 'day job' responsibilities).
That being said Ben and I are both very excited about the hacker / hobbyist movement and feel like LIFA is too good to not share it with the community. I think one of the things that made LIFA sucessful is that we didn't have to go through the standard development process. We were able to develop and adapt quickly as a team of two and produce something in a few months that would typically go through months of planning, then months of development, then months of testing. We were able to get away with this because LIFA is not intended for mission critical systems (which most of NI's other products are).
-Sam K
LIFA Developer
Jimmyservo,
Can I quote you on that?
It's feedback like this that gives the NI + Hacker / Hobbyist movement more steam. There are a lot of people within NI that are heavily involved in the hacker / hobbyist / maker community and we're working on more hacker / hobbyist friendly offerings. At this point one thing that would really help push for more hacker / hobbyist offerings feedback like this. How you were introduced to NI products, what products would you like to use at work and at home, why things like LIFA are important to you and what other hacker / hobbyist offerings you would like to see from NI.
Stay active on these forums. Post your hacker / hobbyist projects on the ni.com forums. Tell AEs and your customer service rep your ideas for a more hacker / hobbyist friendly NI.
To quote Red Green "I'm pulling for ya, we're all in this together"
(e-Beer to anyone that gets that reference).
I'm going to start another thread for this type of feedback.
-Sam K
