Codebender

The cloud Arduino IDE

     For quite some time now I've been doing everything online or "in the cloud". My main computer has been a Chromebook and even when I'm running Ubuntu on it I occasionally wipe it completely and do a fresh install when it starts to get slow. I have a desktop PC now but I still don't like relying on it to keep anything backed up. This hasn't really been a problem until recently.

     With the Arduino I might spend hours or even days getting a program coded just right. The problem has been that the code is only saved on the computer and if something goes wrong I could lose countless hours of work. Luckily there's a solution.

Codebender is a web based developing environment designed specifically for the Arduino.

     It's like an Arduino IDE built in to the web browser. All your hours of coding are saved in the cloud and you can access them from anywhere and just like the rest of the Arduino software it's completely free. There are tons of libraries included in the program and you can easily add your own to a project.

     There are also way more features than you would ever expect. You can verify and compile the code and it actually does it a lot faster than the IDE running on my desktop. Not only can you verify and compile the code but you can send it straight to your Arduino from within the web browser provided you have the drivers installed on your computer. Simply click "Run on Arduino" and it sends it straight to your Arduino without needing to download the code or open any other programs. It's even capable of burning the Arduino bootloader onto other chips. There's also a serial monitor built into the program so there's no need to open any additional programs.

     Another added bonus is the ability to share your code and embed it into websites or blogs like this.


     And as you can see you can even send it straight to your Arduino from the embedded code. The code above is from the Microview library. If you find a program somebody else has made that you want to use or change you can easily clone it and the program is added to your list so you can do as you like with it.

If you'd like to check it out for yourself head on over to codebender.cc and create a free account.