CodeBender.CC Makes It Crazy Easy To Program Your Arduino Board From Your Browser

The official Arduino IDE is a dour piece of software designed for uploading code to the ubiquitous and super-cool micro controller. It is a standalone, non-networked app that isn’t very pretty to look at. But what if you want to share code and upload programs right from your browser? That’s where CodeBender.cc comes in.

CodeBender is a browser-based IDE that supports uploading to nearly any Arduino board. You can use the program to copy sample code, browse code uploaded by other users, and even store private snippets. Because it is collaborative you can clone bits of code and use it in your own projects and there is even a curated list of cool snippets.

Founded by Vasilis Georgitzikis and Alexandros Baltas, the site came out of LAUNCHub, a European seed fund. ” It all started by my frustration as a computer engineer who was used to advanced development tools, only to lose them when I moved to coding for Arduino, and my frustration as an Arduino instructor on various hackerspaces around the world, when I spent 2.5 hours of each 3 hour workshop just to install the damned thing,” said Georgitzikis.

“We’ve also developed a technology that allows our users to program and control a network-enabled Arduino (i.e. Arduino Ethernet) through the network, straight through the browser using pure HTML5 technologies (i.e. WebSockets), which enables remote programming of IoT devices,” he said.

The system handles compilation and error reporting and ensures that the code you upload to your Arduino won’t break your project. Unlike sites like Circuits.io, this system doesn’t just simulate projects it allows for full control of your Arduino hardware right from the browser. Maybe this system will finally enable me to dig out my Arduino boards and actually do something.