From 19 October the Arduino VENTUNO Q costs $399, up from the $299 introductory price it has carried since orders opened in August, according to a letter to the company’s community signed by Marcello Majonchi, Arduino’s Chief Product Officer.

Anyone who has already pre-ordered the board keeps the $299 price.

Arduino blames component costs. The letter says the cost of “the many key components that make a board like this possible, in particular memory modules, has risen sharply” across the industry and continues to climb. Arduino names memory modules as the main cost, among other key components.

Majonchi wrote that Arduino absorbed those increases for as long as it could.

Arduino first introduced the VENTUNO Q in March with a promise of an introductory price under $300. The board became available to order in August at $299. According to the letter it sold out twice, and orders have continued since.

The pre-order position is spelled out in one line. “If you have already pre-ordered VENTUNO Q, nothing changes for you, the introductory price will be honored in full,” the letter says.

The letter lists the board’s specification. Arduino lists a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU rated at 40 dense TOPS for running language models and vision AI on the device, an STM32H5 microcontroller to act on physical hardware, 16 GB of RAM, and a path to production through the Works with Arduino programme on Qualcomm Dragonwing processors.

Majonchi wrote that at $399 the board “still delivers unprecedented value”.

Software will keep changing at no extra cost, the letter says. The next Arduino App Lab release will add new AI models and support for third-party accessories such as Raspberry Pi HATs and MIPI CSI cameras, according to Arduino. Qualcomm Linux stack support for the board is in beta on GitHub.

Majonchi said early community projects include a depth camera multitool and production line vision inspection, and that users have run Half Life 2 and Skyrim on the board.

Prices for new orders and pre-orders

New orders placed from 19 October cost $100 more than the same board ordered before that date.

Pre-orders are the exception. Arduino says existing pre-orders stay at $299, because the introductory price “will be honored in full”. The letter gives no cut-off beyond 19 October itself, so an order placed on or after that date is a $399 order.

The letter does not say whether the $399 figure will change again. It states only that component costs continue to climb.

The VENTUNO Q is sold through the Arduino Store and through distributors Arduino names as Conrad, DigiKey, Mouser, Farnell, RS and Robu.in.

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