Arduino is helping to democratize the IoT revolution by putting open-source software and hardware into the hands of educators, students, and “makers” of all stripes. Creators use Arduino to turn their dreams into working prototypes, with projects ranging from an automatic shirt-folding machine to low-cost ventilators that are saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arduino’s revolutionary concept has made them an international success, and 35 million visitors flock to their website each year. But Arduino’s commitment to creating a simple, accessible user experience was held back by their in-house identity and access management (IAM) system. Arduino needed a modern, secure IAM platform that would serve the needs of customers ranging from schoolchildren to professional engineers.

In-House IAM Was Costing $100K per Year

Luca Cipriani, Arduino’s CIO, describes the choice to start working with Auth0: “We had our own solution based on open-source tools, but we figured out that it was incredibly hard to keep updated, and the maintenance was draining most of our resources.” Maintenance alone cost “almost two full-time employees,” or around $100,000 per year. “Also, it was a security risk because we had to handle any kind of security bug we found in those open source products.”

Arduino had three priorities in choosing an identity as a service (IDaaS) provider: scalability, GDPR compliance, and user security. They found all three in Auth0.

3x Faster Logins Fuel 3x Faster Growth

Arduino has more than 19 web apps in addition to their main website: there’s the e-commerce shop, the resources geared toward educators, and the forums on which creators can share their projects. Arduino uses Auth0’s Single Sign On (SSO) so that when a user logs into any of these apps, they are automatically logged into the rest. “That obviously simplified a lot of the onboarding,” Cipriani says.

Arduino also used Auth0 to enable social logins with Google and GitHub, which has increased conversions even more than Arduino’s team anticipated.

“We were expecting something like 7% growth month-over-month, and instead it’s been about 20% month-over-month,” Cipriani says, laughing. “Now that the log-in flow is so much faster, especially on mobile, people are more willing to log in again because now it’s just a simple tap.” Logins now take “way less than a second,” which is three times faster than before.

Auth0 has also sped up Arduino’s scaling on the back end by enabling their developers to release products faster. Cipriani gives the example of a new app, Arduino IoT Cloud, in which developers needed IoT and Android log-ins. They were able to implement each in two and a half days, which enabled the product to roll out in July rather than at the end of August.

Auth0 Security and Support Are Part of Arduino’s Product

Because Arduino is based in Europe, under the jurisdiction of the GDPR, they take privacy and security very seriously. Auth0’s platform has proved instrumental in maintaining legal compliance and high standards of security. In recent months, Arduino rolled out two-factor authentication (2FA). This is an important feature for their professional users, and already 20% of them have adopted 2FA. Cipriani makes it clear that 2FA isn’t just a nice feature; it’s a value-add for their product. “Being ahead of the competition means saying ‘there are other applications that do something similar, but this is the only one that supports two-factor authentication.’”

He continues, “Meanwhile, we also have many minors using our system. And, in that case, we were able to create ephemeral accounts that are bound to some other account, to their parents or their teachers. That’s not just secure but also GDPR-compliant.”

Cipriani adds, “We delegate many responsibilities directly to Auth0 so we don’t have to do all this paperwork and be reviewed by lawyers. So it’s not just a matter of technology; it’s more like an entire experience.” And on the occasions when Arduino has needed Auth0’s support for an issue, they’ve been equally satisfied with the experience. “As soon as we contacted support, we immediately got a reply,” Cipriani attests.

Going forward, Cipriani is excited to use Auth0 in a post-COVID-19 world, in which remote access to online tools will be more crucial than ever. “Auth0 is a clear winner, not just in time to market but also in shipping your features to the user. Because for us, authentication is a piece of the product itself.”