Arduino programs are called . Although the syntax is often simplified for ease of use, the underlying language is based on C/C++ .

: It provides a unified interface to write code, compile it into a machine-readable format, and upload it directly to the microcontroller via a USB connection.

The most common way to interact with Arduino is through the Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Environment). This software is based on the Processing environment and is designed to be simple enough for beginners while remaining powerful for experts.