Hi Will and thanks for all the details. I have been waiting for a few months for today’s annoucement and I’m pretty pleased. I didn’t expect the mesh thing, but it will be perfect for my home+garden.
Two questions though:
You wrote " All Particle customers get 10 free gateway upgrades to support prototyping and evaluation of Particle Mesh." What is a gateway upgrade? Is it when I configure my future Argon as a gateway? Is it reversible?
Second question is regarding the shipping fee. I don’t order to Particle anymore due to the cost to ship to France. Is the 24h free shipping applicable to international orders?
Thanks and congratulation for the good work. I can’t wait to start meshing my home.
You wrote " All Particle customers get 10 free gateway upgrades to support prototyping and evaluation of Particle Mesh." What is a gateway upgrade? Is it when I configure my future Argon as a gateway? Is it reversible?
Yes, it will be reversible! Gateways have "children" devices, so if you want to "downgrade" the gateway to a standalone endpoint without any children, we will make it easy to do so.
Second question is regarding the shipping fee. I don’t order to Particle anymore due to the cost to ship to France. Is the 24h free shipping applicable to international orders?
Yes it does! After 24hours, we have promotional shipping rates for mesh preorders at $5 for domestic orders and $15 for international orders, which we hope are competitive enough to convince you and your friends to try
I missed the answer to this question from the OP. Is this a data charge for the cellular or for the fact that dk's operating in "gateway" mode even if that data comes over wifi?
And, I'm assuming the dk can be a gateway and still run local code (ie. blink-led).. is this code part of the "gateway upgrade" each time I respin code?
Currently we support two kinds of gateways – Wi-Fi and cellular gateways.
Our current pricing outlines our Device Cloud pricing which includes data for cellular devices, and includes up to 100 free Wi-Fi devices.
Separately, we will be charging an “upgrade” fee to turn Wi-Fi or cellular endpoints into border routers. Developers will get ten of these upgrades for free to build and experiment with Particle Mesh hardware and devices.
Do I have to pay anything to use Particle Mesh hardware?
Particle Mesh pricing builds on existing Wi-Fi and cellular Device Cloud pricing. All Particle customers get 10 free gateway upgrades to support prototyping and evaluation of Particle Mesh. After the first 10 upgrades, Particle will charge an additional monthly fee beyond baseline Device Cloud pricing for Argon and Boron devices acting as gateways within a Particle Mesh network. Adding mesh-only devices (Xenons) to your network and all local communications between mesh devices are free.
With 10 free gateway upgrades you could build
One giant network of 100+ devices
Ten different networks of 10+ devices
Five different networks with redundant gateways (Ethernet + Cellular backup, for example)
Hello,
I live in Tucson AZ a city with both AT&T an T-Mobile service. is the mvno provider going to be on MMF2 or will it be a sim card? in either event will the mvno provider be a selectable option to the purchaser? reason i ask is in Tucson, based on my experience with both carriers AT&T has very good coverage and excellent connections whereas T-Mobile has spotty coverage and connections. being satisfied with T-Mobile is a matter of current location, i.e. happen to be near a tower otherwise no luck. on the other hand i have yet to find anywhere in the area i travel where there have been issues with AT&T. also i’m guessing that the MMF2/SIM use are either hardware selectable or priority is to the SIM card if not selectable? i hope there is some method that can assure me that the mvno for the boron is AT&T and that it can reach particle cloud. thanks.
Hello @will,
For the Argon, will the coding be similar to that of the Photon? Also you mentioned in the previous post that the hardware would not be compatible with the mesh ones, but if I’m using simple sensors like the temperature sensor or CT sensors, will I still need to purchase the Particle Classic Accessory Adapter? Moreover, am I able to use the Argon like a Photon? Means that it would be one Argon as a stand alone device.
Lastly, since there is an integrated Li-Po charging and battery connector, will I need to connect the Li-Po battery all the time (similar to the Electron - where if I do not connect the battery the LED would blink red non-stop)?
As far as the features of both platforms overlap the high level APIs will be just the same. Hardware abstraction is an intrinsic part of the Particle firmware.
When it comes to inescapable differences (e.g. the Argon has no hardware DAC) then of course the Photon code would not work on the Argon.
One part that may also need a closer look will be the different set of GPIOs. While the Photon has 8 ADCs and hence pin names A0~A7 (A6 & A7 double as DAC and WKP respectively), but the Argon has not but has more D pins so the pin map has to be looked at and also some code hacks as e.g. used in the default Tinker firmware would not work anymore since they were based on "assumtions" that will not be valid on the new devices.
That adapter is primerily meant for existing Particle shields (e.g. Particle Shield Shield) to be used with Gen3 devices. You can use the new devices with a breadboard just the same way as you'd do with a Photon - just change the pin mapping accordingly.
That's the plan.
No. The Electron only calls for the battery to provide enough current quickly enough to deal with the 2G/3G power demands. The new devices have way less vigorous power demands so the battery will always be optional.
So for a non-mesh, completely stand-alone device, is the Photon a better choice than the Argon? A DAC, 2 more analog inputs, smaller footprint, 120MHz Cortex on the Photon vs 64MHz on the Argon,
It depends on your needs. One plus for the Argon is this feature: On-board additional 2MB SPI flash. For most of the types of projects I see on the forum, I don't think the speed difference in the processors will matter. Although the footprint is larger, that makes it compatible with Feather accessories that you might want to use. Another plus is the onboard charging circuitry that allows you to connect it to a Li-Po battery.
Hi there.
Can a small solar panel (5.5v, 120mA) be tied directly to VIN to charge the Li-Po through the Argon?
I am currently testing a solar/LiPo charger something like this to power a Photon, but I assume this will no longer be required with the built in charging circuitry of the Argon? Thanks in advance
I don't know. I haven't seen any specs for the battery charging circuitry on the new devices. If it does work, it's going to charge rather slowly with such a low amp panel.
Is there a planned timescale for introduction of BLE firmware that can be used for exhilaration of data to a mobile phone? I need to decide whether to look at adding seperate BLE hardware to accomodate this. Naturally I would prefer to utilise the built in hardware but understand the initial priorities.
Today I just received my Xenon kit in Belgium! However I was wondering, as I used a referral link from a friend of mine, in the mesh order it appeared that a Tripler FeatherWing (or named as Particle Mesh starter Pack) is included. However in the package I only have the Xenon kit (which I understand as the complimentary upgrade mentioned by Will in a recent email).
So my question is, if I was referred by someone, would I still be eligible to receive a TriplerWing?
advantage of time zone 