Several reports have been made on the forums about the Android app having issues after being updated to V. 2.3.4, it seems this may be isolated to Samsung devices, but there may be others. The issue is that the app will start, find the photon SSID, but gives an error when trying to connect and finalize the setup asking you to restart the process. I don’t have screenshots of this, but there are other topics where members have provided screenshots. This is a backup for me and my customers, if the SoftAP page on the device fails, so without this being reliable, if something happens, my product, my customers, and their customers are stuck in limbo and aren’t likely to use my product again.
The SoftAP I use is a direct copy/paste from the docs and has been working fine for over a year, until I updated to 0.8.0, I could downgrade to 0.7.0 but I have had periodic, although isolated, incidents of this in 0.7.0. The problem, similar to the Android app, comes in after connecting to the Photon SSID, searches for available access points, then fails when submitting the password. Almost like the “Submit” button is deactivated, as it never sends the credentials to the device.
I understand Particle has their hands full with the new hardware release, but some of us have products going out to customers, our business reputation depends on the ability to have a working stable connection, customers ease of being able to set up this connection after it is shipped, and the ability to troubleshoot connection issues if they do arise. Particle is in a different position than my company, since they can refer me to this forum, ask me to submit a support ticket, or just send out a new device if needed. None of these are appropriate solutions in the real world, I must be available to have a phone conversation with a tech on site to work out issues, and even if I have the products to ship out as replacements, faith in my products would quickly diminish as companies lose money making multiple trips to a job site.
It would be helpful to know someone at Particle is at least looking into these issues, especially when their own docs suggest using the app to connect, and Samsung products take up more than 20% of all smartphones in the world.
Edit: updated the title as this seems to affect firmware versions beyond 0.7.0 and 0.8.0