ANNOUNCEMENT: Introducing the Photon

General
227

Hi @zach,

the photon_v019 will be the last version of schematic for photon before delivery on may ?

228

yes, that’s correct! Actually, @brett, can you tag the v0.19 design as v1.0 in Github so that’s clear?

230

What about the firmware for the photon? Where can I find it? My photon should arrive this month and I want to get comfortable with the source code.

231

We have been in negotiations with Broadcom, and they have agreed to distribute WICED under an open source license. Broadcom has assured us they are very, very close with this, just “finalizing with the legal department.” As soon as they give the go-ahead, we’ll make the firmware public.

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232

That sounds good but to be honest I do not know what WICED is. Could you give us a quick explanation of what it is and why you guys cannot release the Photon code without it?

Can we start getting access to the source and leave the Broadcom firmware out of the release for now until their lawyers figure things out? What if Broadcom decides they do not want to make the code open source after all?

233

@orlcp440, from Broadcom:

Broadcom's Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (WICED™) platform (pronounced "wik-id") eases development effort and simplifies the implementation of Internet connectivity in an array of consumer devices, especially those without existing support for networking.

Developers use the WICED platform to create secure wireless networking applications on a wide array of platforms encompassing Broadcom wireless connectivity technologies. The WICED platform encompasses:
WICED™ Wi-Fi - a development system for Wi-Fi Connectivity
WICED SMART™ - a development system for Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth Low Energy) applications WICKED
For documentation, please register/login to the Broadcom Community website

234

Unfortunately there's no way for us to distribute the software without Broadcom's firmware libraries; it wouldn't work. They've already gotten legal approval for the open source license, we're just waiting for them to distribute a new build. In the meantime, you can still do development in the web IDE or in Particle Dev.

235

Ok thank you for the update. I will give it a try for now by using only the Particle Dev. Wish you guys the best, your products and vision are great.

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236

HI @zach,

Photon will completly compatible with local cloud ,right ?

237

It will be eventually, but probably not 100% there at the moment; there are some refactors that we have to introduce to spark-server to support new features of the Photon

238

oh i got you , @zach, but do you all have some schedule when it will work with spark-server basicly(It does not mean compatible 100%, but shoud work fine , just like Core.). and when ,you all will put the new version of spark-server into the github?

239

@yuanetking we’re tracking progress on this over on Github:

240

Hey again @mdma! Question: is there already an issue or branch on Github where I can track the RTOS integration progress? I think I can do most of what I want to without it for now, but it would be nice to know when it lands and WiFi becomes non-blocking =)

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241

Zach

There were several threads going back to last year about WPA2-Enterprise security support. This is a critical feature for deployment of the Photon in an serious business application/environment. Could you please confirm what the status is with this development feature?

Thanks

Will

242

Hi @armor - I believe that feature is still on the backlog but we may be waiting for support from Broadcom. @mdma, what’s the latest there?

243

Zach

I would very much like to know when this backlog item (assuming Broadcom support) will make it to production. I am 4-5 months from a launch and will really need to demonstrate this security to gain product acceptance.

Looking forward to reply from @mdma

244

We are waiting for Broadcom to support this in their SDK, and for them to provide us with the SDK with a permissive license.

245

Looking forward WPA2 Enterprise. It will solve so many of my problems :smiley:
Thank you for your efforts toward it!

246

Hello! I am 11 years old and I am using the photon… but for my project I need a Li-Po battery shield but I want to make one myself… is there a way to do that?