Assessing Obsolete BRN402 Units for Soil Moisture Sensor Project: Feasibility and Gateway Considerations?

Hardware
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Hello Particle Community,

I'm embarking on a soil moisture sensor project for office plants. I've recently been presented with an opportunity to purchase about 150 Particle Boron BRN402 units at a reduced price. I searched around online and it seems these are considered obsolete, but I don't quite understand if that just merely means they won't be made any more, or if they won't be supported or connect to the network. I'm navigating multiple considerations, and your expertise would be instrumental.

Here's my situation:

  • Project Context: Developing soil moisture sensors for office plants, with 4-15 sensors per location.
  • Offer Details: Opportunity to buy BRN402 units at $40 each, contemplating their use in sensors or as a gateway.
  • Key Goal: Aiming for maximum ease of deployment, even if it costs a bit more per unit.
  • Concerns: Uncertainty about the suitability of the obsolete BRN402 model and the complexity of gateway implementation.

Specifically, I'd value your insights on:

  • Feasibility: Is it advisable to invest in BRN402 units for this specific application, considering ease of deployment?
  • Gateway Consideration: Would the Boron (either these obsolete units or the new 404x units) serve better as a gateway, or is direct integration in each sensor more practical?
  • Ease of Gateway Setup: If I choose the gateway route, would individual sensors automatically "find" the gateway, or is a specific setup required for each one?
  • Potential Challenges: What obstacles and complexities might I face with these obsolete units?
  • Alternatives: Are there other solutions that align with my goal of ease of deployment?

I've searched the forums but haven't found a discussion that fully addresses my scenario. I have a bit of experience programming arduinos, but I'm a mechanical engineer and no formal software engineering background. Your experiences, opinions, and recommendations will be grately appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

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Hi there,

This is a great question! The BRN402 is no longer in production essentially because the modem (SARA R410M modem) is not in production. We have no plans to drop support for the BRN402, there are many many many thousands of BRN402s across North America happily contributing to our platform!

The BRN404X is essentially a 1:1 drop in replacement with a newer modem, so design for the BRN402 is for the most part scalable onto the BRN404X (bearing in mind that end-product certification is necessarily different for the two SKUs).

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The Boron models are:

Model SIM Modem
BRN402 Older SIM SARA-R410
BRN404 EtherSIM SARA-R410
BRN404X EtherSIM SARA-R510

The BRN402 and BRN404 are no longer manufactured because the cellular modem (R410) is no longer manufactured.

Additionally, the BRN402 differs because it has an older SIM that is only compatible with a fixed set of networks in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In the United States, it can only connect to AT&T.

The BRN404 and BRN404X have the Particle EtherSIM which can have additional carriers added without changing the hardware. Initially, in the United States, AT&T and T-Mobile were supported. Recently, support was added for enterprise customers to also be able to connect to Verizon.

The older models will still be able to connect to cellular networks and the Particle cloud. Aside from the SIM and modem differences, the MCU and other features are identical.

In most cases you can use the same software binaries on both the BRN402 and BRN404X so you can use the BRN402 now and upgrade to the BRN404X later when you can no longer get BRN402 units.

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