I’m assuming the new mesh boards don’t support standard wifi? I can’t connect it to my local wifi router?
Have a look: https://docs.particle.io/argon/
1 Like
Only the Argon supports WiFi. The Xenons only support mesh and Ethernet (using the Etgernet featherwing).
1 Like
Yeah I’m just realizing the boron doesn’t support WiFi only mesh. I wanted to use both cell and WiFi.
Hi travlytle,
Well there will be few experts on the mesh gear just yet, your lucky to have got yours.
Some mesh boards should (I’m still waiting for mine, to prove it) connect ot wi-fi and other will not.
So the Argon, is wi-fi, and is intended to be a node on the wi-fi that the mesh sees’s the internet through.
The Boron, is GSM (cellular) and might be able to wi-fi as well (someone correct me on that) this also makes the node for the mesh to see the internet, but uses cellular instead of wi-fi, great for remote locations were you don’t have wi-fi (which considering the universal density of Starbucks, is hard to imagine theres anywere this side of the galaxy without wi-fi of some sort).
Then there is the Xenon, which is the actual points that make up the mesh. They talk to the node, either (and possibly and) the Argon or Boron, to send their data to the net. They can also pass data through them, so as long as a Xenon can see another Xenon, which can see the node the mesh should hold.
So which one are you trying to connect to the wi-fi?
Liam
Consider this the correction. The Boron is Cellular, Mesh and Bluetooth, no WiFi.
I also desire this cellular + wifi in one board combo with Bluetooth being the icing on the cake.
For now, the Boron + Argon meshed together is the best way to accomplish this.
It sounds like with the Boron + Argon combo the cellular and wifi internet connections will automatically pipe data over wifi when it’s avaliable and fall back to the cellular connection when wifi is not avaliable which is nice for saving on cellular data expenses.
I’m still waiting to have my mesh order shipped so have not had time to test any of this out yet, but I’m looking forward to it.
So heres a thought… Will the eithernet feather (Ok that was a typo, but Ilike and left in in) also work on the Boron? becasue if it can a TPlink would make a great little wi-fi adaptor (5volt) and hence the boron, might be able to be cellular and wi-fi… I’ve not looked at the specs… so I’m just throwing the idea out…
I think that would work actually.
I use one of those TP link extenders for my Arlo camera system and it works great.
Currently enabling the ethernet feature on an Argon or Boron will transfer the cloud connection to ethernet, consequently disabling the builtin wireless connection.
But Particle is aware of the wish to use both concurrently.
1 Like
So the ‘eithernet’ might not have been such a lame pun after all. (If it comes about I want credit for the tiltle!
)
If they do manage bring about such functional capacity, it would be cool to be able to select the prority, although I guess it is more likely to want to have ‘If wi-fi available, use it. Else switch to cellular’ It would be very handy for asset tracking that is likely to return to a base, so that when the device is at home, it uses cheeper wi-fi, but whilst it is on the move it uses cellular.
2 Likes
How does a Boron + Argon combo network work as far as which net connection takes priority WiFi vs. cellular when both are avaliable? Is this optimized already or is it something we will need to code to make happen?
The default priority is highest Ethernet, middle WiFi, least Cellular, but APIs for user choice are intended.
2 Likes
Perfect 
@ScruffR do you know if we’ll be able to connect to regular wifi or only mesh with the boron?
Folks the Boron is 3G or LTE plus mesh. The Argon is WiFi plus mesh.
1 Like
Sorry. Confusing myself with all the wifi talk.
1 Like