Cellular interface

Firmware
1

How do I replace the present cellular software within Electron firmware with our own cellular software to interface to our own global provider?

I just need to be steered toward the Github source for Electron’s present cellular interface to the cellular Ublox module.

2

Are you saying that you want to use a 3rd party sim card instead?

3

Yes.

4

@douglaskbell, 3rd party sims are already support by the Electron! Why do you feel that you need to modify the firmware?

5

Because I’m ignorant. :smiley:

Is this, then, the API for connection through 3rd party cellular?
Particle docs > REFERENCE > Firmware > Cellular
connect()
setCredentials()
etc.

6

Hey @douglaskbell – not sure how best to answer your question because we don’t have a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish.

If you want to use the Electron with a 3rd party cellular carrier, you don’t need to change anything in the firmware other than the APN. We have a flow that you can use at http://setup.particle.io that walks you through the process of generating firmware with another APN. You shouldn’t have to do anything else – the communication between the modem and SIM card is all handled by a firmware stack on the u-blox module and is written by u-blox.

If you want to use the Electron with a 3rd party cellular modem (non-ublox), then you would have to modify the Particle firmware base (in addition to redesigning the PCB). If you’re interested in porting Particle’s firmware stack to other hardware, then that’s a more complicated process.

7

Here’s what I want to accomplish:

  1. Electron uses particle.variable to expose a String that contains (ASCII) GPS lat & lon.
  2. 3rd party cloud uses same method as Particle iOS SDK to log on to Particle cloud, tell Particle cloud to read String from Electron and send String to 3rd party cloud.
8

Hey there, @douglaskbell – thanks for some more information about your application.

You shouldn’t have to modify anything in the Particle firmware for that to be possible. Regardless of what SIM card you’re using to establish a connection with the Internet, your devices’ Particle.variable's will be accessible via our API. When you switch to a third party SIM, what you lose is visibility into data consumption, custom alert thresholds, etc, not Cloud features.

I hope that helps!

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