Connect electron to internet without cellular coverage or via ATT Microcell

General
1

Hi Guys,
Is there anyway to connect an Electron to the internet without Cellular coverage? Or with an ATT Microcell?
My house is out of Cellular coverage, but I have good internet and Wifi.
I use an ATT microcell to connect my cellphone when at the house, works great.
Does anyone have a way to connect thru the Microcell (small local cellular gadget that lets my phone use my internet for calls and data just as if I was next to a real cell tower.)

I’m trying to develop firmware for use elsewhere, but I can’t flash it unless I go into town.
I believe I did flash it once via Particle Dev, but can’t seem to do that anymore, not sure why.
I am unable to get particle CLI to run on my Mac, spent about a week trying to get that to work in the past, gave up!

Thanks!

2

Hmm.... If you've got WiFi, you could do development on a Photon, since that should work just the same. You can then later swap it for an Electron. (also a bit more economical than flashing over cellular)

We could probably help you with that. It's kind of an essential tool when developing on Particle, a very useful one at the very least.

3

I have heard a report that the Electron does not work with the AT&T Microcell, even with an AT&T SIM card instead of the Particle SIM. It is possible that this report was mistaken, but the AT&T web page for the MicroCell does state "For use with AT&T wireless devices only; not compatible with other wireless systems.”

4

Thanks @Moors7, I’m already using cores and photons, but was hoping to have a way to do it at home with the electron. When I’m ready to put some time into the CLI I’ll let you know!

@rickkas7, Thanks for sharing that, I hadn’t even thought of using an ATT sim in it. The microcell only lets thru phone numbers that you register to the unit online. I doubt an iPhone sim would work, but I do have one, hmmmmm.

5

An AT&T nano SIM card (from an iPhone 5 or 6, for example) will fit in the Electron and should work, at least without the Microcell. To fully connect to the cloud you’ll need to insert this line in your code:

STARTUP(cellular_credentials_set("Broadband", "", "", NULL));

Unlike Wi-Fi settings, the cellular APN is not stored in configuration flash so you always need to add that line to any program that uses a 3rd party SIM card. The string “Broadband” is specific to AT&T. Just take the line out when you put the Particle SIM back in.

It’s certainly worth a try if you have all of the pieces on hand.

6

Cool, I’ll try that out.
Thx