We currently have a fleet of 50 E-series devices deployed. About half of these are 3G and the other half are LTE. I recently went to the Particle Store to purchase more E-series LTE to upgrade our remaining 3G units.
The store had no stock. I contacted sales, and they told me the E-series has been discontinued!!
Firstly, I’m pretty disappointed that I never received an end of life, or product obsolescence notice. That is standard practice when product plans depend on these modules.
Secondly, anyone know a way of acquiring E-series LTE (North America E402) modules? Anyone selling unused modules they have from an old project?
I’m debating whether we create a PCB adapter board that converts the e-series footprint to a B-series. I would be intrigued if that already exists somewhere, or if anyone else is in the market for something like this?
Will here, Head of Product at Particle. Want to clarify the following:
The E Series is not discontinued, and we are continuing to manufacture it for customers as we have raw materials available. However, the silicon shortage is creating severe supply constraints across several components on our Gen 2 (STM32F205) and LTE (SARA-R4) product lines, so many products in our portfolio have extended lead times and distributed on an allocation basis.
We anticipate shortages will continue into 2022 and even into 2023. The best thing that you can do to secure supply of these components is to place orders either (1) in our B2B stores if you are a self-service customers or (2) by submitting a PO if you are a contracted enterprise customer.
Firstly, I’m pretty disappointed that I never received an end of life, or product obsolescence notice. That is standard practice when product plans depend on these modules.
Particle has a documented product lifecycle policy for volume/enterprise SKUs that we follow when changing lifecycle status. If or when a product lifecycle change is made, all customers who have purchased that part will receive formal communications regarding the change.
Thanks for relaying your experience, I'll circle back to the sales rep that you spoke with to ensure we're giving clear and consistent messages during this challenging period for the global electronics industry.