Dear Particle,
Way back on February 27, 2015 when I decided to back you, I asked if the Electron and Blynk would play nice together. Your reply was “Yes, Blynk will indeed play nice.” I waited almost a year to receive my Electron. Now that it is here, I would love to be able to build my project with it. Problem is, it still doesn’t “play” with Blynk! Worse yet, when I ask Pavel at Blynk about when it might play with Blynk, he says they don’t even have the hardware yet and once they get it, THEN they will develop a timeline. My question to you is, WHY do they not have an Electron so that they can start developing the integration? The wait may potentially kill my entire project!
Please advise
Thanks
mpo881 1d
I have checked the road map and announcement section for information related to Electron support and found nothing. Is there somewhere else I should look? Is there a time frame?
Thank you
PavelFounder of Blynk 1d
Waiting for the hardware to come. After that there will be estimates.
This may sound stupid, but shouldn't you be asking the Blynk folks why they haven't yet got one? If you managed to get one, along with thousands of other 'regular' people, shouldn't they have been able to do the same? There was also a 'beta' option for folks who needed them to test and integrate. I'd say there were plenty of opportunities to get one through the 'normal' channels, not to mention contacting Particle directly. Knowing Particle, I'm sure they would've helped out when/if asked.
If no such request came, or effort made, then I'd argue that's up to Blynk, not Particle. They provide a service to connect IoT devices, so if they depend on those to make it work, I'd figure it'd be a priority for them to get their hands on one as soon as possible.
All that's to say that I don't think Particle should be held accountable for them not having a device yet. Its as though you'd had to supply Microsoft with a laptop to make sure office ran on it. It's in their best interest to make it work, therefore I think they should be the ones making an effort to get the necessities.
Just my view on the matter, I'm not blaming anyone.
Well, thanks for the reply. Look, I am not trying to blame anyone either. I asked way back during the initial campaign if the Electron was going to play nice with Blynk and I was told it would. So, if we are going to make assumptions, I would assume that the person who replied, knew what they were talking about. That is to say, they knew that Blynk and Electron worked together. So, I was a bit surprised that when (after waiting for a year) to receive the Electron, it is only then that I find out that the two don’t work together, yet.
I guess if I was building a board that I wanted to work with a particular software, I would have made sure that those people had one before anyone else. But, maybe that is a bad assumption on my part and in reality, Particle doesn’t really care who’s stuff it works with (no sarcasm intended).
It was purely a question about the status. I didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers.
Thanks for your reply
Here is a copy of my original message. Based on that, I would have figured it was a done deal, not something that was going to take more work a year later.
Spark IO
Spark IO
Feb 28 2015
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Hi Brian,
Yes, Blynk will indeed play nice! We’ve talked with the team and super excited about that integration!
Also, we are fully intending the Electron to work with our current Shield Shield (https://store.spark.io/) - it’s a bit longer than the Core or Photon so will hang off the back but it will work. We’ll also release some specially designed Shield Shields when the Electron is delivered.
Maybe it was a bit too optimistic to extrapolate the initial effort Blynk has shown to support the Particle ecosystem, but from the Paticle side of things it is true. The Electron offers everything to Blynk to play nice.
The Electron is widely code compatible with the Photon (and based on the same µC too), the power management has nothing to do with Blynk, only the transport layer is different.
Without actually knowing what exactly you mean with "doesn't play with Blynk" I can only guess that this transport layer might contribute. But that has taken an "unforseeable" turn away from TCP towards UDP to save Particle users their money. But you can still opt for TCP and see if this then cures the problem.
But I'd still second @Moors7 opinion that the ones who should have taken action are Blynk and not Particle - Blynk is a product that "wants" to run on Particle devices - Particle devices are not initially built for Blynk and don't rely on their support.
Having said this, how come that your project lives or falls with Blynk support? Particle devices support loads of other remote end solutions. Have you considered other routes?
BTW:
Did you ask on the Blynk side, why they didn't make sure to get into the Beta program? (For your project even you could have applied to get a Beta unit)
So about this ...
... I'd say, because they didn't ask for one. Do you think you would have got your Electron if you didn't order one?
And knowing Particle, if Blynk only asked, they would - unlike you - not even have to pay for them - so it's really not Particles fault.
Just to clarify: Neither @Moors7 nor I are particle employees, but Steph was back then and has done a good job all the way and also in this case - so what we have written should be compatible with the official Particle view but might still diverge in places.
Particle is not to be held responsible for what we mere users say
This was asked prior to having Blynk or Electron. What was meant is will they be compatible?
Based on Blynk's reply to my question, "We are waiting on hardware" it would seem to me that at some point they did ask and as yet have not received it.
I am open to suggestions!!
I have posted what I asked Blynk
I assume that is a joke?
I simply asked for help. Why is it assumed that I am looking to assign blame. I posted a question with facts, not opinions. Sorry I upset the both of you. Either way, I appreciate both of your time and your responses.
Thanks
Is that's the question, then the answer is most likely
a) it's stuck in post. Wouldn't be the first time.
b) Blynk ordered (too) late.
c) both.
The way you asked the question may come across as though you hold Particle responsible for getting them the products. Seeing as that wouldn't be a fair assumption to be made, in my opinion, we might get a tad defensive, considering we know first hand how much effort is being put into this from Particles side.
I can safely say neither of us is upset. We're all here to help If we didn't care, we wouldn't be here, nor would we be answering any questions.
What are you building, we might have some suggestions?
I gathered that you asked the question about "Will they play nice together" before, but in your initial post you stated that "Now, as you have the Electron they don't".
So how exactly does this don't manifest?
If we (or Particle) were pointed to the things to explicitly look out for or test, someone might be able to suggest a workaround (e.g. switching to TCP if this is the cause).
vs.
I don't neccessarily read this original quote as they are currently waiting for devices they already had ordered ages ago
Seen the flag on my post, could you add the context, that this was actually meant as "why should Blynk get devices without ordering them, while you and I and everybody else would need to order them (and most even pay for them)".
.
In all fairness and with all due respect, Kickstarter projects are always a little elastic in their timelines.... then you have the interdependencies too.
When you asked on the Blynk forum, Pavel gave you a very nice response and took ownership of the development (and was very complementary of Particle, by the way).
Thank you for your reply. My original question was sent via Kickstarter and answered by Stephanie as I have posted in this thread.
Once again, I must point out that I am not looking to blame anyone. I asked a question on Blynk and received the reply you see here. I then came here to see if I could find out what the answer might be on the Electron end. I am now sorry I ever brought it up.
Okay, first and foremost, my apologies if you feel we were harassing you, that is not, nor has it ever been, the intention.
I have tried to answer your questions the best way I could. The way the questions were asked left a lot of room for interpretation. “Why didn’t they receive it yet?” -> no idea. The next best thing I can do is make some assumptions and draw conclusions from that. They may or may not be correct. As stated before, these are indeed our opinions, as members of this community. We’ve been around here for quite a while, and often make assumptions close to the truth. In the end, we’re still human, and make mistakes. Unfortunate, but it happens. As said in the beginning, no offence was meant in any shape or form.
I suspect I misinterpreted your question. Seeing as the Particle devices support what’s needed for Blynk, but Blynk has to make adjustments to make their things compatible, I don’t really get what the ‘fuss’ is about. As Blynk stated, they’re waiting for devices to continue development. What more could you want?
Again, hopefully you’ll continue your development with Particle, and maybe we can help out. If you’re willing to share what you’re trying to achieve, we could advise.
But due to the flagging, I'm not sure if you actually read my repetition of the question
To show that we acutally do care for Particle and the members here, I've just tested 01-particle.ino with my 3G Electron and just selected Photon (due to the lack of the Electron option) in the Blynk app, but flashed my code to the Electron and this in fact proves Steph's original assuption and my suspission right it already does work.
Blynk only seems to be unaware of it.
Hence it would have helped to state what the supposed "not working" statement was based on.
@mpo881, I tested Blynk on the Electron and there are issues. There is a considerable lag and data seems to come in bursts. I suspect, as @ScruffR pointed out, that it may be related to the UDP vs TCP design of the Electron. This will need to be considered by Blynk I suspect.
Have you considered the data requirements for Blynk when using an Electron?
Thanks for your reply. I have not considered that as of yet. I appreciate your time in looking at the board for compatibility with Blynk. I am going to pass on the Electron and stick with what I have.
Concur with peekay123. Blynk is now running great on my particle with firmware version 0.5! I notice very little lag, at least with a simple LED on/off Blynk test using the 01_particle.ino. It takes less than a second from Blynk app button push to LED response. A current buzz kill is that the demo program consumes about 1.2MB of data daily (rough estimate) while idling! Yike$! So, I’ll have to investigate data conservation measures. If anyone has pointers to discussion threads or advice on this, that would be great! Kudos to the Blynk and Particle teams for a couple of great products.
If we didn't care, we wouldn't be here, nor would we be answering any questions.