Feedback on desired workflow for Customer claiming E-Series based device

Cloud
1

So I have a workflow in mind and I wanted to confirm whether this is a reasonable plan, or if anyone has feedback/modifications they would suggest.

Effectively, I plan on the following:

  1. Claim newly manufactured devices to my administrator account for testing
  2. Enable Particle Cloud for testing, then disable once testing complete (I understand this uses a month’s connection)
  3. End user will receive a shipped device which has a QR code label which is device ID
  4. They signup and pay a month’s access on my back-end, and scan the QR code to link the device to their account
  5. My back end connects via Particle API to re-enable particle cloud for that device ID
  6. If user’s subscription runs out, back end will cancel particle cloud for following month

So the customer will never truly “Claim” the device, it will stay claimed by my administrator account.
I should note that device data is pushed via webhook to my backend - so customer has no direct contact with Particle Cloud functionality.

Does this sound like a reasonable approach? Or am I missing something obvious/making things hard for myself.

Thanks kindly in advance!

1 Like
2

That is reasonable.

While Wi-Fi devices often use customer accounts (either simple auth or two-legged shadow customers), most cellular products claim all of the devices to the owner’s account and use product SIMs paid from the product owner’s account.

Using a QR code with the device ID is reasonable. Since you already have to have a database, you could also use a much shorter numeric serial number that the user could enter into the mobile app and you would map into the device ID and ICCID in your database.

3

Thank you very much for the reply, really appreciate the feedback.
The shorter unique id approach is a good idea too, may incorporate it as a fallback.

Regards,
Alex