Hi and thanks for reading.
I’m looking for a breadboard/PCB friendly wifi router that will physically connect to and communicate with an Electron. A Particle hotspot for Photons, in other words. Photons talk to the router. Router talks to the Electron. Electron talks to the cloud. And vice versa.
The ideal candidate would be inexpensive(<$40), reliable, already have FCC certifications and be relatively straightforward to configure/program.
Has anyone worked with any of Dragino or 8devices OpenWrt Linux router products? Would they likely work well between an Electron and Photons(maybe up to 8 of them)?
Is there any device you could recommend for this purpose?
Thank you for the advice.
Also, I realize that at some point in the future Photons might be able to communicate with an Electron, but my understanding is that isn’t possible now. Or at least I haven’t read that this is possible at this time. Am I wrong? If so, the separate router thing becomes unnecessary.
Just to clarify. My OP is referring to a hub and spoke network with Photons as nodes and an Electron as a gateway. My post didn’t specify that. Gateway is an Electron and router. Nodes are Photons that communicate wirelessly to the gateway.
MORA. Great question. My ultimate goal is to develop a suite of products that have Particle devices in them. I’ve always seen Cores, Photons and Electrons in this way. The main reason I want to use an Electron and not an off-the-shelf gateway or other “White label” equivalent is the increased control and flexibility using an Electron provides to a system’s overall design/functionality.
Just curious what turn-key wifi routers with 3g modem you had in mind. When I’ve searched, I haven’t found a good solution that supports very low data usage.
How come they dont support low data usage ?
They shouldnt consume much if any data themselves only keep the connection open, one of my customers used one of these routers to get a old wired datalogger online, been running a few years now, but you need to find a decent sim/data plan, ie. low monthly cost with a bit of data included.
Ok, most of those are actually only wifi routers, but 3g ones does exist, some of them like the TP one, requires an external usb 3g adapter.
Looks like a good deal, I am a bit skeptical about the being active clause, they are not very keen on telling what happens if you use less than 1MB in 60days, but still uses data ?
I suspect that the account will be flagged as inactive and any unused data lost, so one need to make sure to at least use 1MB/60days.
A nicer solution would be to have a minimum usage (ie. if you dont use 1mb/month we bill you 1mb anyway), but the wording dont sound like thats what they are selling.
The deals we get around here are comparable to the particle deal, but without worldwide roaming.
Not many providers will sell no running cost cards, with low price per MB.
Yeah that’s a very good point. In our tests, it was a dealbreaker to support them and make sure they are always active when you are unsure exactly what definites inactivity.
