How to reset or force the device "Boron" to wake remotely?

[majj_11]

Hi All,
I experienced an issue with my device, i installed it today and it worked for 3 hours fine then gone offline. 10 min sleep then wake send signal and back to sleep, but it went offline, since 9 hours i got nothing and the location is 3 hours drive, is there away to reset it remotely or anything to bring it life ?

the battery is fully charged and should last for 3 weeks so i dont think it is power issue.

Thank you in advance and looking forward to hear from you .

[chipmc]

@majj_11 ,

Sorry, to hear about your issue. As someone who deploys devices that are often inconvenient to reach, this is something I have thought a fair bit about.

There is not much you can do if a device is not connected but, you can push a firmware update via the console that could catch the device if it does connect and bring it to a known good / safe state.

If you can update the device, there are some things you can do with software and hardware to make it more resilient.

1. Use a best practice pattern to help architect your code for resiliency. Particle has published application notes that can help improve resiliency using a finite state machine approach - this reduces complexity in troubleshooting as there is only a small number of lines of code executing depending on the state.

AN029 Wake publish sleep example | Datasheets

2. Test - test - test - I deploy sensors in parks and they can be very far away (NZ - would love to visit but alas…). I would suggest you test your devices through multiple cycles of wake / sleep, battery full / drained and cellular availability / outage before you send them off into the world. For example, I find that airplane flights are great opportunities to test no connectivity - you just have to put up with the stares of your fellow passengers.

3. You can use the software application watchdog to rescue the device should the firmware lock-up:

Particle

4. You can implement a hardware watchdog which increases the odds that your device will be reset if it becomes unresponsive.

AN023 Watchdog Timers | Datasheets

With these approaches, you can achieve high levels of reliability and reduce the chance that your distant sensors will become unresponsive.

Hope this is helpful,

Chip

[majj_11]

Thank you @chipmc for you quick response and the information, and yes it is not really good situation to be in but i will follow you guidance, i have tried the device for days and seems fine.

much appreciate it

[jgskarda]

@chipmc

you just have to put up with the stares of your fellow passengers.

[jgskarda]

@majj_11

10 min sleep then wake send signal and back to sleep

In addition to the great advice from @chipmc:

One consideration is you may want to sleep for a longer duration of 10 minutes OR change your sleep mode. Per the Particle Docs: " For cellular devices, reconnecting to cellular after SLEEP_MODE_DEEP will generally use more power than using SLEEP_NETWORK_STANDBY for periods less than 15 minutes. You should definitely avoid using SLEEP_MODE_DEEP on cellular devices for periods less than 10 minutes. Your SIM can be blocked by your mobile carrier for aggressive reconnection if you reconnect to cellular very frequently." Device OS API | Reference Documentation | Particle

It may or may not be the issue but before I put a device to sleep, I check to see what the sleep duration is and if the duration is less than 10 minutes, I put it into Sleep_network_Standby instead of Sleep_mode_deep to avoid this potential scenario of having the SIM card blocked. I personally have devices sleep for 20 minutes at a time without issue.