Cat M1 is still maturing. I know some early M1 modules have been phased out because the carriers could not issue baseband updates. (without those updates, the devices could become useless) I believe the SARA modem that’s on the LTE Boron is well supported and widely adopted. I would definitely try to stay on the leading edge of this stuff. 2G/3G is going to get phased out. (check out the timeline at the bottom of the page)
I know many companies using LTE CAT1 deployments and they have been going well. Locations that have CAT1 should likely have M1. (Most carriers will claim that if an area has LTE it has CAT M1 service.)
As for the hardware itself, you can’t go wrong with the design. Until there’s a multi-radio SoC (Bluetooth + LTE) the only way to do it is the way that Particle did it.
I have 2 deployed in the field in the Pensacola area. One has been in for several months with a couple of disconnects and seems pretty stable, the other less than a week.
The linked text includes "Enabling the hardware watchdog in combination with this is recommended, so that the system resets in the event that interrupts are not firing."
@rickkas7 this sounds like there is now official support for an internal HW watchdog started and stopped at the application level. Is it a reference to the NRF52840 hardware watchdog?
Can you elaborate on “usually”? Was there ever a case where, after a disconnect, it wouldn’t come back on its own, but required a manual reset/power cycle?
