Largest Benefits of using Particle for Wi-Fi?

The Archive Product Creation
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I am looking on Mouser and am finding that using the Particle P1 (Wi-Fi module) costs $18/module even in quantity 1000. That seems excessive. On the Particle store, the P1 costs $12/module in quantity 1, but is sold out. I contacted Particle support and expect a cheaper quote for 1000 quantity.

In the meantime, what are the largest benefits of using Particle for Wi-Fi in production of a product of at least 1000 quantity? I have prototyped with the Photon and have seen how easy it is to update the firmware with the cloud interface. Is that the only benefit? If I am thinking about making something simple like a Wi-Fi thermometer that only needs to transmit data one-way, what does Particle offer over all the other $5 modules on Mouser?

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You may want to register for wholesale.particle.io to directly get in contact with the sales team.

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`Benefits (assuming all 1000 are not on 1 site…)

$5 module (cheap)
1000 site visits to update (expensive)

Particle
Online cloud showing device status (cheap)
Remote updates (cheap)
Remote diagnostics (cheap)
Update all devices in one command (cheap)
Secure data path from device to cloud (priceless)`

I am sure there are others as well - I have deployed device fleets of ±7000 before and while I had OTA is was hard to manage and maintain, we had no data path security - I have switched for the above reasons. Simple after sales maintenance is a benefit to you and your customers

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There is a disbenefit of using Particle Wifi devices and Argon in particular which is if you need WPA Enterprise security - it is difficult to get working and is not yet implemented on Argon. Otherwise I support all the above points - you are getting an IoT platform and not a just wifi enabled Microcontroller.

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I asked Particle and their phone support said that Particle is not a Wi-Fi company. They are a cellular company. So in short, the recurring fee is just for the really easy over-the-air firmware updates and the device management web interface. There is nothing else. That being said, the over-the-air firmware update experience is really easy.

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Not sure what that should mean :confused:
They are neither. Particle is a provider of a IoT Cloud Service and also creates the IoT hardware to connect to it.
Particle has contracts and service agreements with Cell Service Providers but they are no provider themselves.

Actually as the term IoT Cloud Service provider suggests, it's the entire infrastructure of cloud services (e.g. authentication, security, message routing, webhooks, online building farms, ...)

And the "recurring fee" (other than the cellular service fee) also only starts getting charged when you exceed the free devices quota.

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