Location Services for All

Particle Updates
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Today, we are launching Particle Location Services for all users.

This update allows any product to view the approximate location of their devices on a map in the Console, determined by cell tower triangulation or IP address. Additionally, devices equipped with GNSS can now transmit precise locations directly to the cloud or access Location Fusion data from tower scans. These capabilities were previously exclusive to Asset Tracker devices.

See the location documentation for details on this functionality.

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Wow, that's nice!

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Question: Is the number 50 correct (from the docs)?

  • For non-Tracker devices, loc events using location fusion (cellular or Wi-Fi geolocation) counts as 50 data operations

Thanks

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Yes, that's correct. The approximate location from single cell tower or IP address does not count as a data operation on the other hand.

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On Sandbox and Basic plans, the Device Vitals location is updated once per week

This seems like a pretty big limitation given that the data is available to Particle on each ping...any reason for not updating it on each device vital update?

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Does this trigger an event, such as "loc" or "loc-enhanced"?

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The automatic weekly location, which is based on device vitals, does not generate an event, but is stored in the location history, if enabled for the product.

If you generate your own loc event on a non-Tracker device and it does not have locked coordinates, then a loc-enhanced would be generated from cell tower or Wi-Fi information. See below for more details.

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I am not able to generate a loc-enhanced event from a standard loc post. I suspect part of the issue is because I cannot access the Gateway Fleet Settings from my B404x product to check "enhanced location" box? Location settings doc

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Here is my loc event. In the past when using the M404, I used a similar message structure and get a loc-enhanced message back.

I am also missing the configure fleet button on all my products, so that could be an issue too?

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I was incorrect. loc-enhanced events are not generated for non-Tracker devices. See below.

Non-Tracker devices do not have fleet settings as they don't run Tracker Edge or Monitor Edge, so that's expected.

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Is this information still accurate? According to the documentation, non-Tracker devices with GNSS should be able to use location fusion:

For non-Tracker devices, loc events using location fusion (cellular or Wi-Fi geolocation) counts as 50 data operations
Location | Getting Started | Particle

For clarification, does “location fusion” essentially refer to the same functionality that generates a loc-enhanced event? Or is there a difference between the two?

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I think this is correct:

  • When based on Device Vitals, loc-enhanced events are never generated.
  • On non-Tracker devices, if you generate your own loc event and it contains lat and lon, location fusion is never used.
  • Location fusion is the generation of coordinates from cell tower, Wi-Fi SSID, or IP address information.
  • Location data is stored in the location database. In some cases, a loc-enhanced event can also be generated.