Official Particle Android app is unable to see new Photon's

Hi,
By now I’ve purchased about a hundred Photon’s and quite a few P1 modules (for various design projects). Half a year ago, every new Photon would start by blinking blue and it would show up in the Android app. It’s not like that any more. I just received a batch of 30 Photon’s. None of them are showing up in the app and I’m not the only one with this problem.

If you look at the Google Play store, the rating for the Particle app is in complete free fall. The average review for the last months is now less than 2 out of 5 stars (from what I can see). Regaining these users trust will take months of hard work, so the app must be fixed right away.

I’m use a Samsung Galaxy S5 with Android 6.0.1 (set to English language). I’m using version 1.6.3 of the Particle app (apparently the latest?). It’s not just my device that has issues. Many (but not all) of my students have issues and must use USB for setup also.

PS: I can connect to them using USB and CLI, but that’s not my point. I’m a teacher and I tell the students that we’re using the Photon because it’s so easy to get started. At it’s current state that’s just not true any more.

@jenschr

I appreciate the feedback about your recent struggles with the Android app. Our goal with our products is for there to be a seamless on boarding experience whether it be connecting to the app or creating in build. I relayed your concerns on to my team and I know we are actively working on rectifying this issue. If there is anything I can do to help you, feel free to PM me.

Kyle

As long as it’s fixed right away, I’m happy :slight_smile:
I hope the team is able to reproduce the bug asap. If not, tell if I can help?

J

1 Like

As soon as I hear something I will let you know!

While your at it, the wizard will not run on Samsung S7, It works fine on my Galaxy Tab S. I go to find photon and the app just blinks about 4 times and says “I don’t think so sir!”, goes back to the start screen. have tested on multiple S7 with multiple operating systems and it blinks on all.

2016 Smartphone Market Share

Android 87.6%
iOS 11.7%
Windows 0.4%
Other 0.3%

cough cough :smile:

When you start quoting Android VS the world, you should include the full picture:
(taking the latest versions for 'fairness')

While Android might be popular, it's also extremely divided. There are a gazillion and one different devices, running and endless variety of software versions and/or custom ROMs. That makes it extremely difficult to test, since there's no way to try all devices with their possible versions.

In fact, your findings seem to confirm just that:

Not trying to say it shouldn't be fixed - which it should - but wanted to drop in to put the Almighty Android into perspective :wink:

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Well if you want to be a smart a$$ and start really getting into it, you are comparing fragmentation to market share, did you want to talk about other apples and oranges? ;). Ill even humor you, you have 88 ish percent of android devices on only three different OS. Yeah real hard to test for eh.

Not to mention we are talking about Flagships devices here, not some knockoff. Typical apple fanboi :slight_smile:

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I’m not fanboy’ing, nor am I trying to be a smartass. I’m also not trying to start an OS war here, nor am I trying to make this personal. Using market share just doesn’t paint the entire picture in my opinion, which was what I was trying to explain. That, and that alone, was what I was trying to depict. The very fact that it does work on your Tab and not on your S7 exemplifies that. In fact, if you really want to get into it, what did market share have to do with the issue at hand in the first place? Does it somehow make Android superior ;)?
I’m not sure what versions your devices are running, but let’s assume they’re running the exact same version to keep things simple. That’s two devices, running the (supposedly) same software somehow functioning differently. Let’s then consider that there are other ‘flagship’ makers out there, making several devices each. That’s a huge amount of devices to test for. Then… multiply that by three, disregarding the older versions of software.

Thinking about it, I posted my comment above to try and avoid OS discussions by making it clear that that shouldn’t be taken as a reference point. Guess that didn’t work. I’m going to leave it at this, hoping the issue gets resolved soon, regardless of market share or fragmentation.

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if you really want to get into it, what did market share have to do with the issue at hand in the first place?

lol My point of market share was that, generally as a developer, you want to make sure your apps work well on the largest market share platform and hardware as opposed to say 15% of the market. The issue has persisted for a few months now.

Let's then consider that there are other 'flagship' makers out there, making several devices each. That's a huge amount of devices to test for.

Please name me a larger flagship maker then Samsung. I'd agree with you if we were talking about some piece of garbage :). , but we are not.

I'm going to leave it at this, hoping the issue gets resolved soon, regardless of market share or fragmentation

Me too, I have faith, guess I'll just have to grab a S8 (for testing purpose solely of course :laughing: )

Obviously they'd want it to work for all devices, whenever possible. Quoting market shares makes it seem as if they don't care, which I can safely say is not true. Making it compatible isn't a 'simple' fact of "hey big market share, now make it work", but can be a real effort if you consider how many devices they have to cater for. If you compare it to Apple (an objective example, not fanboy'ing), they control both the hardware and software, allowing them to 'optimize the experience' or whatever they want to call it. Basically, they only have to look at their own devices, and cater the software to their liking. With Android/Windows/Linux, there's such a variety of devices, a great deal of the OS has to be generalized. Now, if you're Microsoft, Samsung, or a comparable multi-bullion dollar corporation, that's easier to do than when you make an IoT chip. And even then mistakes are made, and quite some time can pass between a new (clean) OS version and the respective port of the manufacturer. Point being, since Android is so diverse in both software (versions) and devices, it takes an enormous effort to make sure everything works on, well, everything.

It's not that you need bigger producers, just more of them. You can't ignore all other devices out there simply because Samsung has the largest market share. But we've got (I think) HTC, Huawei, One Plus, Xiaomi, Google to consider. They all make a multitude of devices, multiple times per year. Testing them all, on the most common versions is a big effort.

In all fairness, they do blow up occasionally... :bomb: (sorry, too good of an opportunity not to...:speak_no_evil:)

Just to be clear, I do want this solved too, even though I might be one of "them Apple fanboys". Was only trying to put things into perspective.

Obviously they'd want it to work for all devices, whenever
possible. Quoting market shares makes it seem as if they don't care,
which I can safely say is not true. Making it c..............................

You seem to be missing my point, I don't expect it to work on every platform and every version. I expect it to work on flagship Phones eg: Iphones, Samsung, Nexus, Pixel. It's not a slight to have high expectations. I know they will fix it eventually.

It's not that you need bigger producers, just more of them. You can't
ignore all other devices out there simply because Samsung has the................

See above

In all fairness, they do blow up occasionally... (sorry, too good of an opportunity not to...)

Haha nope, that's a fair one. That was completely unacceptable on Samsung's part. Percentage wise low but still, the second round you send out starts to catch fire, come on guys :smile:

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Hehe… Guys…
OS fragmentation on Android really is a difficult issue though, so mentioning it is a fair point. I no longer have any iOS phones (but i have 4 different iPads for testing) and it seems Android is the problem here and only on certain phone/OS combinations.

I’m really hoping they can resolve these issues fast as I’ll teach a class using Photon’s the coming week (on Tuesday) and it would be great if it worked as painless as it used to do :smile:

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Just to show that targeting multiple OSs and versions thereoff, a nice puzzle for iOS 10 users:

AFAIK, this is most definetly an iOS issue but Particle has to find ways around it.

Anyone know if the Particle team have an update in the works? It’s still version 4.0 in the Google Play store and it still fails to see both P0 and P1 based designs. I can get hold of them via USB, but that’s not a solution.

I also find it cumbersome that I have to add a USB socket to my P1 based designs just to set wifi credentials. I can’t really roll out commercial products based on P1 if this doesn’t work?

Have you considered using something like this online setup tool?

Hi Harrison,
That’s a great link for my commercial project! For teaching 45 students, I’d rather not have to make something custom though. It would be better if it just worked as it should?

1 Like

Hey folks!

We’re currently hiring for a new in-house Android developer who can focus full time on improving the Android setup experience. OS fragmentation issues aside, we acknowledge that there is room for performance and reliability improvements to the app.

The setup experience is critical for IoT products and product creators – please expect improvements ASAP in Q1 2017.

@will great! pls revisit this thread when you post the job at https://jobs.lever.co/particle/ and I’ll pass it around to some ppl?

Currently we’re hiring via Upwork, post is here:

We’re also looking for iOS contractors, here:

https://www.upwork.com/job/iOS-developer_~0160f9f61599604060/

Oh? I found that link to https://jobs.lever.co/particle/ on the main particle.io website. Better update it then? :smile:

But? Does that mean that you’ve hired the AWS developer mentioned on lever.co? AWS IoT support is my only wish for Particle in 2017…