# Particle CEO AMA Today 2PM PST **URL:** \ **Category:** Social\ **Created:** [January 7, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794 "2022-01-07T20:05:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lanceseidman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/lanceseidman/32/26439_2.png) [@lanceseidman](https://community.particle.io/u/lanceseidman)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:20pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/22 "2022-01-14T22:20:36Z")
I have some less serious but serious questions… Do you feel Particle will continue to succeed being Open Source and if yes, do you think those who say Open Source will cause people to steal from you and build their own company, do you think that excuse can even be valid anymore as you see how Particle and other OS companies are doing? Have you thought about trying to build a Device that could succeed in Space? Find a niche with the Cubestat community or those who place cameras on balloons to launch in space or just maybe even usable on the ISS or Deep space (obviously without Cellular). What’s something you haven’t seen a Particle device be apart of (project wise) that you wish you did? ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:26pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/23 "2022-01-14T22:26:50Z")
> [@chipmc](#): > > \*\* With the introduction of the EtherSIM, we were told that, over time, more carriers might be added and that these eSIMs could improve cellular connectivity by surveying the local carriers and chosing the best one. An update on this would be appreciated especially for the US market where Particle’s rural coverage could be better. \*\* (Chip I'm going to come back to your first question in a bit) We are working on expanding the list of cellular partners we support in the U.S. and internationally. The elephant in the room is Verizon, which many of our customers have requested that we add to EtherSIM. Unfortunately it can be challenging to communicate concrete plans here because bringing on a new carrier isn't just about technical implementation, it also includes commercial negotiations which have very uncertain timeframes. So our best answer is still a hand-wavey one – we're working on it, we do want to add support for Verizon, but we don't have a specific or concrete timeframe yet. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:31pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/24 "2022-01-14T22:31:15Z")
> [@gusgonnet](#): > > another potentially interesting question: > > - will Particle think about allowing to split the pricing plans so one can buy more devices **OR** more Data Operations? > Today we can only buy **BOTH** at the same time. > > thanks! Structurally we do not have any plans to change the model of charging for devices and Data Ops together, although now that we've been live with this pricing model for a little while we are going to look at how people are consuming these in real life and will always consider improvements to the packages that we offer. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/25 "2022-01-14T22:34:51Z")
> [@jgskarda](#): > > Similar products and companies to [Particle.IO](http://Particle.IO) such as [Pycom](https://pycom.io/), [Digi](https://www.digi.com/) as well as others I’m sure, have added built in support to their platform for Sub-1Ghz communication. This includes libraries, hardware, certifications, etc. This can be 915 mHz, LoRa, mesh, etc. Several offer mesh capability within the Sub-1Ghz radio offerings as well (a huge advantage). This makes it attractive to many IoT use cases. This even helps alleviate the need for cellular reception from a specific carrier at the specific device location depending on the use case. The [Particle.IO](http://Particle.IO) boron/electron/Argon, etc. could be located where the cellular reception is sufficient and then reach the locations where it is not with sub-Ghz radio integrated in. Is there anything on the roadmap in the foreseeable future (1-3 years) to better support/compete with other similar offerings from other companies such as Pycom and Digi in this space? I'm a big fan of LoRa for point-to-point radios, and while I don't think it's proven itself as a globally deployed network (although I do think Helium is super interesting), I do think it's a great fit for when people need to DIY their own point-to-point network. This is something that a number of Particle's customers do today. In terms of building our own LoRa product - we don't have any specific plans (in other words it's not on our roadmap in active development) but it's a regular topic of conversation, so I can't promise that it _won't_ end up on our roadmap in the future 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:37pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/26 "2022-01-14T22:37:11Z")
> [@chipmc](#): > > A little over a year ago, Particle split deviceOS into the new features (3.x) and Long Term Release (2.x) branches. The premise back then was that the Long Term Release would get updates in features and functionality only once a year. I know that the Chipageddon and Pandemic have likely pushed things back but, it would be interesting to hear whether Particle is still committed to this approach and, if so, when might we see new features / functions in the Long Term Support branch. coming back to this first question - we're continuing to provide bug fixes for LTS and recently released incremental improvements to it, and will be releasing a new update to it soon that is currently in release candidate. That said I think the underlying question here is at what point do the capabilities we have added to 3.x get baked into a new LTS release (4.x)? We don't have a specific timeframe on that but it's something our engineering team is thinking about now. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:37pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/27 "2022-01-14T22:37:52Z")
> [@jgskarda](#): > > I love particle, the platform, the community, the docs, the hardware, etc. It’s great… What you and the Particle team built is fantastic! I’m a loyalist for sure. However, is there any metrics used internally for support tickets? How long they are open? Lead time to closing a ticket? Customer issue is satisfied with the resolution? I’ve yet to be pleased with the amount of time it takes for a simple support ticket response. Most times it’s been 5-7 days before a response is received and many times I have to follow-up routinely (every few days) and keep poking at it before I get a response. Would be great to improve this process. I understand I’m hardly even a minnow in the big ocean of your customers but it’s been concerning at times for support tickets. Just some feedback that would be nice if was addressed/improved. Appreciate the feedback and sorry for what sounds like it was a slow response to your support tickets; I'll let @Colleen provide a response on this one ---
**Author:** ![gusgonnet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/gusgonnet/32/27491_2.png) [@gusgonnet](https://community.particle.io/u/gusgonnet)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/28 "2022-01-14T22:43:41Z")
> [@zach](#): > > This year we have big plans both on new hardware products and new software capabilities that we’re adding to the platform. We will be making some of those product announcements within the next month, but more will come at Spectra, which we’ll be hosting this year in April. Really looking forward! ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:44pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/30 "2022-01-14T22:44:04Z")
> [@Pescatore](#): > > Does Particle plan on covering the small size, low cost, sensor node BLE applications market? > I wish Particle offered a scaled down Xenon-like kit for BLE sensor nodes without Mesh or cloud support. > A Gen3 device would be the gateway to the cloud, but the cloud doesn’t know about the BLE node. > Also offer a simplified way of communicating with the module by hiding some of the BLE complexities of services and characteristics. > This would also allow using the same Particle IDE for the BLE node and the client device. > The BLE docs and examples are useful, but I see a long road to getting a BLE solution running. In general there are a couple of different ways to tackle the problem of making it easier to build a BLE device that connects through a Gen 3 device back to the cloud: - Better BLE tooling - Off-the-shelf BLE sensor type things - A Xenon-like dev kit Both bullets 1 and 2 are on the table for us; we would like to make it easier to build BLE accessories and we are looking into potentially doing off-the-shelf sensors now that we're also building 'wrapped in plastic' products like Tracker One. The third bullet though isn't something though I would expect us to do, in large part because there are already a ton of great development kits and modules out in the world based on the nRF-series processors that we used in the Xenon and that we use in the Argon and Boron, and we don't have anything new to contribute to the world there. ---
**Author:** ![Colleen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/colleen/32/26785_2.png) [@Colleen](https://community.particle.io/u/Colleen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:45pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/31 "2022-01-14T22:45:12Z")
> [@jgskarda](#): > > I love particle, the platform, the community, the docs, the hardware, etc. It’s great… What you and the Particle team built is fantastic! I’m a loyalist for sure. However, is there any metrics used internally for support tickets? How long they are open? Lead time to closing a ticket? Customer issue is satisfied with the resolution? I’ve yet to be pleased with the amount of time it takes for a simple support ticket response. Most times it’s been 5-7 days before a response is received and many times I have to follow-up routinely (every few days) and keep poking at it before I get a response. Would be great to improve this process. I understand I’m hardly even a minnow in the big ocean of your customers but it’s been concerning at times for support tickets. Just some feedback that would be nice if was addressed/improved. Hey Jeff- thanks for this feedback. We are working to make the ticket process better. We do recommend reaching out on the forums with most questions. I am on here constantly and strive to reply within one working day. You can also PM me with questions or concerns. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:45pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/32 "2022-01-14T22:45:26Z")
> [@jaafar](#): > > I’d like to check if you have plans to support tinyML /embeddedML in the near future? > One of your former colleagues ported a Tensorflow lite library to 2nd and 3rd gen devices but it hasn’t been updated since (2 years ago) and its seriously behind the main Tensorflow lite library now. > On the other hand, Edge Impulse has a whole platform for data acquisition/model training and deployment. It’s been gaining a lot of traction lately and it has support for Arduino and nRF52840. It’ll be great to have gen3 devices officially supported in the platform, or at least to have a tutorial for how to deploy trained model on Particle devices. We're big fans of Edge Impulse and I have been talking to them about porting their software to Particle. We're looking for a reference customer that we can use to drive that porting exercise but haven't lined one up yet, but hopefully once we find one we'll see Edge Impulse support on Particle. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:47pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/34 "2022-01-14T22:47:21Z")
> [@gusgonnet](#): > > that’s alright, If Bill Gates does text only AMA’s, why can’t Zach? > > However, Bill provided proof: Photographic evidence that it is in fact me doing this ![Photo on 1-14-22 at 2.46 PM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/particle/original/3X/8/8/888db7187d4c45c96f42449cda73f732e8d8d6d4.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![gusgonnet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/gusgonnet/32/27491_2.png) [@gusgonnet](https://community.particle.io/u/gusgonnet)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/35 "2022-01-14T22:50:10Z")
> [@zach](#): > > Photographic evidence that it is in fact me doing this hehe, I was just thinking about the proof! ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:51pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/36 "2022-01-14T22:51:32Z")
> [@lanceseidman](#): > > As someone who started his company with a family member in mind, have you continued to think about how Particle IoT can be used for those with disabilities or support projects around helping the life’s of those with disabilities? Back before we were Particle, we originally started building out a lighting product that was inspired by my attempt to build a lighting notifications app for my dad, who's deaf. Time machine here: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparkdevices/spark-upgrade-your-lights-with-wi-fi-and-apps/](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparkdevices/spark-upgrade-your-lights-with-wi-fi-and-apps/) I think there are a bunch of great accessibility opportunities using IoT; for instance we've got customers using Particle on walkers and on wheelchair vans, and one using Particle to track usage of prosthetic limbs. I find that our customers do a better job of identifying those opportunities than we do because the companies who use Particle to build those kinds of solutions are the ones who know exactly what problem they're trying to solve. ---
**Author:** ![Colleen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/colleen/32/26785_2.png) [@Colleen](https://community.particle.io/u/Colleen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:51pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/37 "2022-01-14T22:51:36Z")
No clue what you’re going on about. Perfectly legit proof was provided yesterday. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Jorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@Jorge](https://community.particle.io/u/Jorge)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/38 "2022-01-14T22:55:28Z")
Hello Zach: With the advent of increased 5G availability coming into this year, is there anything to look forward for 2022 that you believe Particle can seize an opportunity on? Thank You Jorge ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:57pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/39 "2022-01-14T22:57:46Z")
> [@lanceseidman](#): > > Do you feel Particle will continue to succeed being Open Source and if yes, do you think those who say Open Source will cause people to steal from you and build their own company, do you think that excuse can even be valid anymore as you see how Particle and other OS companies are doing? Open source is complicated and businesses that have open source or partially open source products are even more complicated. I think the question any business that has open source components has to ask is: _why open source?_ Why does that provide some benefit to customers and/or to the business? Unfortunately I think most of the time when open source stuff goes south it's because the company hasn't really answered this question. For Particle, providing some of our software and hardware under an open source license makes it easier for our customers to build their own products with Particle. Open source software and hardware gives our customers two things: - Software modules that 'just work' but can also be audited so you can understand how they work and they're not just a black box - this is about making things easier but also building trust - Reference software and hardware that allows a customer to get started faster Those reasons give us something of a north star for where and when we think about open sourcing something. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/40 "2022-01-14T22:59:18Z")
> [@lanceseidman](#): > > Have you thought about trying to build a Device that could succeed in Space? Find a niche with the Cubestat community or those who place cameras on balloons to launch in space or just maybe even usable on the ISS or Deep space (obviously without Cellular). I don't think we're cool enough to send stuff to space, but I have been waiting eagerly for someone to build a satellite connectivity solution for IoT that doesn't suck, because I think there's a huge market there and I would love to add satellite support to the Particle platform. Swarm was doing cool stuff before they got bought by SpaceX, my hope is that they're still doing cool stuff at SpaceX and maybe Starlink is going to be able to do IoT stuff at some point. That would be just awesome. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 11:00pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/41 "2022-01-14T23:00:53Z")
> [@Jorge](#): > > Hello Zach: > > With the advent of increased 5G availability coming into this year, is there anything to look forward for 2022 that you believe Particle can seize an opportunity on? > > Thank You > Jorge I think it'll still be a little while before 5G comes to IoT. right now 5G chips are super expensive and there isn't really any advantage to IoT products to justify that cost. over time that will change, but for now and I think for the foreseeable future LTE is going to be the primary tech for cellular IoT, and I wouldn't be surprised if things like LTE Cat-M and NB-IoT just get sucked into 5G as part of the longer term low-power low-cost roadmap for 5G. ---
**Author:** ![zach](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/zach/32/20714_2.png) [@zach](https://community.particle.io/u/zach)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 11:01pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/42 "2022-01-14T23:01:35Z")
ok, enough typing! I’m going to go grab a whiskey and join the happy hour Zoom. see you all there! ---
**Author:** ![Colleen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/community.particle.io/colleen/32/26785_2.png) [@Colleen](https://community.particle.io/u/Colleen)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2022, 11:01pm UTC](https://community.particle.io/t/particle-ceo-ama-today-2pm-pst/61794/43 "2022-01-14T23:01:39Z")
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