Hey, I am looking to design a custom pcb for a product I am going to be selling this product commercially. I have made a prototype using the particle photon. To significantly reduce the cost of making one of the devices (photons are expensive for mass production) Are there any particle photon schematics I could use to print out a large amount of pcbs, and if I could would I be able to sell them commercially?
Are you aware there are special modules available for mass production that are not only smaller, but also cheaper? The P0 and P1.
Before you go around and sell replicas of Particle’s own products, I’d contact them first regarding this. Try the contact information on the website.
3 Likes
Apart from the "ethics" behind such a plan, I'm pretty sure you'd need to go through the certification process from scratch because it's not the design that's certificated but the product.
For Particle's own Photons that cost is part of the price.
The other thing you won't be ably to offer to potential buyers of "your" product would be the cloud connection since your devices won't be provisioned for Particle Cloud access. The privilege to be granted access to the Particle Cloud is also part of the retail price for a genuine Photon.
BTW, apart from @Moors7's suggestion to look into P0 and P1 modules, you can also contact Particle Wholesale to negotiate a better price for Photons when bought en mass.
2 Likes
Hey ScruffR and Moors7,
Thank you for the suggestions. I’ll contact the particle wholesale to negotiate and see if I there a way to mass produce and exactly the specifications for my specific product. Thanks for you help!
Also for the P1 and P0, they seem to be only the wifi component of the photon. Would I have to build a custom pcb around the P1 and P0 to fit in all my other components?
I am also a little bit confused on the cloud connection. If I were to sell these at bulk would every customer not be able to access the cloud? Would this only be for the photon and if so would this feature be removed if I buy it at wholesale?
Thank you!
What you are suggesting has been tried before by another company. It failed commercially. Particle’s devices may seem “expensive” but you really need to evaluate the value proposition of the entire package.
Recreating the back end / server / network side would be phenomenally expensive. It would literally cost millions and take years to get where Particle is today. And with that, you would still have several hundred thousand dollars (US) per year (at minimum) in just operating overhead.
Call the wholesale team and if your application has the volume, you will likely be able to come to better terms on pricing.
1 Like
As already said: Only Particle's own and official compound (affiliate) devices are allowed to use Particle's cloud service.
But since P0 & P1 are Particle devices using them would come with the privilege to connect.
Nope, P0 is a combination of the STM32F2 plus the WiFi module.
P1 features all the components you absolutely need to get connected, but lacks extra components thay you may not necessarily need (e.g. USB, RGB LED, buttons, ...) or want to implement yourself anyway (e.g. power supply, ...)
5 Likes
Thanks for clearing this up. I appreciate it!