Photon to electron communication?

Do you think it would be possible to make a Photon to electron communication? Maybe have like 5-10 photons pass data to the electron for remote communication?

Would probably need a photon directly connected to the electron then the photons communicate with direct wifi?

You can use the available Publish/Subscribe model provided by the cloud API. Take a look at the docs at http://docs.particle.io/photon/firmware/#spark-publish. If you already have a couple of Photons and/or Cores, you can try it out before the Electron is released!

Should be very easy to do with Serial I/O. You could also probably use one of the other protocols available (I2C for example), but just connect Receive of one to Transmit of the other, and vice-versa. After that it is all software.

@wesner0019, I believe you are looking for a Photon to Electron bridge. First, you would need a wifi AP for all the photons to connect (non-cloud) to a single Photon acting as a bridge. That photon could connect, as @rvnash pointed out, to the Electron via I2C or Serial. The Electron then uses subscribe/publish to the Cloud.

The great Bluz bluetooth device does something similar with up to 8 Bluz devices being aggregated into a single Core/Photon wifi bridge.

The simplest approach may be to use TCP and have the bridge Photon poll each connected Photon in a round-robin method. The only catch with that is the traffic is not secure. :smile:

Just wanted to say that this is definitely on our radar - being able to connect a Photon and Electron together using the other as an available network. It’s too early to say exactly when this will be available, but definitely something we’d like to see. :smile:

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@mdma, with the photon and electron working together would it be possible for mobile applications to switch connections between wifi and 3g automatically, like a cell phone does. So the extra photo would be used for wifi connection within a build or something that does get a good cellular connection.

Sure. I can imagine that at the point of creating a socket, we choose a wifi connection first over cellular, and fallback to cellular when there’s no wifi.

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Please make an announcement as to when we can connect a Photon to the Electron to use the other as an available network.

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Hello!
What is the status for Photon to Electron communication? @mdma mentioned recently that Wifi direct might be on the radar for the next major release.

Is this type of communication also included in that release? Is the same timeframe still valid?

@Ludste, I believe what @mdma was referring to with “WiFi Direct” is the ability to allow programmatic access to the SoftAP functionality of the Photon. I’m not sure Photon to Electron communication is on the todo list.

Okey, thanks for the clarification.
Is I2C or Serial still the best available option to connect a Photon to a Electron?

@Ludste, I2C, SPI or Serial are the most likely candidates. Did you have another interface/protocol in mind?

Thanks, I’ll look more at them. I didn’t have anything in mind at the moment.
I’m currently trying to gather information for a coming project, and learning what options are available to best solve the problem.

The final goal is to have a chain of Photons communicating, with an Electron at the end passing all data to the cloud. The Photons would then need to act as both receiver and transmitter of messages, and the final Photon also connect to the Electron.

Another option to look into might be BLE.
e.g. bluz is featuring a gateway shield that uses a Particle device (e.g. Electron) to get its sensor nodes hooked up to the Particle cloud.

@Ludste, have you considered the Bluz? It supports up to 8 devices and uses a Photon as a gateway. Using an Electron instead is would be trivial though may require some thinking on data usage.

A “chain” of photons may require more than one Photon acting as an access point due to the limited number of concurrent open sockets available. You would need an access point (not internet connected) to create a local network over which the Photons can communicate using TCP or UDP.

@peekay123, do you know if the SPI flash is required to be used with the Bluz module when paring with a Photon?

Is the SPI flash chip just extra storage in addition to the Bluz module or is it required for hosting firmware etc.

@wesner0019, the best person to ask is the creator, Eric, in the Bluz community!

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cool thanks

Has there been any progress on this? I would like to have a Photon act as an access point so that other WiFi devices can connect to it. Then, have the Photon connect to the Electron so that everything connects to the cloud via the Electron cellular connection.

I have found a lot of discussion about this but it all seems to have taken place mid year of '15. So, if someone can point me in the direction I would like to go, I would appreciate it.

Thanks in advance

TWO MONTHS LATER-

I guess not since no one has bothered to reply