We have introduced a new product based on the Boron 4g, and had our first casualty from lightning (not uncommon at all in our industry). Is it possible to keep this device in our list on the console, but not have it count against our number of devices? The reason is just for quick reference and record keeping as we work through the beginning phase of rolling this out, we can go to the console to see what devices are online, when they were last connected, and keep notes on why it hasn’t connected in awhile (in this case because it was fried). We could do this locally with a spreadsheet or something, but all of this information is already available in the console, it would be nice to have it at the click of a button.
It’s my understanding the device count in the growth plan is any “Billable” device. A billable device is one with an active SIM AND used at least 1 data operation in the prior month. I believe a device can even have an active SIM and until it makes it’s first data operation it wouldn’t count against you but not 100% sure.
It’s my understanding deactivating the SIM card will remove it as a billable device. At least in the growth plan, blocks of devices will automatically increase as needed but you need to contact Particle via support ticket to scale down by a block or more. So I think you can simply deactivate the SIM and should be good to go.
I personally plan on deactivating SIMs for devices not being used in the offseason of a season product to scale up/down each season. Will probably come up with a Python Script to process it in bulk via a For loop.
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Does this apply to product devices as well?
I currently have my devices in a product and that product is associated to an “Organization/growth plan”. So yes, that’s my understanding. I asked the question awhile back to Particle as part of a phone call (forgot who I was talking with) but yeah, that was their explanation/understanding at the time.
Maybe someone from Particle will weigh in here as well. My current plan was simply to de-active SIMs so I sure hope it’s that easy.
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Checking in the console, deactivating the sim isn’t an option in a product like it is for personal devices. I only have Mark as development device, unclaim, or remove device. I’ll keep digging; maybe removing it from the product first would allow me to deactivate it, but then we still have another step to take to keep track of devices no longer in use.
Edit:
Removing the device from the product still doesn’t allow for deactivation of SIM, only unclaim device is an option now.
Free/sandbox plan
- You have a limit of 100 devices of any combination of cellular, Wi-Fi, and tracker.
- A device is counted toward your limit:
- When it is claimed to your account OR
- It is added to a free sandbox product that you are the owner of, and connects to the Particle cloud at least once.
- There is no concept of metered devices in the free/sandbox plan, all devices are counted toward your limit.
- To stop a developer device from being counted, release ownership of the SIM and unclaim the device.
- To stop a product device from being counted, release ownership of the SIM, remove the device from the product, and unclaim the device.
Growth plan
- A device is counted toward your the 100 devices per block limit when added to a growth organization product and it connects to the Particle cloud the first time.
- There is no concept of metered devices in the growth plan. Once the device connects to the cloud the first time it will start being counted and will continue to be counted, regardless of data usage.
- To stop a growth product device from being counted, release ownership of the SIM and remove the device from the product. You may have to unclaim the device as well, because once you remove it from a product it will revert to being a free tier developer device, and may exceed the free tier limits if claimed to an account.
Enterprise plan
This is more complicated, and you should talk to your sales representative.
That's disappointing to hear. This seems like an unnecessary hassle having to release ownership of the SIM, remove the device from the product AND unclaim the device.
My product is very seasonal and 9 months out of the year it's powered off and not used but the customers. I was expecting I would only need to de-activate the SIM on all products that I want to "turn off" in the off season and would then simple "activate" the SIM when I want to ramp back up and turn on as the season kicks off again. I certainly can go through the steps you are referring to via API call and some scripting but it would be WAY easier and cleaner to simply deactivate the SIMs of device I want to turn off and scale back the number of blocks.
Is this something that could be accomplished yet with a support ticket or what would you recommend for "seasonal" products that would deactivate most devices in the fleet in an offseason.
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I have to agree with Jeff here. Something as simple as deactivating a SIM here would make things a lot easier, it’s disappointing that I can’t simply deactivate a device to be able to still keep accurate records without having to design and implement a whole new workflow whether that be an API call or generating more paperwork for my team.
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