[Resolved] Are Particle Photons going away any time soon?

[gusgonnet]

Hi all,
I recently heard from a Particle customer that Particle support line was pushing him really hard on not using Photons in upcoming products he might build.

The alternative given was Borons (not even Argons).

I understand this push, but I’d like to find out if there is anything you guys are planning that you would like to tell the community about.

FYI @will I appreciate it if you can chip in on this.
I also appreciate any other knowledge on the subject from anyone else.

Good day,
Gustavo.

[ScruffR]

One reason why P0, P1 and Photon are not recommended for new products is that the heart of them all - the WM-N-BM-09 "STM32F2x-WiFi-combi-module" - is manufactured by USI and Particle has no say in how long they will produce this device (i.e. recently there were shortages of them).

The nRF line on the other hand is a less specific item (i.e. standalone controller) and will most likely outlive the P0.

You can also read Will's reply to another thread that touches on that too

Particle generation woes

Hey there @jenschr – would love to have a conversation about some of your concerns. Particle’s path and direction have changed at least a couple of times since we first launched the Photon in 2015, which I think is common for growing startups trying to find the best path to achieve their goal, which for us is enabling product creators like yourselves to deploy real IoT products that solve real problems and create real value. Let me address a few concerns that I pulled out of your post: I hear…

But there are currently no plans to abandon the Gen2 product line.

[gusgonnet]

thanks, I haven’t seen that post.
So it could be that the Photon is marked as “Not recommended for new designs (NRND)” according to this policy?

I haven’t seen that around, thank you again for the pointers,
Gustavo.

[Mjones]

So is there a reason they are recommending the Boron over the Argon, aside from the increased revenue?

[gusgonnet]

The Argons seems not fully cooked for products yet, or the tooling is not there and one would need to find things out on their own.

For instance:

@rickkas7

BLE from a mobile app is the recommended way, and it’s how the Particle app does it. However there is no device setup library for Argon that extracts this process into something that would be easy to add to a mobile app like it is for the Photon. This will make it difficult to use an Argon in a product.

Claiming an Argon and wifi settings seem problematic with Argons and may complicate our life in a product.

Product using Argon: how can a customer claim the device?

Hey community, I’ve read all the posts I could find about this (below) but I couldn’t figure it out. How can a product based device on Argon be claimed by a customer? Thanks! Gustavo.

I'm hopeful they can be used in a product, but it seems there will be some bumps in the road ahead.
Gustavo.

[Paul_M]

To echo this, I recently had an extreme difficult time setting up an Argon. Newest version of the app refused to connect to it, would hang forever on Bluetooth pair. Only by random screwing around in CLI for an hour did it finally get registered and even then I don’t know how.

It blows my mind that “particle setup” in CLI utterly does not work for Boron/Argon.

The more experience I have, the more I believe that 3/4 years ago with only Gen 2 products, Particle used to have a more stable and valuable product than what I am trying to get work now with Gen3.

[RWB]

@Paul_M

I recently had an extreme difficult time setting up an Argon. Newest version of the app refused to connect to it, would hang forever on Bluetooth pair. Only by random screwing around in CLI for an hour did it finally get registered and even then I don’t know how.

It blows my mind that “particle setup” in CLI utterly does not work for Boron/Argon.

I also am having this experience trying to setup Argons via the Android & iOS app using the app as of a few days ago.

The BLE during pairing with the Particle App would just hang.

[DaveH]

I did notice this UK stockist is listing the Photon as discontinued. They may mean they are not going to be stocking it any more:

[Discontinued] Particle Photon with Headers

[rickkas7]

Some distributors have stopped stocking the Photon, but it has not been discontinued by Particle.

Some Photon kits and the individual Photon without headers have been or will be discontinued, but the bare Photon with Headers is still being sold in both individual and tray quantities.

[gusgonnet]

@rickkas7

Some distributors have stopped stocking the Photon, but it has not been discontinued by Particle.

that's correct, I wish they wouldn't list it as DISCONTINUED on their site. Perhaps "out of stock" could be more appropriate (or less alarming).

[will]

Hey folks. As Rick mentioned, we have no plans to discontinue or deprecate the Photon, P0, or P1 hardware.

We originally marked the SKU as NRND due to concern over the longevity of upstream hardware availability from the module manufacturer, but have since received commitments from them that reflect little to no risk of disruption.

I will provide update this thread if/when we officially change our guidance, but want to clarify that we do not have any plans to discontinue the Photon.

[Hatchcross]

I too was worried that the Particle Photon would not be supported anymore - Glad it is still in the pipeline, as I continue to want to use them for my projects.

Good information!

-Jason

[Jseiler]

Hi @will

Should this be a new topic?

It’s now been 18 months since this was posted and I now see that the P1 has been deprecated. We are still waiting for upto 3000 pcs promised to us in October of 2022. Are these still coming or are we hooped.

I also noticed the development of the P2 module which I was quite excited about until I noticed that the one thing that most important to us is missing, CANbus. Needless to say that means no easy porting from P1 to P2. Requires a complete board spin with external CANbus hardware some major code rewriting.

What is the prognosis with the P1. No EOL and last time buy options? When will the P2 be available for initial development purposes?

Thanks for any insight you can provide,
Joerg

[rickkas7]

The last time to request to buy a P1 is June 30, 2022. An attempt will be made to fulfill those orders, as well as any previous orders and contracted buys out of available stock.

The P2 will be available to some early access customers in April 2022, with general availability in June 2022. There will be an overlap period where both are available to allow customers to migrate.

The P2 does not have CAN, so that would require a board re-spin. There are other differences, as outlined in the P2 Migration Guide.

The is unfortunate, but Cypress has discontinued the WM-N-BM-11 (P1) and there is no choice but to migrate to a different MCU. The best choice was to put a different MCU on a pin-compatible-ish module to the P1.

[Jseiler]

Thank you very much for your response @rickkas7 . I appreciate we all live in this weird world we have to deal with and I hope your ability to fulfill any last time buy orders will succeed.

In the mean time what do I need to do to get some early P2s to get us started on possible migration?