Setting up a new Device, Waiting to Connect

Firmware
1

Does flashing firmware to a device, like from the 'browser device restore' for example, reduce the time that a device might spend waiting to connect? As apposed to just adding the device to a product via the DevID number.

For commercial purposes, how are people getting around potential delays at the 'waiting to connect' stage?

2

Am I correct in saying that just adding a devices DevID to a product is not enough to get a device up and running?

I tried the following workflow:

  1. Added a new, from box, device to a product using the DevID number.
  2. Device gets "Activating Sim" status on the console.
  3. Device gets to "Waiting to Connect" status on the console, but never seems to get past this.

The above stuck at waiting to connect can be then resolved by scanning the QR code on the BSOM via the particle app, which I think I read somewhere has since been deprecated?

Now to further complicate things, once the devices were at the "waiting to connect" status, we sealed them into our enclosure and so no longer had access to the QR codes. I tried to generate the 2D Matrix QR code for these devices as it seems it holds two pieces of data:

  • Device Serial Number
  • Some sort of Manufacturers code, I think?

I was hoping that the second piece of info was not required, or at least didn't have to be correct, but it seems like this code must be crosschecked against the SN in the particle app. If I need to generate the QR codes in the future, is the second piece of data in the QR code, device specific, model specific, and is their a way I can generate from just knowing the information that is on the console?

3

Importing a SIM device ID (or serial number) into a product in the console should be sufficient. What is the status of the SIM in the SIM tab in the product in the console? Does it go to Active?

For some SIMs, particularly SKUs ending in 402 or 523, it can take some time for the SIM to activate, so doing this step ahead is recommended. Most 404. 404X, and 524 devices will activate within a minute.

Is the device stuck in blinking green, or does it get past this step? If the SIM is not yet activated, it will blink green forever.

The data matrix code contains the serial number, a space, and the mobile secret. The mobile secret is necessary for setup by BLE, but not for adding a device to a product or activating its SIM not by BLE. If you've added the device to your product, the mobile secret is also available from the cloud API if you need to recover it for some reason.