What are the current options for end users to set the WIFI credentials on a claimed (by us) Photon?
I know end users can use the ‘Particle IoT’ IOS/Andriod app and ‘skip authentication’ but is there an app (or option) that just cuts straight to the ‘Setup a Photon WIFI’ part.
If not, what are the licensing issues (if any) of modifying the Particle IoT app from the published source code to create a branded app for this purpose.
Ultimately, we’re aiming for the customer to receive the product and be able to plug in power and connect to their local WIFI.
I would explore SoftAP. We do exactly what you have described - factory claim the device (Photons) to a product team owner, set the WiFi credentials when in the factory setup process and delete just before shipping. The SoftAP is accessed via an Admin menu. If you don’t have a screen and buttons then 1 button and an LED to provide feedback should suffice - in our case the requirement was for security control over wifi setup access and feedback to the user to allow credentials to be cleared. The SoftAP html can be modified with your brand and product name, etc. and supports WPA security but not WPA Enterprise.
The control of the WiFi module on the Photon when in setup requires a bit of design to handle the potential errors and timeout. The setup process runs like any other WiFi enabled product.
@armor thanks for the heads up on SoftAP - we do have a couple of buttons and lights we can use on the device for this purpose.
However, it looks like SoftAP (quick read) is implementing a particle HTTP server on the Photon. Realistically is this likely to be heavy in terms of using up valuable ‘proper application’ space on the Photon (assuming the HTTP server is kept fairly minimalistic)?
It is true that it uses quite a bit of flash - also you need to be careful there is enough free memory before launching the process otherwise it just hangs. We have a pretty large application and with refactoring it has been possible to fit everything together. The HTTP server and HTML/Javascript are really quite compact.