Since my order was delivered (last month) I’ve been completely unable to pair any of my Argons or Xenons to either of my android devices (my phone, a Verizon Moto Droid Turbo 2 runs Android 7 - my tablet, an Nvidia Shield, also runs Android 7). I haven’t even tried my Borons.
So my Argons and Borons are just boat anchors. My Xenons I gave up on and started programming directly with the Nordic NRF5 SDK - which works just fine and lets me do Bluetooth, sleep, and use the SPI ram.
Still, disappointing.
I understand the allure of a simple setup system, which Android provides, but I just don’t understand why there isn’t a techier, possibly command-line, setup that lets us bypass these glitches and enter data manually. I can read the ID using a terminal program but that’s it.
My personal opinion is that the Mesh effort, while laudable, was much too much too soon. I just want to program a Xenon like a Photon. The Xenon hardware is awesome and the power consumption is amazing but the software framework is crippling.
@MarkZ, have you tried the latest Particle Android App (2.3.9)? The challenge with Android is the cornucopia of versions and hardware that it runs on. Particle is working hard to get these issues resolved.
As for programming the Xenon like a Photon, you may have forgotten the early days of the Photon! With the latest rc27, mesh stability has improved by leaps. Yes it is early days but Mesh “pioneers” are needed to give feedback, log issues and help improve Mesh to the point where the Photon is now
Not that this helps, but Android 8 works perfectly (for me) with rc26. On the other hand, if it makes you feel any better, we just found out my wife’s 2014 Acura MDX is no longer - and will never be - compatible with her 2017 iPhone 7. It’s a crazy world when you have to replace your entire car just to make it compatible with your phone.
I do have a half-dozen Spark Cores (still) from the early days and I’m sympathetic. I’ve also seen in the forum that some Android devices do work. Finally, I think the hardware (at least the Xenon, which I’ve been using) is awesome but… the software could have been staged more effectively: in particular, the 100% required Android setup application.
I keep upgrading the App and the firmware without much success.
Also: can someone please repair the firmware upgrade page where it says: “IMPORTANT: Argon NCP firmware needs to be updated to v0.0.5 after updating to 0.8.0-rc.25-mesh. The release binaries can be found here”.
This is absolutely useless without instructions on how to update the NCP firmware - or if it’s done automatically during the setup or what.
I think there are no devices pre rc.25 apart from a few that were handed out during a convention.
However, there are instructions here
I tend to agree here, I also suggested that the wired setup should be there for people who already know it from Gen1&2 devices, but I think expectations about the reliability and ease of use of the BT setup was just a bit too optimistic and hence that "old legacy stuff" was considered not required or even "anachronistic".
It took some convincing effort to have the WiFi setup via serial implemented in rc.25
FWIW I love the wired setup. Using the cloud is nice but it’s slow compared to local build/upload and I like being able to see diagnostic info when things fail. My remote Photons I program via cloud but when they’re on my bench I prefer local.
The new setup is very cool but so far a pain in the ass. I can’t count the number of times I’ve taken a picture of the same Argon sticker with my phone. I have faith that you folks will succeed and over time the ‘new setup’ will become painless and reliable but it’s not yet there.
I’m happy to comment that I finally got my Argon connected. I used the particle flash – serial… (which I see is now on the releases page thank you so much) and everything connected. Yippee.
