I have an old Electron that I won in a raffle at a Particle booth. My dashboard says its model is 12675. Connectivity has been getting sketchier, and the status LED has frequently been fast-blinking, and I only just figured out that this might be due to it being a 3G device.
What upgrade paths are available, short of buying (at full price, no doubt) a completely new device?
Hopefully there is one, because the alternative is getting a 5G hat for one of my Raspberry Pis, and relegating the Electron to the Drawer of Obsolescence. I thought they were supposed to be pretty much supported Forever and Ever, so I'm hoping..
There is no way to upgrade the cellular modem on any Particle device. It's soldered on and the U260/U270 cellular modem modules do not support LTE. Also, the MCU on the Electron (STM32F205) is no longer supported by current versions of the Device OS operating system due to limited flash and RAM.
I kinda figured the device itself was a done deal. However, I was hoping for some sort of incentive to move forward — like a trade-in, or "here's a deep discount on an equivalent-but-supported device for an existing customer," or something like that.
If there's nothing like that available, I guess my legacy Electron will eventually be consigned to the "it was cool while it lasted" category.
Connection technologies do come and go, but on relatively long time-scales. The Particle Electron has been able to serve users in the US for many years, and continues to be usable elsewhere in the world where 2G and 3G remain viable connection technologies. Unfortunately, though we wish we did, the scope of decisions around radio access technology support fall thoroughly outside of our control. We watch RAT change events super closely (we shared one of the most detailed pictures of the US 2G/3G sunset through its many stages with our customers, with a level of resolution not published anywhere else). But, yes, our modules are scoped to specific technologies, as are the overwhelming majority of related products elsewhere.
We'd be happy to throw you a one-time discount code for a Boron 404X, we can DM you about this. Our research shows that LTE-M will be the de-facto connection technology for applications like this for a long time to come.
Hi, even after 2G/3G are forever decommisioned, your Electron can help in your projects or even testing them in the offline mode. See:
I have a few around and they help me while playing with "dangerous" circuits or projects until I verify that I did not blow it up because I missunderstood a datasheet or made the wrong connection.
Best
