What happened to the lte version of the original electron? All I see is the e series or the the e module.
There has never been an Electron LTE (SARA-R410M-02-B), only the Boron LTE and E Series LTE.
That being said, if you have a product based on the Electron and want to be able to swap in the Electron LTE, it is possible to purchase them. The minimum order quantity is 50 and you’ll need to arrange that with your sales representative.
New designs should use the E Series LTE, Boron LTE, or the B Series LTE SoM.
A couple of months ago when we went to purchase a few new lte boards to test with there was two options. The older electron and the e series. I wish the amount was less.
We are only do a couple a month and was wanting to get onto lte now and not worry about 2g 3g with sun setting coming soon. The few e series we have right now have been a disaster. Nothing but problems with them. The 3g ones just work no issues.
Its not like we are doing very complex stuff with these. Mainly watching pump pressures and control pump power. Then send either a text message or a voice message to the owners.
Right now my boss is pretty much wanting to dump particle all together over this. Hard to get things going when you cant have the new boards working right. Seems like this may have been a little left behind to focus on the mesh boards which seems to have a little growing pains. I cant even convince them to at least try the gen 3 cell board.
If you could elaborate further we will be able to figure out the issue 
There was activation issues and had to get a hold of support and in my opinion it took way to long to fix. They also like to drop offline yet they have a very good signal. Had 2 more just drop and have to power cycle them several times just to get them to reconnect to the cloud. This is not something that we can at customer sites. (and not to blame the code there really is nothing in the code to stop the cloud. we just watch 2 pins for input to send a text message or we wait for a call from the cloud to cycle a relay. It is the same code as the 3g ones.) Have not had any troubles at all with our 3g boards.
I really like the form factor for the older boards since it was easier for us to build a daughter board to put them in to use. No way we can use the e module way to much work and the other e series board just gives us problems trying to hook up things.
Again we are small when it comes to this we only do a couple a month. We do not want to keep buying the 3g ones and turn around and have to replace them soon. The gen 3 looks like maybe something to go to but I do not believe they are ready yet. Plus they are not a pin drop in replacement for the electron.
I know you guys have to make decisions on this stuff but I do not believe you went the best direction. I unfortunately dont have to much say in if we stay. I just do the code and base building of the boards.
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Hey Darkstar,
What is the device OS you are using with your E series that are being problematic?
If you aren’t on rc-12, I highly recommend it to see if it resolves your issues.
Having updated to 12 so far the boards have been stable.
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Hey darkstar,
Glad to hear you’re seeing improved stability. As it so happens, we have actually recently moved to version 1.0.0, which should incorporate changes from rc13 and rc14 as well.
Should you continue to see any issues arise, I do recommend upgrading to 1.0.0.
I realize this thread is a bit dated but with the sunset of 3G looming ever closer it is relevant. I echo the frustration of @darkstar2002 that LTE isn’t readily available on the Electron. I am in a similar situation with only a few devices a month. I bought into the Electron platform because Particle promoted it as a future proof design. It kept my mainboard cost low since I didn’t have to install the Electron until an order is received. It also was going to allow simple upgrades when technology changes, like the 3G sunset. It is doubly frustrating to find out that the LTE Electron is available but only in large quantities. As much as I love Particle and overall it is a great product and service I do not know if I can continue with them. I am now forced to do a hardware redesign. I currently do not have the confidence in Particle that they won’t leave me hanging again.
The current hardware recommended for new designs are not suitable options. The E Series is solder on which means I have to tie up all that capital when I have the very simple mainboard built. The Boron doesn’t have enough I/O, the Electron had multiple UARTs.
It would be very helpful if Particle would revisit their decision to only sell the LTE Electron in quantity. If the Electron platform is going to be End of Life then please provide the timeline.
So, I just ordered an LTE Electron. What can I expect?
I have heard that the LTE version of the E-Series has had some issues. Is this a different radio or data plan?
Thanks, Chip
From what I have read, the “LTE Electrons” are actually LTE-M1 devices. So unfortunately they won’t work in 4G networks…
I wish Particle would come out with an Electron featuring the ublox TOBY-L210 modems…
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@ahk and all,
I have been testing the Electron LTE and, so far, have not had any issues. I do have some questions about the viability of upgrading some / all of my Electron 3G installations to the Electron LTE.
- Can I mix Electron LTE and Electron 3G in a “product”?
- Are there any code changes? For example, will this command still work?
// 16:MT silent reset (with detach from network and saving of NVM parameters), with reset of the SIM card
Cellular.command(30000, "AT+CFUN=16\r\n");
- My cell phone “falls back” from LTE to 3G when coverage is poor. Can the Electron LTE do the same? I understand that these are two different LTEs (cell phone LTE vs Cat M1 LTE - but still…)
Thanks,
Chip
Electron LTE and Electron 3G in a “product”?
Yes, they're the same platform (Electron, 10), so you can mix the Electron G350, U260, U270, LTE, as well as the E Series E310 (U201) and E402 (LTE) in a single product.
Are there any code changes? For example, will this command still work?
The AT+CFUN command works the same way. There are differences with the u-blox SARA-R410M-02B (LTE) with some other commands. If you issue specific AT commands with Cellular.command you'd need to check them to be sure.
My cell phone “falls back” from LTE to 3G when coverage is poor. Can the Electron LTE do the same
No. The Electron LTE (also E Series LTE and Boron LTE) have a modem that only supports LTE Cat M1 which is an IoT subset of LTE. It's less expensive to produce a modem for it, and it uses less power. Having fallback would negate those benefits.
In@rickkas7,
Thank you. Going to start replacing some nearby units for an extended shakedown. So far, so good.
For new installs, I keep holding my breath and waiting for the B series. Oh well.
Chip