IoT device straight line from prototype to production? Hello Particle!

Implementing IoT solutions will take different forms and shapes depending on who you are and what you need. In a nutshell, there is no one IoT solution or platform that will solve it all.

The development, deployment, and operation of devices is definitely the portion of IoT solutions that is the most versatile, complex and usually remote from the domain of expertise of their final users and operators. But there are solutions out there that will allow you to rapidly prototype, deploy, scale and operate devices even if hardware, embedded dev and connectivity are not in your usual wheelhouse. One of these solutions is Particle and here is a summary of my first impressions.

Building an IoT solution these days: DIY vs. Turnkey vs. something in between

In the dynamic world of IoT, the journey from concept to deployment and operation is akin to navigating a labyrinth of technological choices. Each turn, from hardware design to cloud-based device management, demands a unique blend of skills, resources, and time. If you are developers or a technical decision-maker who needs to implement IoT solutions, the path is rarely linear. It’s also probably not your core domain of expertise as you are looking to use IoT to solve a particular set of problems or evolve your business model and make a difference in your own industry. No one does (or rather, should I say, should do) IoT for the sake of doing IoT!

Imagine you’re crafting an IoT solution. You could go full MacGyver, piecing together every component with your own hands and expertise. This might mean designing the circuit boards, writing firmware, managing devices in the cloud, and weaving the data into the fabric of your business applications. It’s a route for the brave, the skilled, and those with time to spare.

On the flip side, you might opt for a ready-made, scenario-focused solution that’s as easy to deploy as a store-bought pie is to serve. These off-the-shelf offerings are turn-key solutions that address a specific set of limited scenarios and that are barely configurable or customizable. For example, an asset tracking solution that comes with location sensors, connectivity, back-end dashboard, will work great for you if what you need is exactly and only tracking a random generic asset’s location and if doing the math you conclude that it will cost you less to pay for asset tracking as a service rather than invest in R&D to build your own custom solution.

The industry, however, is trending towards a middle ground. It’s about integrating discrete, specialized parts of solutions that fill the gaps in your own skill set or simply don’t justify the investment to develop in-house. Why reinvent the wheel? This approach is not only cost-effective but also allows you to focus on what truly adds value to your business.

Which approach is best for you is to be determined as you’ll have to ask yourself the right questions, like when considering a new vehicle purchase: do you need manual clutch or automatic? Can you afford the navigation package that is not essential to the primary usage of the car or can you do with using your smartphone's navigation system? Will you lease or purchase?

Most challenging aspects of IoT devices development, deployment (at scale) and operation

Secure connectivity

When it comes to IoT, the real trick isn’t just getting devices to chat with the interwebs; it’s making sure they do so securely, without spilling the beans to any eavesdroppers as well as using the right communication technology that will fit the scenario and the constraints. We’re talking about enabling a whole suite of scenarios here—like?remote monitoring?to keep an eye on things from afar, or pushing out?firmware updates?to patch up any digital holes or update functionality. But here’s the kicker: these devices often have to play nice with the energy budget of a miserly battery and sometimes have to shout to be heard over the digital noise of limited network coverage. It’s like trying to have a heart-to-heart in a bustling coffee shop while your phone’s on 1% battery—possible, but boy, is it a challenge. One way of addressing this is to enable several types of connectivity, for example, LoRaWAN can be used to communicate low amount of data while saving battery but will not be sufficient for firmware updates or larger data exchanges and switching to cellular might be necessary. Also, believe me, communication technologies is its own entire world and

Transition from proof of concept (or development) hardware to production

Transitioning from a Proof of Concept (POC) or from a development board to production in the IoT space is another struggle. It is like upgrading from a rehearsal to a live concert. During the POC phase and often during development cycles, you’re likely using hardware that’s more about convenience and cost-effectiveness than long-term viability. It’s the equivalent of sketching on a napkin—great for brainstorming, not so much for the final masterpiece. But when it’s showtime, and you’re moving to production-grade hardware, the stakes are higher. This shift can introduce a whole new level of risk. You might find yourself knee-deep in?testing?and?re-coding?to ensure the new hardware plays nice with your software. It’s not just about making sure the lights turn on; it’s ensuring they can handle a power surge during a thunderstorm. And let’s talk about the costs—both in time and money. It’s not just a simple copy-paste job; it’s a meticulous process that can rack up the bills faster than a teenager at a shopping mall. Worst case scenario? You stumble upon issues that were lurking in the shadows during the POC phase. These gremlins can range from minor annoyances to full-blown showstoppers, and they’re not handing out free passes. They demand attention, and sometimes, a complete overhaul. So, while the POC to production journey is a necessary one, it’s paved with challenges that require a robust strategy, a keen eye, and a bit of that old-fashioned trial and error.

There are many solutions for you to pick from that address these challenges in various ways, but one is standing out when it comes to smoothing bumps on the road from POC to production as well as making multi-network connectivity something you don’t have to worry about: Particle.

What’s up with Particle

Particle is far from being the new kid on the block in the IoT playground.?Founded back in?2012, it started with a mission to reprogram the world, sparked by a personal story of its CEO and co-founder, Zach Supalla, who wanted to create a connected light for his deaf father.?Since then, Particle has grown by leaps and bounds, evolving into a mature, full-stack?IoT Platform-as-a-Service (we’ll look at what that means exactly)?that’s been used by over?240k developers?and more than?160 enterprise customers. Suffice to say… not the new kid on the block.

Particle closed a Series C funding round in September 2023 which fueled an acceleration in its evolution and the launch of their M-SoM series, allowing them to refine their platform to meet the ever-growing demands of the IoT industry.

Did you say full-stack IoT Platform-as-a-Service?

The term IoT PaaS is certainly subject to interpretation as depending on where you are coming from it might have a different meaning. In the case of Particle, it is about the infrastructure around the IoT embedded devices, from hardware System on Modules ready to onboard on your hardware design all the way up to a cloud platform for developing, deploying and managing your devices in production.

The platform’s main differentiator lies in its?integrated approach. It’s not just about providing the hardware; it’s about creating a seamless experience from the device to the cloud.?Particle don’t offer chips and the boards they have in their catalog are for development; rather, they offer Systems on Modules ?(SoMs) that support various (and even multiple) connectivity options and features, such as LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, which, when combined with the Particle Cloud, empower developers to craft bespoke connected solutions across various industries easily.

Little powerhouses in a module

Particle’s secret sauce on the hardware side lies in their?System-On-Modules (SoMs). These little powerhouses pack all the essential components—microcontroller, radios, and more—into a compact package. But what’s the big deal?

1. Testing and Prototyping: Particle’s SoMs allow you to test and prototype using cheap evaluation boards. These boards embed the exact same SoM that you’ll eventually use in your production devices. No surprises, no compatibility issues—just smooth sailing from prototype to production.
2. Code Consistency: Imagine writing your code once and using it across the entire lifecycle. Particle’s SoMs make this dream a reality. Whether you’re tinkering with a handful of units in a proof-of-concept (POC) or scaling up to thousands of production units, your code remains consistent. It’s like having a trusty Swiss Army knife for your IoT development.
3. Device OS: All Particle devices are sporting the same operating system, a bare metal container developed in-house by Particle. It abstracts hardware and connectivity so you can focus on coding your edge application. Developing and updating a device firmware is no longer a complex and expensive task requiring advanced embedded development skills. You have low-level hardware interactions through a unified interface, security and reliability out of the box, each device having its own private key straight out of the assembly line, and seamless integration between MCUs, Modems, Peripherals, and an ecosystem of Libraries and Application Firmware so your devices connect as soon as they’re turned on.
4. Did I mention Edge AI? Want to train and deploy AI models to your IoT devices, not problem, Particle’s got you covered with a neat integration with Edge Impulse. I’ll try that one later and will share my experience in another article

A lean and yet powerful Cloud platform

The Particle Cloud is where the other part of the magic happens, offering?edge-to-cloud infrastructure?that makes software, connectivity, and hardware work together in harmony.

You might say “Particle is not the only one with a Cloud platform to deal with OTA updates and device management!”, and you’d be right. But here is the thing: most of these other solutions do not integrate the connectivity all the way down to the device hardware and firmware. With Particle you will pick the type(s) of connectivity(ies) you need or want your device to support by selecting the right SoM and from there, it’s like getting behind the wheel of a self-driving car: input your destination and cruise!

Particle Cloud Services will let you push Over-the-Air updates to your devices in a fast, intelligent and secure manner. And these updates will not just be for your firmware, they can also be for the Particle Device OS as well as for other system components besides the Particle module, making it a central updater for its surrounding system.

Particle’s offerings encompass the entire IoT spectrum, providing a robust platform that’s ready to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow’s connected world.

From Prototype to production in a blink

To illustrate and summarize how simple the path is from prototype to production, I chose to just do a screenshot of the Particle online store:

How many such stores have side by side the evaluation board, the breakout board and trays of the actual SoMs? Evaluate with the evaluation board, prototype with the breakout board (with the same module you evaluated and that you’ll embed in your final design) and then get your 50 units trays of SoMs… without having to talk to a sales agent in between ??.

Also, to build devices, you need developer tools and an ecosystem. Whether you prefer a Web or a desktop IDE, are a CLI maniac, need RESTful APIs, like SDKs, you just have to ask and chances are Particle has it.

When developing for a device, you need to be able to count on libraries for the sensors and other peripherals you will need. There is a large collection of what Particle calls firmware libraries that are high quality tested ones. The Particle team also ensured that the firmware API?contains all of the most commonly used Arduino functions and firmware commands: this makes most Arduino libraries compatible with Particle. How about that for an ecosystem play!

I’ll let you surf the developer tools page, as well as their guides, documentation and other resources, or like I will myself, invite you to go play and discover along the way.

A comprehensive lineup

Particle has a cool comprehensive lineup of SoMs. I’ll let you surf the particle site for details, but here is the gist of it:

• There’s the?B-Series SoM, which is the go-to for making connected products. It’s got cellular and Bluetooth baked in, and it’s ready to roll out in big numbers, no sweat. You can try it out with the Boron development board.
• The M-Series? It’s the rugged outdoor type that handles multi-radio connectivity. Say you need cellular and Wi-Fi, it’s not either or you get, it’s both. You need to add LoRaWAN (in addition to cellular and Wi-Fi), you got it. Cool, right? But wait, there is more: it can talk to satellites through a partnership with Skylo. So, if you’re out in the middle of nowhere, the M-Series has got your back.
• The P2 is a whiz kid with Wi-Fi and BLE, thanks to the Realtek RTL8722DM MCU. It’s got a beefy Arm Cortex-M33 CPU and loads of flash memory for all your complex IoT projects. Get a Photon 2 development board to play with it.
• You need a ruggedized, field-ready, yet customizable IoT Gateway to bring sensors or machines online? The Monitor One is for you. It packs cellular connectivity, location fusion blending Wi-Fi, GNSS and cellular for an accurate location of your assets, runs on a battery that supports solar charging. And you can make it your very own sticking your own branding on it.
• And if you are looking for a plug-and-track solution to always know where your assets are, take a look at the Tracker One. It uses the Particle Tracking Services, is fully certified and immediately deployable.

Wrapping Up with a Real-World Demo

To tie it all together, I’ve put together a short demo video showcasing my first-hand experience with Particle using a Photon 2 and a Boron 404X. It’s one thing to talk the talk, but with this demo, you’ll see Particle walk the walk.

So, there you have it, folks. Particle is offering a very compelling solution to streamline IoT development, deployment and operations. Expect more about Particle in future posts and in the meantime, let me know what you think in the comments ??.