New Particle Hardware; mesh networking , BLE, LTE, more cellular data

Hardware and Blynk Libraries
1

New Particle announced today! Hoping that Blynk guys got their hands on them ahead of time, or at least will before they ship in July? Looking forward to WiFi or cellular connectivity, with BLE for configuration, will be replacing at least one Electron, and have a few other ideas that might boil to the surface now!

3 new devices - ESP32 WiFi + BLE, LTE (or 2G/3G) + BLE, and a BLE only device. All have mesh networking built in…

They’ve also repriced data plans for cellular, your $3 a month now gets 3mb instead of 1mb, and overage is $.40/mb.

I’ve already put in my order, I wouldn’t mind if you gave me the reference!

2

Yeah. Saw their release. Nice boards.

Still expensive, while there are cheaper alternatives like FreedomPop SIM. C’mon. It is 21-th century. 1 mb can’t cost 0.4$. It is prices from 90s.

P. S. In my own country SIM card costs 1$ and 10GB of 3g is 1$ per month.

2 Likes
3

Indeed still expensive… 10gb would be nearly live updates from sensors!

4

I would say 0.5 Gb month should be enough for all :rofl:

5

I’m getting ready to run Blynk for the first time on my only Electron. I know there’s info on this forum about data consumption, seems like it’s doable, but 3mb a month instead of 1mb certainly helps! Maybe 1mb was enough for my needs, but update rates can be tripled if all else is working correctly! As always, thanks for a great product, @Dmitriy!

6

Does Blynk support Particle Mesh (Argon and Xenon is what I’m interested in). Particle mesh isn’t listed in the supported hardware list. If there’s no support when will it be added?

7

After doing some testing I found that the Argon works fine with Blynk but the Xenons block indefinitely when calling Blynk.begin(auth). This is the function where Blynk tries to connect to the server so it makes sense that it stalls out there.

1 Like
8

GrEat news that Argon works OK. Did you pretend that the device was a Photon in the Blynk device selector?

Are there any plans/timelines for formal support of Argon and Xenon?

9

Any news on when Xenon is likely to be added to the Particle hardware list?

10

I have also tested a Boron with Blynk reading battery cell voltage and SoC.
Selected Electron from Blynk and works fine.

11

@ eLumaLite how do you get Boron to work with Blynk?

12

@zarsss Setup Blynk by selecting a Particle Electron.

Here is a sample code using Ubidots and Blynk for testing.

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include <blynk.h>


// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include <Ubidots.h>
#define TOKEN "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"   

char auth[] = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";     
#define battVolts V1
#define battsoc V2
#define BLYNK_PRINT Serial
Ubidots ubidots(TOKEN);
BlynkTimer timer; // Create a Timer object called "timer"! 
FuelGauge fuel;
float voltage = 0;

void setup() {
pinMode(D7, OUTPUT);
timer.setInterval(1*60*1000L, sendUptime); //  Here you set interval (1sec) and which function to call 

PMIC pmic; //Initalize the PMIC class so you can call the Power Management functions below. 
pmic.begin();
pmic.setChargeCurrent(0,0,1,0,0,0); //Set charging current to 1024mA (512 + 512 offset)
pmic.setInputVoltageLimit(4240);   //Set the lowest input voltage to 4.84 volts. This keeps my 5v solar panel from operating below 4.84 volts.
pmic.setChargeVoltage(4208);

Particle.function("BORONON", onFunction);
Particle.function("BORONOFF", offFunction);
Particle.function("LiPo", LiPoStatus);

Blynk.config(auth);
Blynk.connect(); 
}

void loop() {
  Blynk.run();  
  timer.run(); // BlynkTimer is working...  
}

BLYNK_READ(battVolts){                                 
Blynk.virtualWrite(battVolts, fuel.getVCell());
}
BLYNK_READ(battsoc){                               
Blynk.virtualWrite(battsoc, fuel.getSoC());
}

void sendUptime(){
  ubidots.add("volts", fuel.getVCell());  // Change for your variable name
  ubidots.add("SoC", fuel.getSoC());  // Change for your variable name
  ubidots.send();
}

int LiPoStatus(String command){
    Particle.publish("LiPo", String::format("Volts:%.2f,SoC:%.2f", fuel.getVCell(), fuel.getSoC()));
    ubidots.add("volts", fuel.getVCell());  // Change for your variable name
    ubidots.add("SoC", fuel.getSoC());  // Change for your variable name
    ubidots.send();

    if(fuel.getSoC()>10){ return 1;}
    else { return 0;}
}

int onFunction(String extra) {
    digitalWrite(D7, HIGH);
    Particle.publish("ONSENT", "Led is On", PRIVATE);    
    return 1; 
}
int offFunction(String extra) {
    digitalWrite(D7, LOW);    
    return 1; 
}
13

Cool! Thank you so much! Apparently i was sure that it has to be more complicated.

14

The whole Particle Mesh works out of the box with Blynk

15

That’s great news. I don’t see any options for selecting the mesh devices in the setup “hardware select” box though. What do you select - photon for argon/xenon, electron for boron?

16

You can always choose Generic Board. Board Type is only used to control GPIOs directly, without Virtual Pins

17

OK, thank you. I’ll try with that.

18

Just FYI

19