Show HN: LTE-connected IoT module with remote programming and NL data analysis

siliconwitch | 27 points

The remote programming seems like a novelty aimed at hobbyists. If I have a deployment of remote devices, large or small, iterating on code on a device in the field is a recipe for disaster. How will you track the different versions of code on the various devices you have changed individually? If you need to directly change the code on a field device, doesn't that imply that you are unsure that the changes will work?

If the code needs to change, that is much safer to do in a controlled, low risk, nonproduction environment, where you will very likely have development hardware that has been optimized for ease of development/debugging. Once changes are tested and otherwise validated, an over the air update process would be used to send that new firmware image to the device. This way, your devices all can be on a single version of the firmware, meaning you can scale the deployment of that update to 10, then 100, then 1000 devices, etc.

flyingcircus3 | 21 days ago

As this is going to be best use case for remote devices without human intervention, battery life or power source will play significant role in this. so as it's using LTE how power consumption is going to be (for places with less availability of electricity) any future plans for solar integration?

usg7 | 21 days ago

I started out very interested. I tried the particle photon when it first came out years ago, and this feels like a spiritual successor, somewhat. Good demo video.

Various thoughts:

1. Consider defining best practices for solar and selling harder around that. I've got enough use for the board in hardwired environments, and can otherwise solve outdoor power issues, but having a recommended solution that I can trust to be solid would go a long way. "Using panel of X strength and battery of X capacity, get performance Y in Z conditions", etc.

2. I would probably preorder some of these, except the pricing is omitted. I have no idea how much these would cost. If they're 5 bucks, I buy a bucket. If they're 30, I buy a handful. If they're 100, I probably skip it. Etc. Withholding the price is a red flag, and I wouldn't share my email with an org that saw fit to withhold this info as the opening act. (edit: looks like the S1 is $55, so presumably this is more)

3. The LLM/agent aspect has no appeal. Assuming those costs are passed on to me / baked into every unit, the inclusion of AI is strictly downside.

4. It's not clear whether there are ongoing SaaS/storage/subscription costs associated with this, or what they would be. The FAQ suggests that forwarding data outside of the cloud will be restricted to enterprise-scale customers. This is also a red flag.

I think this can be successful in spite of all that. Particle definitely leaned away from hobbyists and into the larger ag-IOT market early on, presumably following money and stability. Totally understandable.

I guess my overall feedback is this: be upfront about the pricing and restrictions in a way that lets guys like me filter ourselves out upfront, instead of getting our hopes up. I've got a maker-tier budget, value data freedom, and am subscription-averse. It took me quite a bit of time and digging to uncover all the details in this comment, and I wish I hadn't spent the time. There are a ton of customers who are going to be totally cool with a $60+ board and a *0,000/mo contract for data forwarding. Court them directly.

Of course, I'd love to be wrong. If this is a $30 board with nearly-at-cost cloud storage and no REST data forwarding but yes bulk JSON download, then whoa, fuck yeah. Shout that from the rooftops too.

Either way, disambiguation would help.

RickS | 21 days ago

Not a hobbyist in this area yet, but I’m curious. Hehe. The use cases I’m interested in are weather and water monitoring for fresh water fisheries. And in a completely different domain, I’m interested in noise analysis overnight. My neighbors are super noisy, and it’s difficult to demonstrate the breadth and depth of the disturbance to neutral parties.

xtiansimon | 20 days ago

Along the same lines, I've been working with a few of these modules and they are nicely engineered overall: https://quickspot.io/

brk | 21 days ago

What do you mean when you say consistent response is a problem ? Is it that each time the response varies or that the response cannot be relied upon.

Have you tried fiddling around with temperature or SQL specific finetuned models?

h1t35h | 21 days ago

I was trying to build an LTE solar powered phone of last resort.

After looking into it, LTE makes this nearly impossible to do economically.( Plus there's like 4 different types of LTE depending on county.)

I really want energy coms devices!

999900000999 | 21 days ago

I don’t see any mention of what LTE SoC is used anywhere? Even if you’re abstracting away the hardware in this application, isn’t it relevant for many potential users what the chip is?

audunw | 21 days ago

This looks very interesting, thanks for sharing. Have you started delivering any developer kits?

hakaneskici | 21 days ago

An add-on GPS would be helpful for all sorts of remote telemetry applications.

klinquist | 21 days ago