Re: [Makers] Introducing the Spark Photon - combined orders?

[wi...@mcelderry.com]

Hi all, bumping this thread with Alistair's awesome initiative and confirming I'd like 2 please, if he's/you're putting in an order...

Is there a date on which the order will be placed? Or am I to late already?

W.

----- Reply message -----
From: "Alistair MacDonald" <alistair....@gmail.com>
To: <north-ea...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [Makers] Introducing the Spark Photon
Date: Fri, Nov 14, 2014 13:08


Just in case you missed the mention in the other thread, Spark have
already announced there next module and are taking pre-orders. We have
been playing with the "Core" as part of the build night and although
they area little buggy they are really good value for money if you
want a wifi connected microcontroller. I am hoping that those bugs
have been worked out for the new "Photon" and looking at the specs I
think they have. Details at https://store.spark.io/ .

Anyway I am going to pre-order a couple at around £16, so if you want
to join orders to save on postage them let me know ASAP.

 Alistair



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Zach and the Spark Team <he...@spark.io>

Introducing the Photon, our new $19 Internet of Things development kit.
View this email in your browser

Introducing the $19 Photon.

Dearest Spark friends,

Our new hardware is here! In case you're not feeling the length of this
email, here's the short version:

Today we're launching our new development kit, the Photon! It's the
spiritual sequel to the Spark Core (backwards compatible), and it's faster,
better, and cheaper. You can pre-order it now for $19, and we're targeting
March 2015 for delivery.
We're also selling our own Wi-Fi modules - the P0 and P1 - for $10 and $12
respectively, in low volumes (10 units). These modules come with free cloud
service, so they'll do everything the Photon does, and they'll come
pre-programmed with our firmware. We're doing this to help you transition
from a prototype to a manufacturable product.
We've got accessories from our friends at IDEO, Adafruit, Seeed Studio, and
Fritzing! They love us, and we love them.
We've also launched Spark Dev, our professional IDE built on Github's open
source Atom project. Available today!
Free domestic shipping for the first 1,000 orders!

PRE-ORDER FOR $19

Now for the long version:

A year ago we began shipping Spark Cores to you, our Kickstarter backers and
our community. We've now shipped tens of thousands of Cores, and our
platform has grown significantly. We built web development tools for
hardware; we built a cloud back-end and open sourced it; we've iterated on
our firmware, and have accepted dozens of pull requests from the community
to improve our software.

Our community of developers, engineers, designers, students, and artists has
grown to more than 20,000. Our team has grown to more than 20 people,
including a number of our top community members, and spans the world, from
our headquarters in San Francisco and office in Minneapolis to Norway,
Poland and Shenzhen.

We've learned a ton, and we've had the opportunity to build that knowledge,
and the amazing feedback we've received over the last year into a new
product, which we're launching today. Please welcome to the Spark family our
newest addition: the Photon!

The Photon: $19 of betterness

The Spark Core was a great beginning for us, and was the first affordable
and widely available open source Wi-Fi solution on the market. But
technology moves quickly, and our reach as a company has grown; we now have
access to chips and tech that wasn't previously available to us. We're
excited to bring that new tech to you in the form of the spiritual sequel to
the Spark Core: the Photon, and its brain, the P0.

If you take a look around, you'll find that all of the best connected
products on the market are built with the same chipset: Broadcom's BCM43362.
This chip powers the Nest Protect, LIFX, and more. Broadcom's chips are in
most of the Wi-Fi routers on the market as well, which means they can offer
the best router compatibility, the most experience, and the most stable
solution on the market.

The Photon adapts the architecture we built around the CC3000 to our new
Wi-Fi module, which we call the P0. The P0 pairs Broadcom's BCM43362 Wi-Fi
chip with an STM32F205 microcontroller. Besides being a major step forward
in reliability, the Photon is more powerful than the Core; we've ramped up
from 72Mhz to 120Mhz, from 128KB of flash to 1MB of flash, and from 20KB of
RAM to 128KB of RAM. And it's also a good deal cheaper; you can now
pre-order a Photon for $19.

The Photon is nearly 100% backwards compatible with the Spark Core, as well
as having additional capabilities such as a Digital to Analog Converter
(DAC) peripheral and an exposed wake-up pin for low power modes. Plus the
software that you've written for the Spark Core should work seamlessly with
the Photon, although we'll need your help testing our firmware to get as
close as possible to 100% compatibility. Furthermore, we're rebuilding our
firmware upon a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) so that we can support a
variety of hardware platforms in the future.

The P0: our $10 Wi-Fi module, with free cloud service

For many of you the Core and the Photon are not simply for building
projects. If you want to scale, you need something that will help you
transition from prototype to production, and we designed the Photon with
that journey in mind.

When you're ready to build your Photon-based product at scale, you can
transition from the Photon to the P0. The P0 is the same module that powers
the Photon; it comes pre-loaded with our firmware, is affordable in small
volumes ($10 each for 10 units), and can be purchased in 500-unit reels for
manufacturing. Supply the P0 with a regulated 3.3V power source, add a
button and an RGB LED, and connect an antenna and a half dozen small passive
components, and you're ready to go.

For those who want nothing to do with antennas or RF or any of that
nonsense, we'll also be selling the P1, a larger version of the P0 that
includes both a u.FL connector and an antenna on the board (as well as
additional external flash), for $12 each.

If you're interested in purchasing larger volumes, please contact us.

Accessories from our friends at IDEO, Adafruit, Seeed Studio, and Fritzing

The Photon is at its best when surrounded by other great tools, so we called
on a few friends to make sure it doesn't get lonely.

We've invited along some of the top names in prototyping and development
tools. Check this out:

Adafruit Spark NeoPixel Ring Kit: This NeoPixel ring adds 24 individually
addressable (and gorgeous!) LEDs to your Photon or Core. Upload the Neopixel
library code and get started!
Grove Starter Kit for Spark Photon from Seeed Studio: An easy to use
plug-and-play kit for the Photon - one base shield lets you connect a
variety of included Grove modules
Fritzing Internet of Things Kit: The ultimate IoT entry point for makers and
students with easy to follow example projects themed around the "Smart Home"
Motion Shield in collaboration with IDEO: This intelligent stackable
stepper-motor shield (design and engineering by IDEO) will add internet
controlled motion to all of your projects - whether race car or robotic arm.

We're also revamping all of our own shields; while any Spark Core shield
will work with the Photon, they'll all get a bit better. A couple are going
through some major changes:

Programmer Shield: A complete re-design of the JTAG Shield, incorporating an
FTDI programmer chip to eliminate the need for a separate programmer
Power Shield: Complete re-design of the Battery Shield, no longer shaped
like a mustache, and designed for true low-power performance.

Spark Dev: a professional IDE built on Github's Atom

Our web IDE gave us the ability to provide an Arduino-like development
experience in a web browser. When you start to grow beyond simple projects,
however, the limitations of a simple web-based tool start to become more
evident. For a little while now our community's been asking for more.

A couple of months back, one of our community members started building a
Spark plug-in for Github's new open source Atom project. We loved his work
so much that we hired him onto the Spark team to continue his development,
which has grown into a brand new open source IDE for Mac and Windows: Spark
Dev!

At first glance, Spark Dev looks and feels much like our web IDE. In fact it
has many of the same capabilities; you can compile and deploy firmware over
the air, just like the web IDE. However, it can also do a lot more; besides
pulling in a lot of the features of our command line tool, the Spark CLI,
Spark Dev is extensible. You can install any existing package for Atom, or
create your own packages using JavaScript and Coffeescript. We've got our
own additional features in mind, but we can't wait to see yours!

Order a Photon today

To pre-order your Photons, modules, and accessories, visit our new store:

VISIT THE SPARK STORE

Oh yeah, we should mention that we're offering free shipping on our first
1,000 domestic orders.

As always, we'd love to hear from you over on our community, via Facebook or
on Twitter.

Much love,

Zach and the Spark team (Zac, Steph, Will, Satish, David, Mohit, Faye, Joe,
Dick, Wilton, Christine, Brett, Mat, Dan, Tavares, Jeff, Ido, Vivek, and
Emily)

Copyright © 2014 Spark, All rights reserved.
You are a dreamy maker, creator, tinkerer, teacher & artisanal code shaker.
And a deeply valued Spark customer. Thank you.

Our mailing address is:
Spark
1010 W Lake St
#100-105
Minneapolis, MN 55408

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[Dan Nixon]

They be cheap so put me down for two also.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

Cool. Let me know if you need header pins or not. I am going for one of each.

Also I have a little more confidence than normal as they have delivered once before but I am still expecting them to be delayed. That is just how these things work.

Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

Is there actually a difference in price?

I'll have one with and one without, I'll probably populate the blank one with female sockets.

Dan

[Alistair MacDonald]

> Is there actually a difference in price?

No, both the same price.

> I'll have one with and one without, I'll probably populate the blank one with female sockets.

Now that is a smart idea.

  Alistair

[David Pye]

Go on then,  I will have two as well please!

[Greg Fenton]

Stick me down for 2 please, one with and one without headers.
Let me know how much and when for the pennies.

Greg

[Alistair MacDonald]

Okay all. I will order later today. Unless I hear otherwise I will
order one with and one without pins for everyone. With all of us the
up front cosy will be £25 each (for 2) that I would appreciate getting
before Christmas, and a few more quid for duty / tax on delivery that
we can sort when they arrive.

Alistair

[Iain Yarnall]

Can you put me down for a couple please?

Thanks,

Iain

[Alistair MacDonald]

The order for 12 unites for Dan, David Pye, Greg Fenton, Iain, Will and me has been placed. We have an order number of #101628835 if that is needed at any point. The final cost was $246.54 so if you all can get me either £26 (or £25 and half a Weatherspoons pint if that makes things easer) then that would be grand. I can give you bank details if that simplifies things.

  Alistair

--

[Alistair MacDonald]

Small error. The final cost was $244.66 as I had already started the order before the delivery went up. Sad;y you still own me £26 as I rounded it down. :-)

  Alistair

[Greg Fenton]

Yep, bank details would be great, I will PingIt across to you :)

Greg

On 17 November 2014 17:32, Alistair MacDonald

[Alistair MacDonald]

News....

1) Spark have renamed themselves to Particle. Apparently Spark was less unique than they thought.

2) The first batch of Photons are ready to ship and all the pre-orders will be sent by the end of June. We were quite early in ordering but not in the first batch.

  Alistair

[Alistair MacDonald]

They have just shipped!

In related news if you have not paid me for them can you do so ASAP.

  Alistair

[Greg Fenton]

I think I paid, can you double check please.

I am aware that there may be import duty at some random rate decided by the tea boy when the time comes.

Greg

[Jon Davies]

>import duty at some random rate

...and invariably payment is notified to you at some point *just* after you have completely forgotten about it.

In fact,my first ever requirement to pay Import Duty to [I think it was] UPS, was communicated in a 'third and final warning' type red letter.  First bit of communication too, so that was weird.

[Alistair MacDonald]

Yes, you have. I think it is just Dan and Iain to go now unless I have missed a payment.

  Alistair

[Dan Nixon]

Indeed I have not paid, where and by what means should I send money?

(and how much?)

Dan