Are you looking forward to adding internet connectivity in your next project? Particle photon can do it but why you should consider using the photon. What are the advantages of using Particle photon get all details here only? Particle photon is enabled with STM32 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller, which is a powerful combination along with wifi chip gives it access to internet connectivity.
The photon comes with setup and resets button which can be used to debug your project. As it is an open source platform product so you can modify the product as you have full access to system codes. Sparkfun has used the opportunity and come up with Photon Redboard, which is a powerful, easy to use wifi controller. Without wasting any more time, let’s get started.
What is in the box?
The photon box contains photons with headers, USB cable, Red LED light, photodiode, resistors (2 quantity) the packaging is neat and clean, and the product comes in a cardboard box. Do not worry if you have no previous experience as it is easy to use and needs no last idea for using photon. The breadboard comes with photon and a paper guide which helps you how to add other components in the breadboard. The documentation helps you in my case; it works great and ensures a smooth installation.
The apps are available on both platforms iOS and Android by using them, and you can connect Photon to your particle account and start playing tinker by a photon. Do not worry if you don’t have any Android or iOS device you can also connect you photon with your computer by using Command Line Interface.
What is a Tinker?
Tinker is just like an OS comes pre-loaded on photon helps you to use the primary function of particle app and Command Line Interface. The feature includes digital read, digital write, analog read, and analog writes it can be used with any 16 General Purpose Input/Output pin. By this, you can blink LED and read photoresistors values easily by using Photon and Tinker from all over the world.
What are the advantages of using it?
Integrated Wi-Fi Solution
The particle photon comes with fully integrated Wi-Fi IOT solution empowered with STM32 ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller. All along it comes with 1MB Flash and 128kb RAM fully FCC and CE certified. It is sturdy and small, which makes it efficient and suitable for prototyping IOT projects. The particle photon comes with a breadboard, which makes it easy to mount pin or non-pin headers. The 120MHz ARM core makes its superior processing power and plenty of programming space. On the other hand, photon comes with all standard peripherals including I2C, SPI, UART, PMW, USB, CAN, ADC, DAN.
Arduino C Programming used
Do not misunderstand it with Arduino language as the code is written for Arduino is C++ language with device specifics. The language describes external connection and hardware, which makes it helpful in designing. The Codes in Arduino IDE can easily be connected to any supported device that can be fundamentally different in architecture, hardware interface and register layout.
But code like pinmode and digital read is used by several other microcontroller companies. The particle photon used C++ in its programming with some identical naming conventions near to Arduino range of boards. It means code written for Arduino can be easily copied and pasted on Photon with minor changes. By using Arduino, IDE programming can enter into Particle photon straight away.
Cloud Connectivity
There are several microcontrollers available in the market, but non of them are cloud-connected. But Particle photon comes with cloud-based service even photon is programmed remotely. Due to this remote programming capability to change code easily by sending it to cloud. Cloud connectivity enables you to debug messages to read also act as a local serial port that is used to print the value of variables and IDE, which shows you the status of Photon. It gives you programming capabilities on being handy, which is not available in many expensive programming devices.
Library Compatibility
Some of Arduino libraries are device specific and work with particle photon with ease. You can also change codes specifically needed with a device through an offline version of Particle IDE. Integrated Development Environment enables the creation of local projects with editable file and structures, but the whole program is still compiled on the cloud.
Conclusion
The particle photon is a powerful and useful IOT prototyping platform which makes it enable for remote programming, smooth code migration along with a fast turn around projects. I hope you like the content as the information shared here is designed to empower you with Particle Photon and its uses with IoT devices. Do not forget to show your support, love and suggestions in the comment box below.
