Particle introduces a new free cellular IoT platform

Originally published at: Particle introduces a new free cellular IoT platform | Boing Boing

If these will still be devices with SIM cards, but with a special plan, I hope they have a routine to deal with devices plundered for their SIM cards. Trying to remember exactly which card of dozens was in the weather station at the back of the yard, looted by “squirrels”, could be a problem.

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I have one of the kits and it never worked even when I was paying for it. No thanks.

Yes, let’s further enable the spread of IoT into every possible corner of people’s lives. The masses are literally begging for more. :roll_eyes:

/s

I like what safecast.org is doing (I’m on the board).

Calling it “free” makes it sound extremely bad, but I am guessing that is just the headline?

The OP implies that you do still pay for the data, but they don’t charge rent for the privilege of using more than one device. Which would be good and useful.

I think the pitch to sell IoT and the practical improvements are different. I also really hate the “servisization” and “platforms” as well as the poor security of the most approachable products. I don’t often recommend them to people, but I’ve found great uses: a baby webcam really helped my wife return to work. I liked scrubbing through the previous night to track feeding and sleeping schedule. I love getting pinged when the garage door is left open or not having to walk outside to check before bed. When traveling turning the heat back on when your plane lands so you don’t come home to a cold house. People seem to like camera doorbells.

The sim solution seems to address the main reason these things use a hosted service: NAT. The other common issue is a low powered device out of range of WiFi.

I do think we can steer IoT away from paying $4/mo for an Internet enabled fridge that you gave to reboot and hackers can use to mine Bitcoin.

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