Particle Announces Five Big Launches at Spectra '24 — Including a Raspberry Pi M-HAT and Blueprints
Founder and chief executive Zach Supalla goes big for this year's keynote with a wealth of launches and upcoming new features.
Internet of Things (IoT) specialist Particle has announced five major updates at its Spectra 2024 conference today — including the M-HAT add-on for Raspberry Pi single-board computers, a rugged IP67-rated enclosure, and Particle on Linux.
"The technology landscape we operate in is changing quickly," says Zach Supalla, founder and chief executive of Particle. "When we launched 10 years ago, it was barely possible to reliably connect an IoT device to a Wi-Fi network. Now we have a breadth of connectivity options, much faster processors, and AI accelerators. Problems that were once solved with expensive and finicky sensors can now be solved with cameras and microphones. We’ve officially entered the era of 'Edge AI.' Our job at Particle is to try to wrangle all of the complexity of building an intelligent device so that it’s possible to bring a product to market in six months — after which you can continue to iterate and expand upon the software and models that make the product work."
During the keynote speech at Particle Spectra 2024, Supalla unveiled five major launches for the company — including the M-HAT, an add-on for the Raspberry Pi family of single-board computers and pin-compatibles, which delivers LTE Cat. 1 cellular connectivity, delivers "nano-amp low-power modes" while not actively communication, and includes an integrated microcontroller to allow the device to continue to operate "in a limited" fashion while the Raspberry Pi itself is powered off.
The M-HAT features the second of Particle's new launches: the EtherSIM+, an upgraded version of the company's EtherSIM embedded Subscriber Identity Module (eSIM), which supports larger data plans of up to 2GB per month for prototyping purposes and custom plans for enterprise users. "EtherSIM+ is a true eSIM; not just an embedded SIM but a reprogrammable SIM (industry term: eUICC)," Supalla explains. "This means we can expand our connectivity options beyond the 'multi-IMSI' redundancy that we currently provide and also add 'multi-profile' redundancy, where we can provide multiple connectivity profiles with intelligent connectivity management to switch between those profiles based on geography and availability."
The third of the company's launches is the M1 Enclosure, a rugged housing for the Particle Muon, Tachyon and new Raspberry Pi-based devices — inspired by the chassis developed for the Particle Monitor One industrial monitoring gateway. "The M1 Enclosure is built for real-world deployments; it can be mounted to basically anything, it’s IP67-ready, and it has ports for external sensors, connectors, cameras, power supplies, and/or or antennas," Supalla says. "It fits a single-board computer and a HAT inside, along with a LiPo battery. And it can be manufactured with custom colorways and custom branding for your device."
The company's remaining launches are software-based, starting with Particle on Linux — building on the work carried out for the Particle Tachyon single-board computer. This, Supalla explains, brings the Particle platform to "anything that runs Linux" as simply as installing any other package. Once installed, the Particle software allows the device to be managed like a dedicated Particle device including remote administration, over-the-air updates, and performance and connectivity monitoring — free of charge for under 100 devices, Supalla says.
Particle Blueprints, the last of the company's launches at Spectra 2024, is designed to package everything you need for "intelligent devices" into a single deployable application — including both on-device and cloud-based software code, any required files and assets, and configurations. Blueprints are, Supalla explains, compiled into a Git repository that can be shared on services including GitHub and GitLab and deployed with a simple script. Supalla also unveiled a "Blueprints Gallery," which will provide ready-to-run Blueprints developed by Particle itself and shared by the community.
The M-HAT is currently listed for pre-order on the Particle Store at $89.95, including the M-HAT and B-SoM with EtherSIM+, a USB cable, mounts, and a 3,250mAh battery; EtherSIM+ will be coming to the general B-SoM and M-SoM lines in 2025, with more information available on the product page; the M1 Enclosure is up for pre-order at $69.95; the Particle on Linux beta program launches in the fourth quarter, with registrations open now; and Particle Blueprints are "coming soon," with more information available upon registration.