
Introducing the Photon - loisaidasam
https://www.spark.io
======
fragmede
As a wifi -> GPIO board, this seems to be similar to the Electric Imp, but
better since it doesn't use their misguided SD card form-factor or their
blink-up nonsense. They also have a web-based ide, as well as a downloadable
ide. I've not tried either of those out, but the downloadable IDE (though no
Linux support) means I can use the same version control tools (ie git) to
manage it, which is a huge win over Electric Imp's web-only IDE.

$20 for the Spark is an interesting price point as it's cheaper than most of
the Arduino wifi shields, which you still need to connect to an Arduino. It's
also the same price (in many places) as a USB wifi dongle, which you need, in
order to connect up a Raspberry Pi.

While this things is drastically less powerful than a Raspberry Pi, in
projects where the Raspberry Pi is a simple Wifi -> GPIO board this seems
perfect, especially since there's a already a mobile app.

\--

I wonder if the current title, 'Spark: Introducing the $19 Photon', is as it
was submitted. But either way, it's a terrible title. What's a Photon, and why
is it being $19 newsworthy?

~~~
ChuckMcM
Interesting, I generally have a fairly positive opinion of the Imp. In
particular the integration with Squirrel means that much more complex things
can be done, more easily, and without touching the running hardware. The Spark
(Core) on the other hand is much like an Arduino in that you have it in your
presence to code its behavior, and then release it to the wild. Slightly
different target apps, hugely different user experience.

That said, this is a pretty interesting price point. I find myself unable to
resist ordering a couple :-).

Oh, and to answer your question, when folks say "Spark" they generally think
of the "Core" which was $39 (or twice as much) so this really is saying, "hey
a new cost reduced version of the Spark core."

~~~
fragmede
Electric Imp is trying to patent (something around) using a light and a photo
diode for communication. That's not a good sign, but enough about that, the
Photon (assuming they actually ship) and its price point are much more
interesting to me as a hobbyist. They also have schematics and gerber files
for their hardware which is more than I can say for Electric Imp.

> In particular the integration with Squirrel means that much more complex
> things can be done, more easily, and without touching the running hardware.
> The Spark (Core) on the other hand is much like an Arduino

Thanks for the clarification, I've never tried Spark before, though I will
once mine arrives. :)

How much of the Imp's advantage here is due to features of Squirrel the
language itself, and how much is due to their 'cloudification' of the
ecosystem?

~~~
Ohtrahddis
Just wanted to also add that Imp has gerber files for many of their reference
designs and dev boards here:

[https://electricimp.com/docs/hardware/resources/reference-
de...](https://electricimp.com/docs/hardware/resources/reference-designs/)

~~~
fragmede
I'm looking for a schematic for what's _inside_ the SD-form factor card, which
these are not.

------
bjustin
I read the whole page and still am not sure what this is. Is it similar to an
Arduino with on board WiFi?

~~~
zsupalla
Yep that's right! It's an Arduino-like microcontroller development board, but
with built-in Wi-Fi and an open source cloud back-end

~~~
bduerst
So does it basically a wifi interface for REST commands and custom functions?
(for devices)

~~~
mcescalante
Yep, that's pretty much exactly what it does, just tied into their ecosystem
instead of being standalone/DIYish like an Arduino. You see people above
comparing ElectricImp because it's very similar - simple way to get REST or
simple net connectivity for a thing.

~~~
bduerst
Is the device capable of pushing information out too? Or do I need to ping it
at regular intervals to get an update or status change in something?

It just seems like it would be great for push tasks, but what about when I
want it to send notification or device info.

(I've put together R Pis for exactly this type of thing, and having an entire
OS for it is a little overkill)

~~~
middleca
Very easy to publish an event stream from your code, and to pipe those
wherever :) [http://docs.spark.io/firmware/#spark-
publish](http://docs.spark.io/firmware/#spark-publish)

------
danielsiders
Seems dangerously close to SparkFun
([https://sparkfun.com](https://sparkfun.com)) trademark and space. I had to
look hard to figure out it wasn't a sparkfun product.

~~~
song
Oh I kind of assumed it was made by the same guys actually... I remembered
buying some stuff on sparkfun a long time ago and just remembered the spark
part of the name.

------
toddmatthews
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is similar to the Electric Imp in that you
have to connect via their cloud service (you can not just make requests
directly to any web endpoint). While this might be cheap, and great for
prototyping, I dont want to build on top of something that locks me into your
cloud service. They get you to buy a cheap piece (pricepoint) of hardware, but
then you have to pay them to connect.

I'd rather use an RaspberryPi or Arduino Yun. While more expensive up front,
they allow you to connect to any service you would like.

~~~
jwcooper
Nearly everything is open source; firmware, hardware design files, and an api
compatible server: [https://github.com/spark](https://github.com/spark)

~~~
hrjet
Nice. Why do you say "nearly", what is the missing piece then?

~~~
stedaniels
Some API calls, and load balancer horizontal scaling multi user magic.

------
song
Tried to preorder one for a project I have in mind, saw that shipping to
France is around $30... With the size of the package, they definitely could be
cheaper.

It's a bit annoying living in Europe and having to pay a tax on shipping
whenever something interesting comes out.

EDIT: Just after typing this comment I tried again and now I have the option
to ship it to France for $10. There seems to be a bug somewhere on their
checkout form.

------
chillacy
Preordered. I bought a spark core and now I'm a huge fan. I have other
arduinos, some teensy 3.0s, and avr chips, but the nice thing about having
internet in embedded projects is:

1\. No more xbee

2\. Replaces other hardware components, for instance no need for an RTC when
you can just get the time from the internet

Their app for connecting to the network never worked for me but it had a
serial fallback so that was fine.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Just curious, since I want to try it at some point - what's wrong with Xbee in
this context?

------
LukeB_UK
$20 is a great price. I was going to get one until I found out that shipping
would be another $10 on top.

Edit: I'm in the UK.

~~~
ZenoArrow
You can buy a much cheaper WiFi module... [http://hackaday.com/2014/10/25/an-
sdk-for-the-esp8266-wifi-c...](http://hackaday.com/2014/10/25/an-sdk-for-the-
esp8266-wifi-chip/)

The ESP8266 is roughly $5 (including shipping), and has an active community,
and community driven SDK. It is available in the UK, and everywhere else that
DealXtreme ship to (other sellers are available).

~~~
LukeB_UK
Awesome, thank you for this!

~~~
makomk
Bear in mind that the ESP8266 is nowhere near as polished or easy to get going
with as the Spark Core. The toolchain to build firmware on your own PC and
load it on is much more experimental and buggy for ESP8266, and because it
doesn't have an equivalent of their cloud IDE, that's the only way you can get
your code running on it.

~~~
ZenoArrow
That's where the community support comes in handy...
[http://www.esp8266.com/](http://www.esp8266.com/) ...note that there's even a
subforum for compiler setup.

I thought this was interesting too; using an ESP8266 to wirelessly program an
Arduino... [http://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/programming-an-arduino-
over-w...](http://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/programming-an-arduino-over-wifi-
with-the-esp8266/)

------
cheapsteak
Suggestion - put in some social sharing meta tags. It literally takes two
minutes. Here's a quickie to make it semi presentable on facebook

``` <meta property="og:title" content="Introducing the Photon IoT Toolkit">
<meta property="og:image" content="[https://s3.amazonaws.com/spark-
website/photon-hero.jpg">](https://s3.amazonaws.com/spark-website/photon-
hero.jpg">) <meta property="og:site_name" content="Spark"> <meta
property="og:description" content="A $19 postage stamp-sized hackable Wi-Fi
module for interacting with physical things."> ```

Also, $59.04 to ship to Canada? And why does it cost twice as much to ship to
Canada than to France?

------
bbcbasic
The site is too marketing-y. How about some technical specs? What battery do I
need to run it? What voltage? Can I switch mains voltage? Etc.

~~~
mcescalante
I think that the market they're aiming to capture is the people who want to
get stuff "internet enabled", but don't have the technical expertise to do so
with the existing more DIY-intensive options like RPi or Arduino, so them
leaning more towards a market-y design-y webpage sort of makes sense

~~~
bbcbasic
There is something missing then. Does this $19 device do anything useful on
it's own? Or do you have to buy one of the up sells e.g. the sprinkler system
for $199 to get it do do anything useful?

------
teraflop
That countdown showing the number of remaining orders with free shipping is a
stroke of marketing genius. It certainly worked on me.

~~~
yournemesis
It had the opposite effect on me. I saw that I missed out on free shipping so
I didn't order one.

~~~
300bps
...which is why it should disappear completely after it is no longer relevant.

After all, stores don't leave their signs up after a sale is over. "Oh sorry,
yeah - that was $19 yesterday. We sold a ton of them! You can buy it today for
$26 though."

------
jeiden
So proud to be part of the team!

~~~
Cyranix
Congrats on what seems like a very warm reception on HN!

Can you provide a little more clarity on what the Photon Kit listed in the
store consists of? The short description says "several sensors" and the
description in the modal is even more vague with "a couple of extra
surprises".

~~~
BDub1
@Cyranix these "several sensors" are kind of bonus items so please trust that
they will be a sweet surprise ;-)

------
canadaj
I just pre-ordered! This looks fantastic for what I'm trying to do; reading
temperatures of barbecues and smokers via wifi. I already have a working
prototype using a Raspberry Pi, but of course I needed to add a USB wifi
dongle and a sturdy case, as well as a beefy power supply to keep it all
going. This will drastically reduce my overhead!

I can't wait!

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Well, in theory you could use a small Arduino and some sort of wireless module
- but yeah, Spark is more convenient.

~~~
canadaj
Yes, I am much more comfortable with software rather than hardware, so the Pi
seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus I've re-purposed it a handful of
times already.

------
smilekzs
Preordered. I actually develop bare-metal on STM32Fx so this is a no-brainer.
It might be tempting to see this as a device locked to the cloud, but really
it isn't -- if you're put up with their firmware just plug in your favorite
JTag debugger and flash your own.

------
philihp
$20 is right at the impulse-buy level, too! Good job! Time to read about what
I just preordered.

------
bradfa
It's open source hardware for the example board design but not for the
microcontroller and Broadcom wifi chip portion which seems to live within the
square RF can which shows the "USI" logo.

I believe the wifi chip used is the same as in the Electric Imp.

------
aselzer
This seems like a version of the Tessel[0] that isn't as overpriced[1].

[0] [https://tessel.io/](https://tessel.io/)

[1] [https://shop.trycelery.com/page/tec](https://shop.trycelery.com/page/tec)

~~~
niutech
You can program Spark using JavaScript too:
[https://github.com/spark/sparkjs](https://github.com/spark/sparkjs)

~~~
bravo22
Those two don't seem to be the same thing. Tessel runs javascript on the micro
so you can write your programs in js instead of C and compile it.

What you've linked to is a js library for connecting to Spark cloud.

Overall I think the Spark is much better bang for your buck.

~~~
niutech
You're right, although you can write your sketches using just JS:
[http://blog.spark.io/2014/09/29/blink-an-led-with-
javascript...](http://blog.spark.io/2014/09/29/blink-an-led-with-javascript/)

------
jkaljundi
OT: What's the best similar thing with Bluetooth connectivity nowadays?

~~~
jwcooper
I'm not sure what you're looking to do with bluetooth, but Adafruit has a few
breakout boards using bluetooth:
[https://www.adafruit.com/category/255](https://www.adafruit.com/category/255)

(disclaimer: I work for Adafruit)

------
felixrieseberg
This looks really, really interesting. It also seems like they're thinking a
lot about tooling, which I appreciate - there's a lot of stuff out there right
now, I assume the true differentiator will be in the tooling.

On that note, there's a weird "don't go back" loop at
[https://www.spark.io/signup](https://www.spark.io/signup).

~~~
bravo22
Tooling? You mean software toolset or mechanical tooling?

------
cmsmith
Based on these specs:

[https://store.spark.io/](https://store.spark.io/)

this appears to be a complete upgrade * from the Spark Core, correct? So
waiting 5 months will get you a better product at half the price?

* it appears to be missing the option for external flash storage, but that's not a big deal as they've upgraded the built in storage.

~~~
niutech
Exactly! You will get an open source platform with 120MHz STM32 CPU, 128 KB
RAM, 1MB Flash, BCM433 802.11b/g/n with SoftAP for half the price. And you can
easily attach an external SD card: [https://github.com/technobly/SparkCore-
SD](https://github.com/technobly/SparkCore-SD) or
[https://enabler.tilt.com/usd-fram-shield](https://enabler.tilt.com/usd-fram-
shield)

~~~
Florin_Andrei
That's pretty awesome.

------
dmritard96
Spark seems very cool, but I think what worries me as a product builder is any
gaurentees that the cloud service will be around in a couple years. Certainly
not suggesting that it won't be, just that if I build a product with this, I
will want my own version of the cloud as an open source project that I can
license or something.

~~~
zsupalla
The cloud back-end is open source so you can do that:

[http://www.github.com/spark/spark-server](http://www.github.com/spark/spark-
server)

~~~
mark-r
How hard is it to reprogram the device to use your own server using that back
end? How about if you wanted to do your own back end?

~~~
mcescalante
I believe that to do this without using any of the existing firmware you would
just want to grab a JTAG programmer and flash your own version of their
firmware, or a custom blend of something. Flashing it is easy and they've got
plenty of instructions on the web.

~~~
middleca
You can actually do this with a usb cable, or flash your own firmware over the
air, you'd only need a jtag programmer if you wanted to replace the open-
source bootloader :)

------
sparticvs
If you're curious how the SmartConfig protocol works, see:
[http://depletionregion.blogspot.com/2013/10/cc3000-smart-
con...](http://depletionregion.blogspot.com/2013/10/cc3000-smart-config-
transmitting-ssid.html)

~~~
elecengin
Note that SmartConfig is a TI-specific technology only available in the Spark
Core (which is based off the popular CC3000 module). The Photon is based off a
Broadcom chip and only appears to support Soft-AP provisioning (where the
device presents itself as an access point that a phone/tablet/computer
connects to in order to configure Wifi credentials.)

~~~
jc4p
I'm excited to try out a Spark that isn't using the SmartConfig entirely
because I'm unable to get it to connect to my WiFi network at work (running an
enterprise WiFi setup using Cisco's APs)

------
habosa
Ordered one, $20 is very much in the impulse range.

I hope I'm not missing something: is this a smaller, better, cheaper version
of the Core? If so, does the Core only exist until the Photon starts shipping?

------
roehst
I know nothing about IOT.

Is this revolutionary? It does look awesome.

~~~
fragmede
The IoT revolution is inherently price conscious. It's not that any of this
stuff is new, it's that I can buy a device cheap enough to consider adding
wifi to everything, including a temperature sensor on my toaster, to show me
temperature graphs for the perfect toast.

It could be done 10 years ago, but spending $200 to internet-enable my toaster
is ridiculous, but for $25 ($20 + a temperature sensor), it's a fun and silly
weekend project.

Spark themselves make the Core, which is $40, which is the same ecosystem, and
also wifi shields for Arduino have existed for a while, though they aren't as
cheap, and on the larger side, Raspberry Pi's have USB, which means you can
just plug in a USB dongle.

So I say yes, for $20 to go from wifi -> breadboard, this is revolutionary.

~~~
mark-r
A temperature sensor in the fridge would be much more useful than one on the
toaster. I may have to get me one of these.

~~~
slayed0
I wonder how hard it is to pick up a wifi signal in a fridge though. I imagine
the temperature shielding would be hard for the signal to penetrate. Report
back!

~~~
methyl
You can always have sensor inside the fridge and board outside :)

------
mahyarm
So why would I choose this over a $20 Raspberry Pi?

~~~
georgemcbay
Smaller, lighter, wifi.

There are of course many reasons why you would choose a $20 Raspberry Pi over
this as well (far more memory, more powerful CPU, runs a full user OS, etc).
It all depends on what you need it to do.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Probably much less DC power needed, too. Way less.

------
pimlottc
That picture needs some context for scale. My first impression was that it had
a normal USB port and was much larger.

------
brandoaire
It's an Wiring-compatible dev board with built in Wi-Fi and free Cloud
service.

------
fchollet
I thought this was going to be about the Spark big data framework.

~~~
scarythoughts
Me too, is this going to be a trademark dispute?

