Alternative for Redbear Duo

[Skip]

Now that Particle has acquired Redbear and has announced EOL for the Redbear products with the Duo to be available through Q1-19 (although it is current out of stock with no anticipated ship date). I am wondering what you would suggest as an alternative to the Duo that provides BLE capability.

[cyclin_al1]

You have me confused !!! So I went and searched for an end of life announcement and could not find it....

The RedbearDuo is out of stock at Particle. That is because Particle is at full capacity shipping out the new ParticleMesh product line. The announcement on the Particle store indicates that RedbearDuo should be back in stock by the end of October. Mesh was a little bit late, so it would not surprise me that the Duo is also late. I am a bit disappointed that the re-stocking is late.

However, various Particle distributors still have stock. I am still finding them available somewhat locally to where I am.

The latest news on the RedbearDuo from the Particle General Manager is here:

Redbear Duo v0.3.2 not in Particle IDE

[Skip]

My information came directly from the Redbear home page (https://redbear.cc/).

Products availability and support
RedBear Team will continue to provide technical support through our support forum on http://discuss.redbear.cc.

RedBear Duo will continue to be available through Q1 2019.
    All development of additional features/libraries are stopped with the exception of using Particle WebIDE.
    Developing with Particle WebIDE will be supported through Q3 2019.
    Technical support for other development methods will be provided till end of September 2018.

[dubb45]

I was playing with a HM-10 Bluetooth chip and got it to work with the carloop and photon easily just made sure my connections were correct. Then had to change my “Serial.print” to “Serial1.print” and it’s been working for me. I’ve made a windows desktop app with VB, and working on an iOS version with Xcode and swift.

[cyclin_al1]

@Skip,

Thanks for providing that link; I had read the original message announcing that Redbear would be working with Particle; I do not remember the second part. My google-foo included Particle when I searched, so it did not pick up on that.

How to interpret it? That announcement on support came from Redbear Labs. However, Particle is the current 'owner' of the Duo. I would be looking to Particle for the future of the Duo. Given that Particle is still working on new tools to support the Duo, I would be hopeful that means Particle will be continuing to support the Duo as a product. However, we are waiting for a clear indication from Particle....

[Skip]

Since Tech Support Engineers often know and admit more about product directions I pinged Particle support and I received the following response:

Dave - Tech Support (Particle )
Dec 21, 14:40 PST
The Redbear products are all being retired as per the details on the RedBear home page. W.r.t. the Duo, the closest equivalent is the new Argon. However, at the moment there is no BLE API; the Bluetooth radio is used only for device configuration and activation. Developing that API is a very high priority for our engineering team, but all I can say at this point is that it's a Q1 deliverable. I'm hoping it will be nearer the beginning of Q1 than the end ;^) , but I cannot predict exactly when it will be made available.
Happy holidays,
Dave @ Particle

This certainly doesn't bode well for the Duo. Has anyone tried the Argon with Carloop?

[cyclin_al1]

@Skip,

There is no use in trying the Argon with the existing Carloop.
The Photon, Electron and Redbear Duo all use the STM32F series microprocessors which include hardware support for CANbus. The Nordic nRF52 microprocessors used in the new 3rd generation from Particle do not have hardware support for CANbus.

For the Argon, Boron or Xenon, different external hardware would be needed along with a much more complex firmware library. There are no announcements from either Particle or Carloop regarding plans for CANbus on the new Particle Mesh hardware.

Without CANbus support, the BLE is kind of a secondary issue....

[dubb45]

Alternatively you can add an “hc05” to the carloop using some jumper wires. Tired it and it works, just need to come up with a solution to make it more compact or maybe develop a “hat” type thing that will sit ontop of the carloop.

[Skip]

I realize from a post under a different topic that the Nordic processors don't support CANbus. My original question to Particle Support was if they planned to integrate the Duo into the Particle tools (e.g. Particle CLI) or their documentation not what they would suggest as alternatives. It is obvious from Dave's response that they are not going to integrate the Duo but rather they clearly plan to kill it off. Just thought I post the information for everyone to see.

[Skip]

dubb45

Thanks for your post. I notice that initially you suggested the HM-10 instead of the HC-05. I'm leaning toward the 10 since it is BLE compatible and the 05 isn't. Did you encounter any issue with the 10 that caused you to switch to the 05?

[dubb45]

No actually they both work fine I’ve just been using the hc05 on my android tablet lately and the hm10 has support for iOS. I’ll eventually move twoards that when I start developing my app for iOS.

[cyclin_al1]

@Skip,

The RedbearDuo is partially supported by the Particle toolset. However, the full toolset for the Duo is available on the Github for Redbear. The RedbearDuo toolset and the system firmware (aka DeviceOS) will not be updated, but any existing Duos will continue to function. I expect the toolset will continue to function as it is. They will just be stuck running an older version.

The heart of the RedbearDuo is a Particle P1 module, the same module that is the heart of the Photon. The STM32F microprocessor mentioned earlier is in the P1 module. As a result, some of the Particle toolset will function for the RedbearDuo.

I am using the RedbearDuo for my personal projects, and I have continued to purchase them after the official notice that they will no longer be supported. I would not continue for a commercial product, however.

[alanm]

@Skip we are making more Carloop Bluetooth kits this year with Redbear Duo.

[alanm]

@Skip in addition we have a new version of Carloop that will support Particle's GEN3 hardware (Argon, Boron, Xenon). However Particle's new hardware is still very much under development so we are waiting for that hardware platform to be more stable.

[Skip]

dubb45,

Any chance you'd be willing to post an example of your Photon code for the HM-10? Did you happen to find an iOS APP that will communicates well with the HM-10?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[dubb45]


void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
Serial1.begin(9600);

}

void loop()
{
// read from port 0, send to port 1:
if (Serial.available())
{
int inByte = Serial.read();
Serial1.write(inByte);
Serial1.write("\n");
}
// read from port 1, send to port 0:
if (Serial1.available())
{
int inByte = Serial1.read();
Serial.write(inByte);
Serial.write("\n");
}
}

use this as a basic test, but just wire up the bluetooth to serial1 on the photon and that about it really.

[dubb45]

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Serial1.begin(115200);
}
void loop()
{
  // read from port 0, send to port 1:
  if (Serial.available())
  {
    int inByte = Serial.read();
    Serial1.write(inByte);
    if (inByte == 10){
        testPrinter();
    }
 Serial1.write("\n");
  }
  // read from port 1, send to port 0:
  if (Serial1.available())
  {
    int inByte = Serial1.read();
    Serial.write(inByte);
    Serial.write("\n");
    if (inByte == 10){
        testPrinter2();
    }
  }
}
void testPrinter(){
    Serial.println("Worknig Test");
}
void testPrinter2(){
    Serial1.println("2nd Worknig Test");
}

use this as a basic test, but just wire up the bluetooth to serial1 on the photon and that's about it really. theres an app on GitHub and the App Store that connects to it fine they even give you a sample app to use.

[Skip]

gubb45, Many thanks, this will help a lot..

[cyclin_al1]

A post was split to a new topic: Carloop for Particle Gen3 devices

[Skip]

If anyone is interested the default baud rate for the HM-10 module is 9600 (not 115200). Using "Serial1.begin(9600);" wprks a lot better with a new out of the box HM-10. Once you've established communications you can use the command "AT+BAUD4" to set the HM to 115200.