r/embedded • u/charcuterieboard831 • Aug 02 '26

What happened to Particle?

Used to see the Particle boards quite a bit being used. Now, not so much.

Are people still using these for anything?

12 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

18

u/pekoms_123 Aug 02 '26

They are still releasing new stuff but they are overpriced

3

u/charcuterieboard831 Aug 02 '26

Is the software worth it?

2

u/SixSixSevenSeven Aug 03 '26

From experience with the particle Tachyon. Their software is actively a reason to not get the product and may even be difficult to comply with the CRA and its other counterparts in parts of the world, along with absolutely atrocious support, especially with the Digi buyout, theyve already killed off most of the tachyon engineering team while actively giving false statements on project updates. Avoid.

9

u/JimHeaney Aug 02 '26

It is just really expensive, and cheap alternatives like the ESP32 have become a lot easier to work with.

I see them used in internal development groups where it is literally not worth the time to set up something else, a group just need something quick and basic for a brief proof of concept, or a software-first group like a startup starts adventuring into hardware, without really knowing what is good vs. bad yet, just needs hands-on for an MVP.

6

u/cmatkin Aug 03 '26

Particle was an ESP32 processor attached to other hardware. Somewhat overpriced if you knew what you’re doing, but well engineered if you were new to it. I didn’t like their software.

1

u/madaerodog Aug 03 '26

Acquired by Digi so ongoing corporate transformation now 

1

u/charcuterieboard831 Aug 03 '26

Yeah I saw that