Particle Tracker One
In this tutorial we will show you how to connect your Particle Tracker One to the Datacake platform.
The tutorial has a few requirements, including:
You own a Particle Tracker One
You have registered yourself onto the Particle Console
You have a bit of understanding how the Particle Console works
Create Particle Account
To get started, the first thing we need to do is set up your Tracker One on the Particle Console. To do this, log into your user account on the Particle Console.
If you do not have an account on the Particle Console, please create one in advance.
Create Particle Product
Using a Tracker One is only possible in operation within a Particle Product, which means that the first thing we have to do now is to create a corresponding product on the Console.
What is a Particle Product?
Within a product, multiple devices of the same type can be added.
The advantages are:
You can upload firmware releases in the product and publish them accordingly to all devices within the product.
Also, groups can be created to divide the fleet into different sub-areas.
Firmware Included
In the case of Tracker One, Particle also provides all the firmware to run the tracker within the product by default. So you don't have to do any more programming, but you can still use custom firmware - if your application requires it.
Firmware for Particle Tracker One automatically included in Product
You don’t need to do any programming
Import into Datacake
Particle products are fully imported into your workspace on the Datacake platform, including automatically all devices that are present in that product.
Create a Product for Tracker One
After logging in to the Particle Console, an overview of your personal devices is displayed. Here you will find devices that are assigned to your own account. These devices can be part of a product or only in your private area.
To create a new product, navigate to the product area using the left sidebar. Here you click on "Products".
You will now see a list of existing products (if your account already has products, or if you were invited as a guest to someone else's product).
To create a new product, now click on the buttons "+ New Product" in the upper right area of the product overview or right in the middle of the screen.
After the click, a setup modal opens, which asks you for certain inputs.
Product Name
Enter a name for your first product here. Since we want to work with Tracker One, something like "datacake-tracker-one-product" would be conceivable. However, the choice is free here.
Brief Description
Enter a short description here. Is rather optional, but it makes it easier to work with products - especially if you have a higher number of products or external guests.
Device Type
Now select the Particle device type.
In this case it is
"Asset Tracker (cellular)"
Privacy
Activate checkbox Now confirm that you agree to the position data being transmitted and stored via the Particle Console.
Where will my data be stored?
Position data can also be stored in the Particle Cloud (optional), but the Datacake integration stores the data in our data center on our servers, which are located in Frankfurt.
Payment
If you want to add your Tracker One to a Particle Product, a valid credit card must be on file so Particle can bill for cellular connection fees and Particle Console usage.
Do I need a credit card for Datacake?
No. First, we do not charge for the first two devices in your workspace, and second, you do not need to have a credit card on file to create a user account on Datacake.
Create product
To create the product now, confirm your details by clicking on the "Create" button.
Add your Tracker One
Once you have created the product, you can now add your Tracker One.
To do this, navigate to the Device overview of the product and click on the "Add Devices" button and in the modal that opens, click on "Add One Device".
Now you have to enter the Particle Device ID of your Tracker One and confirm via checkbox that you agree that adding the device will also activate the SIM card and thus there will be costs.
Once this is done, confirm the creation by clicking on the "Add Device" button.
Where can I find the Device ID?
Usually, the device ID is on a sticker in the scope of delivery. However, if you cannot find it, the device ID can also be read out via USB connection. We will describe how to do that in the next section.
Reading the Device ID
If you cannot find the Device ID on a sticker or as an enclosure with your order, then the ID can also be read out via USB connection. To do this, connect the Tracker One to your computer or Mac via USB-C and use the CLI to execute the following commands.
particle start-listening- Puts the Tracker One into a mode that allows information to be read.particle identify- Reads out the device ID.
Particle Identify will return the Device-ID, IMEI and ICCID of the SIM Card and Modem and it will also tell you the current version of the installed base operating system (the Particle DeviceOS).
Preparing the Tracker One
The following steps are optional.
Software Update
Basically, the system software is also updated to the latest version via software update from the cloud. However, you can also do this step manually and before adding it to your product.
Connect your tracker to your computer or Mac via USB-C cable and use the Particle CLI (Command Line Interface) to update the tracker to the latest firmware.
To do this, run the following commands:
particle usb dfu- Puts the Tracker One into update mode.particle update- Starts the software update for the system firmware.
Activate Hardware
Sometimes Particle product remain in a setup mode and do not connect to the cloud first. You can recognize this by a dark blue flashing of the device. To leave this setup mode, you can also use the CLI. Here you enter the following command:
particle usb setup-done- Exits the setup mode and starts the connection to the cloud.
This command must only be called once initially. A corresponding flag is set in the flash memory of the device.
Further information
More detailed information about this topic can also be found in a corresponding chapter of the Particle Documentation, which can be found under the following link:
Need Support?
We are also happy to help you with the creation of your Tracker One. Just use our live chat function on web page and portal or send us an email to hallo@datacake.de.
First configuration of the Tracker One
If you have now successfully added your Tracker One to the product, you will see a corresponding entry in the product's list of available devices.
To do this navigate
Now click on the entry in the list to open the device overview of the Tracker One. The following content is displayed:
Select Firmware
As already mentioned, Particle provides a comprehensive basic firmware for the Tracker One. This is automatically added to your product by Particle and must now be selected for use with your tracker (if it has not already been done).
To do this, please click on the "Edit" button in the upper right area of the Device view.
You will now see a gray area with various options, including a drop-down for selecting the firmware. Here please click on the drop-down and select the "vXX - Tracker Edge Firmware".
Also please make sure that after selecting the Firmware you activate the "Flash now" checkmark next to the selected Firmware and then click on "Save" (in the upper right area where the "Edit" button was before).
Now you have successfully assigned the Particle Tracker firmware to your tracker. If it now connects to the cloud, a software update process will begin.
No Firmware available?
If you can't find a version in the drop down for firmware selection, please navigate to the firmware section using the sidebar.
Here you can see an overview of the available firmware versions.
Particle stores its own firmware for the Tracker One, the so-called "Edge Firmware". As long as you do not upload your own firmware, this firmware should also be visible here and be selectable for the devices.
If this is not the case, please contact Datacake or Particle support.
Await Update
Now give your tracker some time to download the latest update from the cloud. You can also follow the process in the Particle Console. Take a look at the log of the events. If the update is completed successfully, you will see this in a short message.
Firmware Configuration
The Edge firmware for Tracker One provides basic functionality, including:
Periodic sending of position
Automated "sleep" between sending periods
Geofencing on the device
Waking up in the event of strong or light vibrations/shocks
These functions can be further fine-tuned with various setting options.
In the following section you will find an approximate configuration for a test operation of your Tracker One. In principle, however, you can also start with the default configuration and fine-tune the configuration at a later time.
To access the configuration panel of your Tracker, open up the Device-View by clicking on the entry in the Device-List Table.
This will now take you to the overview page of your Tracker One. This page has another tab bar that you can use to navigate to the firmware settings for the Edge firmware.
Basic Configuration
To set the configuration of your tracker, please click on the "Asset Tracker Settings" tab here. You should now see the following options:
Now navigate through the individual options using the tab bar and set the configuration as indicated below.
Location
Radius Trigger: 0
Maximum Location Update: 60 Seconds
Minimum Location Update: 3600 Seconds
Motion
Movement Sensivity: Medium
High-G: Enable
Sleep
Sleep Mode: Enable
Post Publish Execution Time: 10 Seconds
Maximum Connecting Time: 90 Seconds
Enable Development Mode
In order to be able to set the configuration of an individual device, the tracker must be set to what is called "Development Mode".
However, this should only be done when the software update is completely finished, otherwise it will be aborted prematurely.
Why Development Mode?
The configuration of the tracker is normally set on the product level, so that all Tacker One within the product inherit the same configuration. This way, the whole fleet of Tracker Devices can be configured with only one operation.
But currently we don’t want to do this as we are only interested in setting the configuration on a single device right now. That’s the reason why we are putting the Tracker One into Development Mode now.
To better understand the exact options, there is a deeper documentation on the part of Particle. We will not go deeper into this matter here, as we will now continue with the preparation for the connection to the Datacake platform.
Add Integrations
The Datacake platform marries the Particle Product to a product in your workspace. To do this, you specify your personal Access Token when adding the Tracker One to your Workspace.
However, in order for the tracker's data to be forwarded to the Datacake backend, appropriate integrations (called webhooks) must be created in the product on the Particle Console.
To do this, navigate to the integrations section using the left sidebar.
Now we need to add three integrations:
For the event that tells us the user data of the Tracker One.
For the event that tells us the online/offline status.
For the event that tells us diagnostic data
To add a new Integration simply click on "+ New Integration".
Select type "Webhook" here.
Location Event
This is the integration for the actual user data of the tracker.
URL:
https://api.datacake.co/integrations/particle/Event Name:
loc
Spark Diagnostics Event
The Diagnostics event is used to transmit data such as cellular properties, but also system and cloud parameters.
URL:
https://api.datacake.co/integrations/particle/Event Name:
spark/device/diagnostics/update
Spark Status Event
The status event tells you the online and offline notifications.
URL:
https://api.datacake.co/integrations/particle/Event Name:
spark/status
Testing Integrations
If you open one of the integrations after creating it (by clicking on the entry), then you have the option to test this integration.
This test will probably be acknowledged with an error, which is expected because the test function for the integration does not send a device ID and the Datacake API returns a "Not Found".
You can safely ignore this error.
Add to Datacake
The following steps assume that you already have an account on the Datacake platform. If this is not the case, please register in advance.
Registration on Datacake does not require a credit card and your first two devices are always free.
In your workspace, you now add a new device. To do this, click on the "Add Device" button in the upper right area of the platform.
This will open a modal that will present you with various options for creating a device. Here please click on "Particle".
Now you need to add your Particle account to your Datacake Workspace. This is done by specifying an access token, which you generate via the Particle CLI. We have compiled a short help for you. To see this, open the blue info panel (click on "Details") and look at the help.
Copy this Access Token into the corresponding text field and confirm it by clicking the "Add" button.
Your Particle account should now appear in the upper listing. Select it and start with the next steps. To do this, click on "Next".
In the next step, you now need to select the product.
Select the option "New Product from Template".
A list of templates will appear.
Select the template for the Tracker One "Asset Tracker One".
Now you have to select the product in your Particle Account that you want to connect to the template. This is done by simply selecting the product in the list below the template selection.
Here please select the product you added your Tracker One to and click "Next" to confirm.
In the third step, the Datacake platform will now ask for the devices you want to import. This will list all the devices that Datacake has found in your product. If you want to import more than one Tracker One, you can select more than one here.
If you want to add more devices later, just select "Existing Product" in the step before and then you can add more devices.
In the final step you have to select the plan to add your Tracker One to the Datacake platform. Select one of your two free device plans here. You can also upgrade this at any time later if desired.
If you want to learn more about our Pricing please have a look on our webpage or feel free to contact us using the live-chat on both webpage or frontend.
Dashboard
Once the importer has run through, the imported devices should end up in your workspace. You will then find them in the Device-Overview in your Datacake Workspace.
Now click on the entry in the list to open the device accordingly. You will then see the dashboard that was connected to the template.
Debugging
If you want to make sure that integrations are working on the Particle Console and data is being transferred to the Datacake platform, you can see this via the Debug view on your Device View.
To do this, navigate to the debug view using the tab bar and see if any messages are coming into Datacake from the Particle Console.
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