Tachyon Takes Flight

Single-board computers (SBCs) are so inexpensive these days that they can be deployed far and wide for everything from commercial and research applications to personal projects. Whether the goal is to distribute environmental monitors throughout a forest or set up a network of custom security cameras in a backyard, these tiny computers have more than enough power to get the job done while keeping the project on budget. But when the application requires that the devices be located where local networks are unavailable, things start to get challenging.

In order to access a device remotely, network connectivity is required. Typical SBCs do have plenty of options for wireless connectivity, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. However, these options are very limited in terms of range, which means remote deployments are impossible without adding additional hardware, complexity, and expense. IoT engineer Eric Pietrowicz recently ran into issues with this exact problem when attempting to deploy a custom wildlife monitor.

In particular, Pietrowicz wanted to deploy his AI-powered bird classification application called Flockr outside the range of his Wi-Fi network. He did not want to dedicate the next few weeks of his life to researching hardware options and fighting through integration and configuration issues, so he went with an all-in-one hardware solution — the Particle Tachyon SBC. The Tachyon sidesteps network connectivity issues through the use of an onboard 5G radio. Thanks to its EtherSIM+ module, Pietrowicz did not need to pay for a cellular data plan. Low-bandwidth data transfers are always free.

Bird watching may not be your cup of tea, but the same basic setup procedure followed by Pietrowicz could be used to make virtually any application accessible through the web via 5G, so his tutorial is well-worth checking out in any case. In it, he demonstrates how to register a domain name and route network traffic to the 5G-connected Tachyon SBC through a Cloudflare tunnel. The domain name may cost a few dollars a year, but — at least for personal projects — you can get by for free with Cloudflare.

Once the device is online, the tutorial goes into the details of how the Tachyon can be accessed via the Particle Console, and how to install Flask to act as the web server. From there, Flockr is installed, but of course you can deviate from the instructions at this stage to install your own web-based application. All that is needed to complete the build is a battery and any other components (e.g. cameras or other sensors) required by your application.

Check out the full project write-up for all the details you need to get your own Tachyon-powered project up and running quickly.