This blog post was originally published at Qualcomm’s website. It is reprinted here with the permission of Qualcomm.
Particle is at the forefront of helping companies bring smarts and connectivity to their products — it’s going a step further with Tachyon
Key Takeaways:
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Particle is breaking into a new industry with Tachyon, a 5G and AI-enabled single-board computer.
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Being able to bring simplicity to a complex product or process adds meaningful value.
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Guidance from Qualcomm Technologies’ IoT group was critical to Particle’s early work with Tachyon.
When Zach Supalla, CEO of startup Particle, wanted his company to enter a new industry, he decided it made sense to do so by going back to its roots.
Over the last decade, Particle offered an Internet of Things Platform-as-a-Service and sold sensors and microprocessors that let companies add intelligence and connectivity to their products. But with Particle’s upcoming Tachyon, a 5G-powered single-board computer with an AI accelerator (think a souped-up Raspberry Pi), the company was entering a completely different category — complete with a new target customer.
So, Particle returned to the strategy that first catapulted it to its success: crowdfunding. The company listed Tachyon on a crowdfunding site, where it raised nearly $520,000 — or more than 50 times its goal — from 2,253 backer pledges. But as Supalla tells OnQ, crowdfunding wasn’t just about raising money for the initiative; it was more about kicking off a dialogue with prospective buyers and generating interest.
“We really looked at this product as a new beginning,” he said. “We wanted to announce to the world we were developing this thing and then incorporate the feedback.”
Supalla breaks down why crowdfunding was so attractive and how Particle’s track record of simplifying complicated processes in the world of intelligent devices has fueled its rise.
Simply smart
Particle is at the forefront of the digital revolution, helping a myriad of companies turn their traditionally “dumb” products into smart ones with its set of solutions and products. For instance, Particle helped Jacuzzi create “smart” hot tubs that let you adjust your settings and monitor its status via an app on your phone and takes the time to walk through the benefits of digitalization.
“Digital transformation means asking the question of how to deliver the service to the customer in a better way, whether it’s cheaper, more reliable or has a smaller environmental impact,” he said.
The company got its start by launching its first two products on a crowdfunding platform. The first campaign was for the Spark Core, which pitched the ability to make building internet-connected projects easier. It saw 5,549 backers pledging $567,958.
The idea of simplifying things has been a consistent throughline for Particle. “Particle’s game is one of enablement,” Supalla said, noting that his company’s role is taking technology built for one reason — smartphone wireless connectivity — and making it usable and accessible for a different audience.
“There’s great alignment in what we’re doing and what Qualcomm Technologies is driving,” Supalla said. Qualcomm Technologies clearly agreed with that sentiment, as our Qualcomm Ventures arm initially invested in Particle in 2017.
“Digital transformation means asking the question of how to deliver the service to the customer in a better way, whether it’s cheaper, more reliable or has a smaller environmental impact.”
Zach Supalla
CEO, Particle.io
A new opportunity
When Particle was in the early days of thinking about what would become Tachyon, it leaned on Qualcomm Technologies for input and direction. Supalla said the initial research started with a conversation with Qualcomm Technologies’ IoT group.
The team wanted to harness our system-on-a-chip (SoC) power — which began with phones but has since expanded to everything from cars to computers — and bring it into the industry of single-board computers, a category best known for the ultra-cheap Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi has limited capabilities, but its lower price has meant it is used extensively in the industrial world.
On their website, the credit-card sized Tachyon comes with significantly more capabilities, including a built-in 5G connection with free data transfers and an AI accelerator.
Along with Particle’s software and development tools, Tachyon seems ideal for creating edge AI devices. But that may not necessarily appeal to its core customer base, which are more focused on their own products — hot tubs and HVAC systems — which is why Supalla went back to Particle’s crowdfunding roots to drum up attention for Tachyon.
“We wanted to announce it in a way that was transparent about the fact that it’s early in its development and engage with the community,” he said.
The result was a campaign that saw a busy comment section with more than 300 messages and a healthy dialogue about what customers would want in Tachyon.
Qualcomm Technologies’ guidance
Particle chose the Dragonwing QCM6490, which includes the Qualcomm Kryo 670 CPU and the Qualcomm Hexagon Processor capable of up to 12 trillion operations per second, as well as support for mmWave and sub-6 GHz 5G and Wi-Fi 6E.
Supalla said the platform has the right balance of price and power with the added benefit of enhanced longevity over a standard smartphone chip. He also got guidance from Qualcomm Technologies that this SoC would be a part of our Product Longevity Program, which covers a select number of chipsets that has been designed for longer product lifecycles to help address certain industrial and enterprise use cases.
Qualcomm Technologies offered support for Particle in multiple ways, whether it was guidance from the developer marketing team or the IoT group. Supalla said he ended up talking with 15 different parts of the Qualcomm Technologies organization when developing Tachyon and after the launch.
“There’s a clear vision of driving ubiquity of compute that’s at the core,” he said of the aligned goals that Qualcomm Technologies and Particle share.
What’s next
Particle began delivering Tachyon in early 2025, giving companies, developers and tinkerers a relatively inexpensive way to play with the power of Dragonwing.
“We’re excited about the product we’re shipping,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to make sure it’s going to be great.”
Supalla said Particle continues to take feedback from their crowdfunding backers and added that Tachyon represents a potential first product in a new class of devices.
AI is at an interesting point where many tasks can be performed on device and he believes that the silicon powerful enough to handle the “really wild” stuff is only 18 months away, opening the door to an even larger flood of AI applications. The Qualcomm AI Hub lists 31 different AI models optimized for the Dragonwing QCM6490, many focused on object detection and image analysis, offering a peek into what some of those AI apps will look like.
“It’s very cool to be in something where I can see how this will all come together in this period of time,” he said.
