What to do with the Particle kits

Keep a few. Sell the rest.

Particle Mesh is dead. Your own firmware is not. Yan should park 3 or 4 leak kits around the house, write Device OS firmware for the Argons, and hook them into this site. Everyone else should keep one if they want a toy, then dump the pile on Marketplace.

The $113 distributor pages for ARG-LDKT are leftover catalog fiction. Honest money is about $12 to $18 a leak kit and $15 to $25 a mesh bundle, local pickup, if you say mesh does not work. Yan's $20 Google number is the asking price, not what clears.

What Everette said

Sunday late morning in JYPE. Everette first said about 45 boxes, and that they looked the same. Yan asked if they matched the ones from Saturday. Everette said they were like the leak detection kits, sent a photo, then split the pile.

He asked Yan to price the e-leaks and say what to do with them. Yan already replied $20 and “deprecated 5 yrs ago.” Mesh support ended December 31, 2020. That part is right. $20 a box is optimistic.

The leak box

Everette’s photo, Sunday 12:03 PM. Lid print: Leak Detection Kit, Wi-Fi and Mesh Development Kit.

Printed contents: Argon, Xenon, water sensor, buzzer, one 2.4 GHz antenna, USB cable, Grove shield, two Grove wires, LiPo. That is a slimmer kit than Particle’s old ARG-LDKT, which shipped 1 Argon, 2 Xenons, and 2 water sensors. Do not list these as ARG-LDKT.

The other 20 are the mesh Wi-Fi bundles from Saturday. No photo of that lid yet. Treat them as Argon plus Xenon development kits without the leak parts until someone opens one.

What still works

Particle killed Thread mesh in 2020. You cannot create a new Particle mesh, and you cannot add a Xenon to one. Official leak-kit firmware used Mesh.publish. That API is gone after Device OS 1.5.2. The official docs now say use the Argon alone as a single-sensor leak detector. Custom firmware is a different question.

Argon is deprecated. Particle wants people on Photon 2. Device OS 4.x LTS still lists Argon, and 6.3.2 still built for it in May 2025. A free Particle account is 100 devices and 100k data operations a month. That is more than this pile will ever use.

Your own firmware

Yes. Two jobs. Do not mix them up.

Particle Mesh as a product is gone. You cannot create a new mesh, you cannot add a Xenon to one, and Mesh.publish was removed after Device OS 1.5.2. Downgrading to 1.5.2 does not help. These boxes never joined a network before December 31, 2020, so the grandfather path is closed.

Writing new firmware is a different question. The chips are still there.

Do other stuff on Particle Device OS. Particle CLI or Workbench, a USB cable, your own C++ / Wiring app. No extra hardware. The Argon still does Wi-Fi and Particle Cloud. Flash current Device OS, skip 1.5.2. Grove water sensor on A0, Particle.publish, webhook to this site. That is the house leak plan. Xenons on Device OS are BLE or USB boards. They will not join a Particle mesh. A Xenon can shout BLE at an Argon if you want remote sensors without Thread. That is a weekend, not mesh.

Recover the radio mesh by leaving Particle. Particle Mesh was OpenThread with the hard parts hidden. Particle’s own docs say to flash the Nordic nRF5 Thread SDK onto the Xenon if you still want mesh. The nRF52840 DK Thread CLI hex (USB, PCA10056) runs on a Xenon. Two Xenons can form a Thread network and ping each other. You lose Particle Cloud, OTA, and the Particle CLI. The Argon cannot be the gateway in this mode. Nordic SDK cannot usefully drive the ESP32 Wi-Fi chip. Internet needs an OpenThread Border Router: a Raspberry Pi or Docker host plus one nRF as a radio coprocessor. A Xenon can be that radio.

The first wipe needs an SWD debugger. Particle says USB will not do it. Segger J-Link EDU Mini is about $20 for home or school use. Particle Debugger is theoretically possible and a pain. Buy one debugger, flash two Xenons, get a CLI prompt, then decide if a Pi is worth it. Do not buy tools for 45 boxes first.

After that same debugger, CircuitPython still builds. 10.3.0 for particle_xenon, 10.2.1 for particle_argon. Adafruit UF2, drag-and-drop after the first burn. That is Python on the pile, not Thread. Zephyr is the same tax: SWD once, then a real RTOS. CircuitPython does not bring mesh back.

Custom firmware does not raise the resale number. Most buyers will not flash anything. Keep a few to play with. Sell the rest as discontinued kits.

Yan’s quarter, around the house

Apple Home already does occupancy, lights, and the usual New House scenes. It does not do water. That is the one new function these boxes actually add.

Keep 3 or 4 leak kits. Wire each Argon to its Grove water sensor on A0. Skip the Xenon. Flash current Device OS, not 1.5.2. On wet, Particle.publish("water", room, PRIVATE). Particle Cloud webhook POSTs to api.yanylevin.com. Express can then text Yan and drop a line in Chat. Same path as any other agent alert. Do not install Homebridge or Home Assistant to fake a HomeKit leak accessory.

Put them where water ruins a floor. Washer. Kitchen sink. Water heater. Maybe the bathroom, since that room already has occupancy and the shower is the one place a slow leak sits unseen. LiPo on the Argon means it still screams if the outlet dies.

Extra Argons as more leak points beat extra Argons as door sensors. Occupancy already covers walk-in. Xenons are USB nRF52840 boards for a weekend, not house infrastructure. Plant moisture only if someone buys a Grove moisture module. The stock sensor is water, not soil.

Sell the rest of the quarter. That is about 2 leak kits plus the 5 mesh bundles. Do not stockpile 11 identical boxes “in case.”

Everette

He asked about resale first, so that is the answer. Medina is a big house. One leak kit under a washer or water heater is enough if he wants the toy. Sell the other ten. Crew afternoons mean these will otherwise sit in a closet.

If he keeps one, same rule as Yan. Argon plus sensor, no mesh. He already has the boxes, so he should be the one who opens a mesh bundle and texts a photo of that lid before anyone lists them.

Prasham

SAT just happened, Stearns is cooking him, and Eastside Eats has been cold since last year. He does not need 11 IoT boards. Keep one leak kit if he wants a Seeley demo (sensor, threshold, a publish). Sell the rest.

The stretch project is a Particle webhook into something he already cares about, not a new hardware hobby. PPL and the NASA paper do not need a Xenon.

Jeffery

License pickup is September 18. He left the hackathon at 5:30. He is not going to flash Device OS for fun. One leak kit by a kitchen sink or the baker setup is plenty. Env Club could use a leftover box as an e-waste / “sponsor leftover IoT” talk if he wants a visual. Otherwise sell.

He already trolled Yan with a fake house leak in August. Putting a real one in his kitchen is the correct follow-up, and then stop.

What they sell for

Original Particle prices, for scale only. Argon kit about $25. Xenon about $15. Official ARG-LDKT still shows $112.71 on component sites. Grove Mesh starter kit was $29 to $35 in 2019, boards not included. Seeed’s Argon page is $25.90 and discontinued. NCD still asks $59 for leftover new Argons. That $59 is a collector / last-stock number, not what a sealed 2019 kit moves for.

Split the Argon out only if a buyer wants a board and you do not mind opening boxes. A sealed kit with a photo of the lid sells faster than a loose Feather and a bag of Grove bits.

How to sell them

Local first. Each box has a LiPo. USPS and UPS treat lithium packs as hazmat. Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp, Eastside / Seattle, pickup only, solves that. Title has to say Particle Argon, leak kit or mesh kit, and that mesh was discontinued in 2020. Buyers who think this is a supported product will bounce or leave a 1-star.

List in fives, not 45 singles. A 5-pack at $60 for leak kits or $80 for mesh bundles moves. One lot to an EPS CS teacher or a Bellevue makerspace is cleaner if nobody wants to run the ads.

eBay works if you leave the LiPo in and declare it. Click-by-click for one leak kit and one mesh bundle: List one of each on eBay. Do not put these on Amazon. Do not call them ARG-LDKT. Do not say they “just work with Particle Mesh.”

Prize hardware is yours to sell. Disclose used-or-new-old-stock and the battery. That is the whole legal story.

Sources

• Everette in JYPE, Sunday Sep 13, 10:16 AM to 12:09 PM. Counts, photo, e-leak price ask.
• Particle leak kit docs (discontinued, Argon-only now)
• Mesh deprecation (last new mesh Dec 31, 2020. Device OS 1.5.2 last Mesh API)
• Xenon + Nordic SDK (Particle’s own OpenThread path. Needs J-Link. Argon not a gateway)
• CircuitPython on Xenon and current builds: Xenon 10.3.0, Argon 10.2.1
• OpenThread nRF52840 codelab
• Argon datasheet (deprecated, 4.x LTS still listed)
• Particle free plan (100 devices, 100k ops)
• Mouser ARG-LDKT (1 Argon + 2 Xenons, not this box)
• Distributor list $112.71 on Sinlin and similar catalogs. Treat as stale.
• Seeed Argon $25.90 discontinued. NCD leftover Argon $59.