Internet of Things (IoT) specialist Particle has announced the impending launch of a trio of development boards with Bluetooth 5 mesh networking capabilities, alongside Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Wi-Fi, and cellular connectivity.

Designed to make it easier to deploy sensor networks and control systems where traditional infrastructure isn’t available, Particle’s third generation of development boards take advantage of the latest Bluetooth 5 standard to allow for full mesh networking whereby each node in the network connects to its nearest neighbours for communication to any other node on the network. Where one or more nodes then has further connectivity to a wide-area network (WAN), each device within the mesh can share that connectivity – and without the need to deploy any additional hardware.

The new boards come in three flavours: the base Xenon features Bluetooth 5 mesh and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless networking only; the Argon adds Wi-Fi connectivity alongside the Bluetooth options; and the Boron allows for 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) or, in a higher-priced model, 2G/3G cellular connectivity alongside Bluetooth. All include the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 system-on-chip (SoC) at their heart, featuring a 32-bit Arm Cortx-M4F processor running at 64MHz, 1MB of flash storage, 256KB of RAM, Bluetooth 5, IEEE 802.15.4 support, and an additional 2MB of flash storage connected via serial peripheral interface (SPI).

Pre-orders for the boards are available now from the official website, priced at a discounted $9 for the Xenon, $15 for the Argon, and $29 for the Boron LTE (around £6.50, £10.50, and £20.50 respectively, excluding taxes.)