From PR Newswire: this is “Particle’s first-ever acquisition…”. It’s a purchase that shows Particle hasn’t at all forgotten that when it comes to IoT, the Things are incredibly important.

There’s a common trope in IoT that “the value is in the data”. But the people who say this tend to forget where the data comes from. IoT data comes from IoT devices. And that means that the hardware – connectivity, compute, sensors and actuators – matters.

We’ve learned over the last five years that our software platform – our Device Cloud and Device OS – is only as useful as the hardware that it runs on. If we want to bring on new customers, it’s not enough to make a best-in-class software platform; we also have to make best-in-class hardware.

The front line of IoT is and always will be hardware, and it goes without saying, but hardware and software go hand in hand. On Adafruit’s end, there has been a steadfast effort to make sure these were both best-in-class. As the IoT market grew, and the needs of the community changed, the best-in-class hardware necessitated a best-in-class software platform — and adafruit.io was born. Particle is doubling down on this bet, that together, hardware and software make an IoT ecosystem great.

As it relates to the acquisition itself, and in case you’re a loving user of RedBear and wondering what this means for their products, “…fear not – [Particle] will continue to support RedBear’s flagship products throughout 2019 to help its loyal customers transition comfortably.”

This is a smart signal from Particle, and other companies should take note: it’s important to bring the community along.

Read more about the acquisition from Particle here.