One thing that has held back the Internet of Things is the wireless signals themselves. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 can support a signal of roughly 300 feet outdoors, which would fall short for monitoring, say, drones or for many industrial or agricultural applications. 

The startup Particle wants to help popularize cellular-based IoT applications with its Electron cellular development board offered with an SIM card and a budget-conscious data plan.

Developers are already at work using the technology for everything from industrial monitoring and resource management to tracking drivers’ habits. Here are seven examples that use Particle’s cellular-based Electron kit: