OpenSprinkler (not OSPi!) Firmware 2.0.4 and GUI Updater

[Ray]

Firmware 2.0.4 is officially released, along with a new GUI-based Firmware Updater:
http://rayshobby.net/?p=8422

The primary changes in this firmware include fixing bugs in JSON output and adding LCD auto-dimming support. This firmware will go well with Samer’s upcoming new OpenSprinkler mobile app (a big thank-you to Samer for working on this!).

Updating OpenSprinkler firmware has been a pain in the past (especially due to the number of hardware and firmware versions). But it’s going to become a lot better now 🙂 Together with firmware 2.0.4 we released a GUI-based firmware updater tool. It gets you around with most of the technically challenging (and confusing) steps, and is much more user-friendly than typing avrdude in command line. The only technical step that remains is if you are a Windows user, you need to install USBtiny or USBasp driver. Please check the blog post above for details.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

[djagerif]

Ray, the updater works great. Can I make a few suggestions:

1. Could the Updater be made to resize, the Log section is very small and it’s difficult to read the output.
2. Is there a way to customise/remember the HW version you have? Not everyone has the latest HW and it would be nice to have your own hardware selection come up first every time you run the Updater.
3. In the README file you explain everything you need to get things going but you never say where the exe or bat file is to execute, could you update the README file to make things a bit clearer for the ‘not-so-technical’ people out there.

Thanks,
Ingo

[Ray]

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. Could the Updater be made to resize, the Log section is very small and it’s difficult to read the output.

Good point, I just updated the program to use bigger fonts.

2. Is there a way to customise/remember the HW version you have? Not everyone has the latest HW and it would be nice to have your own hardware selection come up first every time you run the Updater.

Unfortunately there isn’t a good way to do this through hardware yet — there is no signature byte or something in the EEPROM that stores the hardware version. That’s why the firmware updater includes hardware descriptions (such as the terminal block color) to help identify the hardware version. In the future we should put a sticker at the back of the enclosure printed with the version number.

3. In the README file you explain everything you need to get things going but you never say where the exe or bat file is to execute, could you update the README file to make things a bit clearer for the ‘not-so-technical’ people out there.

Well the README.txt stores information that will be displayed when you click on ‘README First’ button on the updater. So it assume you’ve already run the program. I thought it’s fairly obvious that the executable program is in the subfolder named application.win32 and similar.

[sgruby]

I tried to run the GUI updater on Mac OS X 10.9.2 and since I don’t have Java installed, I was prompted to install Java Runtime SE 6. I installed that and the OS says that the app is corrupted. While I think it is great that you’re providing a GUI tool, Java is not the most well liked platform on the Mac. I’m searching for the old manual updater instructions; are they archived somewhere so I can go that route?

Thanks!

[Ray]

Mac 10.8 and above introduced a security feature that disables many downloaded apps. Just turn the feature off and try again. See details here:
http://www.baldengineer.com/blog/2012/11/22/how-to-fix-arduino-is-damaged-and-cant-be-opened/

The GUI software is written in Processing, which uses Java. The main advantage of using Processing is that it’s easy to write code, and the application is naturally cross-platform.

[sgruby]

Thanks, Ray! That solved my problem and I’ve now updated the firmware which was a pretty painless process. Do you have plans to a) retain settings across firmware updates and b) allow firmware updates via the web based UI? Neither is a big deal, just curious. If not a), how about an import/export of configuration (Samer’s latest UI has an import/export configuration in it, but I’m not sure what it does.)

[Andrew]

adding LCD auto-dimming support.

I noticed in setup options there is now the “lcd dimming” option. The default value is 5. Can you point me to where it explains what this setting does and what effect changing it to 0-4 will have?

[Ray]

The ‘lcd dimming’ is the LCD brightness after a certain period of inactivity (20 seconds by default). Just like the LCD brightness, you can set it anywhere between 0 to 255.

[Andrew]

Ah, got it. Thanks!

Maybe these settings should have a section in the main user guide pdf?

[Author]

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