Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Hieu — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 08:22:31 GMT

Hi Mateusz , I must highlight that this is unintended usage, and while it is possible now with certain configurations, it is not tested, so there might be unforeseen problems. There is also no guarantee that it will continue to work in future NCS versions.

When I checked for NCS v2.5.0, it is possible to write some data into the secondary slot and use it. Depends on MCUboot configurations, it will delete that data when an upgrade is attempted.

Once again, please note my highlight above.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Mateusz — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 22:24:51 GMT

Hieu Would you be able to provide any hints about "using partitions in its unintended way" solution?

Would it be possible for MCUBoot to use a secondary partition for auxiliary microcontroller firmware, and let the BLE app send that over?

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:17:04 GMT

Hey Hieu,

Thanks for the reference, that might help in future developments.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Hieu — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 10:20:16 GMT

Hi Aniket,

Thank you too. It's unfortunate that the SMP solution didn't work out for you. Please feel free to close the ticket if you find it apt.

For future readers, and in case you are interested, I want to add some info on the SMP Protocol solutions:

A colleague guided me to a pair of samples where this is done on the nRF9160 DK:

nRF9160: Evaluating LwM2M Advanced Firmware Update for external MCU
nRF52840: Cellular: SMP Server

These samples show the nRF9160 downloading an image and update it onto the nRF52840.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 07:32:05 GMT

Hi Hieu,

I have explored the info that you gave but unable to find a similar strategies which would support the 'external app update' via OTA like nRF52 SDK did. It seems the Nordic UART Service is the best option as of now for our cause.

Thanks a lot for your support.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Hieu — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 07:55:07 GMT

Sure. I will look forward to your findings. I will also try to look into it when I can.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 07:25:45 GMT

Hi Hieu,

Thanks for the a bunch of info. I will go through this and verify if it helps our design. This may take a while I will revert if it helps or not.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Hieu — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:50:40 GMT

Hi Aniket,

I ran into a point in NCS 2.5.0 about what seem to be exactly your requirement. Would you like to also take a look at it and see if it meets your need?

DFU Libraries | nRF Connect SDK v2.5.0 Release Notes — nRF Connect SDK 2.5.99 documentation (nordicsemi.com)

This will require that the external MCU also support the SMP protocol for update. Is that OK, or do you need to use a different protocol?

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Hieu — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 09:08:24 GMT

Hi Aniket,

Just giving you an update. I have found a potential solution, but it involves using partitions in its unintended way, so I currently refrain from sharing the details.

Regarding the "building blocks" that I mentioned in my last reply, I have been asking if something is already done for the nRF9160 DK and the Thingy91. On those products, we have the nRF9160, an LTE module, connected to a nRF52840. I am investigating if there are already solutions where one device can download an image over the air to update the other.

A colleague has shared with me some links. They are all a bit old. I haven't been able investigate them in depth yet. Here are the links if you want to investigate in the meantime:

Perform NRF52840 OTA over the NRF9160 and UART

Trying to perform OTA to a nRF52840 device via nRF9160 LTE connection

nRF52840 & nRF9160 OTA method through LTE

RE: Perform NRF52840 OTA over the NRF9160 and UART

An old reply: Firmware Update OTA of nRF9160 by BLE nRF52840, , , , and update nRF52840 by FOTA of nRF9160 ?

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 03:32:55 GMT

Hi Hieu,

We are using nRF52833 which is having only 512KB of flash. The internal flash solution would be feasible if we use other chips like nRF52840 having 1MB of flash. But the that is not the case.

The internal flash memory would not be sufficient to contain the dual image (BLE + external MCU image). What we used to do is like the nrf52 bootloader was able to detect the external application image due to the sign --external-app while preparing the DFU package. And we were storing that image in external flash. We would like to continue with the same strategy.

Let me know if there is possibility of implementing such kind of solution with NCS.

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Hieu — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 19:15:03 GMT

Hi Aniket,

Abhijith is on leave, and I will continue supporting you in his stead.

To give you a quick update: I have tried to look but it doesn't seem like we have anything like what you want in place. I see a few scenarios in our solutions where the "building blocks" for such a solution might have already been done, so I have started asking internally to see if that is the case.

Meanwhile, we could consider the alternative of implementing the solution on our own. How big is the image you expect to receive? And how big do you expect your nRF52833 application to be?
If there is enough space, it is an option to set aside a partition dedicated for its storage, and then implement custom BLE protocol for the download, and custom UART protocol for the DFU.

Hieu

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 06:11:17 GMT

Hi Abhijith,

Thanks for the details, to pin point my concern again ' Is MCU boot is capable of detecting whether the incoming FW image is for BLE or external MCU?'.

With nRF5 SDK we were preparing DFU packages (.zip files) and sign the package as '--external-app' so that BLE should know that the incoming FW image is not for BLE itself. So DFU bootloader goes into particular condition where the user can write the code for handling the incoming FW image. We were storing the external app image in external memory present in our system and willing to support the same architecture. As we are using BL653 the memory available is only 512KB and it would not be feasible to store the FW image in internal flash region.

I did not experimented with MCU boot yet but it seems that the OTA process is way different that the previous on supported by nRF5 SDK. If the MCU boot is able to detect the image is for external app then that could solve my problem rest of the things could be handled.

Regards,

Aniket

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Menon — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 03:57:18 GMT

Hello,

Sorry for the late response. I was discussing this with my colleague for some clarification. On reading your response, I think what you want to achieve is storing the data in the flash memory and writing it to an external MCU. The only constraint here is memory. If you have enough memory to spare, then you can just allocate a flash region dedicated to it.

If there is not enough flash memory, then the MCUboot might not allow the data (external FW) in the secondary slot. But I am not 100% sure on this, and I need to confirm this. I will get back to you soon.

Kind Regards,

Abhijith

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 11:08:34 GMT

Hello Abhijith,

Do you have any updates regarding this?

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Aniket95 — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:56:43 GMT

Hi,

So basically we have used two controllers in our system one is BLE and one more which is connected via UART with BLE. So using the nRF5 SDK we were able to update the FW of both controllers using the DFU bootloader as it has provided the capability to detect the which type of FW image is being received over BLE. So, if it is for BLE the DFU code takes care of the rest but if the receiving image is for external controller and not for BLE user need to handle the update procedure. Here is the link explaining the external app updates using nRF5 SDK How to use external app firmware update .

We are hoping the nRFConnect would support similar feature like this because having this feature is crucial for our system so we should be able to OTA the both of the controllers

RE: Does nRFConnect supports OTA upgrade for secondary controllers connected to BLE?

Menon — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 02:01:49 GMT

Hello,

Sorry, I didn't understand the question very well. What do you mean by secondary controller? I am not an expert or have not tested our old SDK very well. But if you elaborate a little more on your application or what you want to achieve, I could tell whether this is supported inside our new SDK.

Kind Regards,

Abhijith