nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

RE: nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

Menon — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 12:37:59 GMT

Hello,

[quote user="jju"]Okay, but is it then possible to use an external flash with the nRF52832 FOTA nRF sdk ?[/quote]

Yes it is possible to use an external flash for achieving OTA DFU. To update via BLE DFU with SPI external flash on nRF52832, you should make sure the SPI external flash works as expected at first. Here is a sample. You can take a look at the settings: nrf52840dk_nrf52840_spi.conf and nrf52840dk_nrf52840_spi.overlay and adopt them for your nRF52832 custom board.

Enable mcuboot, you can use sysbuild_fota.conf to include sysbuild configs.
These external SPI settings are for the app configuration.
The board overlay file looks like this for the app.
These external SPI setting (under sysbuild/mcuboot) are for the mcuboot.
The board overlay file looks like this for the mcuboot.

As a starting point see the the Quick start guide and this Bootloaders and DFU/FOTA course.

Kind Regards,

Abhijith

RE: nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

jju — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 11:39:50 GMT

Okay, but is it then possible to use an external flash with the nRF52832 FOTA nRF sdk ?

RE: nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

Menon — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 11:02:25 GMT

Hello,

[quote user=""]

Since our current firmware, which is not complete yet, uses 48.5% of the flash, I predict we will run into trouble with a full flash.

Is it possible to just have a BLE bootloader and the firmware, so if anything goes wrong, it will just start in the bootloader ?

[/quote]

As Alan mentioned, single bank OTA DFU won't be possible. You can either consider using the nRF52840 or another SoC with a larger flash size, or you can use an external flash memory to store the new image and then perform the swapping.

This blog post provides recommendations for memory optimization using the nRF Connect SDK, and you may also find this general recommendation helpful. These resources can help reduce memory footprint to some extent, but they may not provide a complete solution for your issue.

Kind regards,

Abhijith

RE: nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

ekidsalan123 — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:09:04 GMT

seems that's not possible, you will need BLE functions when downloading new firmware.

use nRF52840 to have a larger flash size might be helpful

RE: nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

jju — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:06:38 GMT

Okay, thank you, so basically OTA is only possible using dual-bank ?
Can I just create a simple firmware (BLE+bootloader), that can update my "real" firmware in the same slot ?

RE: nRF52832 FOTA (Firmware update using BLE)

ekidsalan123 — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:03:44 GMT

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/94761/ncs-single-bank-dfu/400154

Take a look!