nRF9160 modem firmware update OTA

[pemar13]

Hi!

Previous tickets 234795 and 231307 asked about the status of field updates of the nRF9160 modem firmware. Some solution is coming, but unclear when.

Are there any news on this crucial issue? Most importantly, will the coming solution be "backwards compatible" with what we deploy now (perhaps with some extra step, but not requiring any physical action)?

Best regards,

Per

 

[jbrzozoski]

There's been a long-running pull request with the functionality on github:

https://github.com/NordicPlayground/fw-nrfconnect-nrf/pull/1138

Even if it's not fully usable, you can take a look and get an idea of how it should likely work.

From my reading, it will be compatible with what you deploy now assuming you have some form of application FOTA.  You will need to update to new application firmware that knows how to handle the modem FOTA, and then run the modem FOTA.

[stevenminnick]

This is probably a stupid question but how do I find tickets 234795 and 231307?  If I search for them I get this one only.  And I can't edit the URL because the URL doesn't seem to contain the case ID. 

I'm looking for information about updating radio firmware and application code OTA and right now it's a big question for me.

[jbrzozoski]

Not a dumb question at all.  I can't figure it out either.  I answered based on the fact that modem FOTA has been a priority in our design and I actually check-in on the forum every few days and try to skim all newly updated topics, so assumed I had *probably* read them at some point in the past.

What are some of your questions/concerns about FOTA?

[jbrzozoski]

Just searching "FOTA" found 231307 pretty high in the results:

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../nrf9160-modem-firmware-update-without-swd

[stevenminnick]

Thanks for getting back to me. 

So obviously we will want to be able to update software OTA for a final device.  Both radio firmware and my application firmware.  And my concern, at the moment, is that I don't know how to do either.  I just started investigating this.

Radio firmware, I've only updated command line plugged into the DK, or now with the NRF Connect software, but I'm going to need to figure out how to do that with a device out in the field.  At the moment is this possible?  Is there already a mechanism?  

Application firmware, we are going to put an off chip SPI flash module for logs and data storage, leaving most of the FW memory space for the SPM and application software.  I'm not sure how I'm going to do this yet either.  If you guys have a mechanism or sample code showing this.  Do we have to use application space flash to store the update?  Off chip space? 

I'm not saying you guys haven't done this, it's possible it's already designed in or planned for these, but I just don't know how I would do either yet. 

If you have or know of examples, or documents that you wouldn't mind pointing me to, I would appreciate it.