Documentation for implementation OTA on Windows / OSX

[mpwirwin]

Dear Support Team.

We want to support secure DFU on mobile and desktop platforms. Do you have any documentation to implement this on Mac OSX and Windows? 

Its an open protocol and I see there is is a library for nrfutil is this what is recommended to use?

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi Mark,

We do not have any implementations for native Windows or macOS, so you will unfortunately have to implement that yourself. As you noted you can use the DFU master implementation in nrfutil as a reference. There are also implementations for iOS, Android and JS that you can refer to.

Br,

Einar

[mpwirwin]

Hi Einar,

is it possible to implement it without using a Nordic dongle? like on android and iOS ?

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi Mark,

Yes, it is certainly possible. But Nordic does not provide any code for it so you would have to make the DFU master implementation yourself. (All our desktop code relies on a nRF device connected to a computer and using pc-ble-driver  instead of using native Bluetooth APIs) 

Br,

Einar

[mpwirwin]

Hi Einar,

Our developers have further questions on DFU OTA (upgrading via BLE) without a Nordic dongle.

1. As we understand that, DFU OTA using BTE and DFU protocol, so, what reasons does it not supported to use OS BT Driver on Desktop? How about if we still use OS desktop BT driver and refer to your DFU protocol https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.nordic.infocenter.sdk5.v11.0.0%2Fbledfu_transport_bleprofile.html&cp=6_0_0_4_3_1_4_0_1&anchor=ota_profile_updater_role_req ?

2. Why DFU OTA supported on iOS but not on MacOS, they have almost same, isn't that? what am i missing?

3. How about a idea that using OS BT Driver API to connect/talk with our BT device and use nRFUtil to control DFU protocol? can you have any other suggestions?

Is there a way to add multiple people to a conversation thread? I guess if its made public?

Best

Mark

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi Mark,

1. The main reason we have not implemented a DFU master for desktop is simply that it has not been prioritized, as mobile versions are more commonly requested by customers. There is no technical reason preventing it. If you want to implement this, then it makes sense to use native APIs and refer to our other implementations and protocol documentation for reference, as you write.

2. It is the same here, implementation for mobile has been prioritized, but there is no reason it will not work on a desktop OS using native Bluetooth APIs.

3. The nrfutil implementation is tightly coupled to the pc-ble-driver py, which in turn is tightly cupelled to our SoftDevice API. So you cannot use it directly, but you can extract the DFU protocol specific code and integrate that with native Bluetooth drivers instead.

4. You can add more people as watchers by sharing the case, but to allow more people to write posts the case has to be public.

Einar