Adding button-less Serial DFU capability to the Connectivity firmware

[A.P]

Hi!

We're developing a solution where we use PC-BLE-driver JS on our central side, along with BLE dongles with nRF52840 chipsets. These dongles are pre-flashed with a connectivity firmware matching the PC-BLE-driver version we're using, which allows our application to use the dongle for its BLE capabilities vis serialization etc.
What we are missing is a way for us to remotely, i.e using our app, update the connectivity firmware. We considered using button-less DFU over USB to update the firmware when we release a new version of our app, with a new PC-BLE-Driver version, but have not yet started to implement this.

Reading this ticket, I came across these lines:

"...That is: The only application running on the nRF device ("connectivity chip") is the connectivity firmware, and there is no other "application" running on that nRF device. It may sound from your description that you have an existing application on the nRF, and that you want to "add" connectivity for pc-ble-driver to that example, but I am afraid that it does not work like that."

Does this mean we can not add DFU over USB to the connectivity firmware? As I understand it, implementing a button less serial DFU will require some changes to the connectivity code, and its bootloader code so the DFU event is handled.

Could you elaborate on how this can be achieved if it is not straightforward?

Thanks!

[qwertynoon]

Hi

I would recomend to migrate your project to NRF Connect IDE (ZEPHYR) because it has a very usefull and easy OTA implementation.

You can styart SMP server and control your FW socket on the flash. Beleave me. Zephyr is much more better then SDK

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi,

The connectivity firmware for pc-ble-driver with USB transport already supports the USB DFU trigger library, which is what our nRF Connect for Desktop applications uses to enter the serial bootloader of nRF52840 Dongle, in order to flash the correct firmware for the various applications. Will this work for your application?

Best regards,
Jørgen

[A.P]

Thanks Qwertynoon!
We've not yet migrated to Zephyr, which is on our todo list, so I'm not keen on starting the switch now.

Eventually we will though,

Thanks!

[A.P]

Hi !

Thank you for the answer. I just verified our hardware does indeed have a GPIO connected to the reset pin, which should make this a possible solution.

I will read more about this and ask more questions if I have any.

Thank you!