Digistump / Oak dead ?

[dynek]

Hello guys,

I am wondering what's the status of Digistump?

Cause I backed the Oak long time ago, never used them and started giving it a shot yesterday evening:
- This website (forum) doesn't redirect to https when reached via http - that's pretty odd in 2019
- The website to kickstart the oak doesn't work: http://digistu.mp/oakconfig
- Was then able to determine the URL (rawgit) from some screenshot but the process was stuck during Oak's detection
- I had a hard time making it work, I finally cloned the repo locally and it was a bit better but couldn't save the WiFi settings
- Chrome's console was showing some error message regarding ASN, found out that when Firefox 45 is used, it works
- But then registration to Particle.io didn't work, I had to do it manually (not a big hassle)
- Wanted to give the Arduino IDE a shot but the board's json file was last updated 3 years back and references URL to arduino.esp8266.com that return 404's

Digistump / Erik completely abandoned that part of their business right?
They concentrated on the Build One and to them the Oak is dead meat?

Cheers

[PeterF]

I don't think it's dead meat, but then maybe I'm overoptimistic. 

It's certainly been a long time since I've seen any posts or comments by Erik on the Oak, but last I heard (and that was a direct email, abeit quite a while ago) that he wanted to make it so the Oak was no longer tied to Particle, and would have a complete standalone dashboard and more robust OTA. For a while there we were even working on a simple self-hostable Particle like backend, but then the BuildOne printer project took up all his time and not much has happened since. I believe a big part of the problem resulted from not getting the level of support that was expected from Particle, which set back the Oak quite badly as a project. Hence why most of the people I know still using Oaks have simply backed up the firmware, and flashed it with the ESP8266 Arduino core, as the hardware itself is perfect.

[PeterF]

I mentioned it on the github issue, but I'll also repeat it here for people who don't follow the riveting boards package github repo... I've forked the repo and just fixed the URLs (hopefully)... and am open to any PRs or fixes people want to suggest.

This URL should work in the Arduino IDE :

Code: [Select]

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pfeerick/digistump-boards-index/master/package_digistump_index.json

[dynek]

Thank you for your answers PeterF.

I would like it to use the Oak as a regular device (meaning without particle.io) but what refrains me so far is that I'd like to be able to flash it using USB.
Reason is, I haven't yet found a serial adapter that works out of the box on OS X plus plugging USB cable is much easier.

What about this:
https://arduino-esp8266.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ota_updates/readme.html

Has anyone tried this?

Cheers

[chad]

I would like it to use the Oak as a regular device (meaning without particle.io) but what refrains me so far is that I'd like to be able to flash it using USB.
Reason is, I haven't yet found a serial adapter that works out of the box on OS X plus plugging USB cable is much easier.

I'm using ESP8266 Arduino Core and flashing the Oak via USB. It's working great! I use this FTDI USB to Serial adapter and it works "out of the box" on my MacBook with no problems. I also use a BusPirate but it requires a little more effort to set it up as a transparent bridge and might be overkill unless you have other uses for its versatility.

What about this:
https://arduino-esp8266.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ota_updates/readme.html

Has anyone tried this?

I have not tried OTA updates yet but intend to after I finish a few projects.

[exeng]

Chad and Dynek,

I moved my Oaks to the ESP8266 Arduino Core months ago and have not looked back. Works great. I use the FTDI Friend from Adafruit for USB flashing to convert (on a Windows system) but once converted, I use OTA for subsequent flashing. Again, it works great. You just need to make sure your sketches include the requisite OTA code to support OTA flashing.  Also, depending upon the structure of you code, you need to be mindful of the ratio of time spent in "loop" doing whatever your code is written for versus the time (or opportunity) the OTA handler gets to run.  If the OTA handler is blocked for long periods, the OTA update attempt may timeout and require retries.  If the retries required are too many for your liking, you can sprinkle in more opportunities for the OTA handler to run in your sketch loop.

[dynek]

I have the USB2Serial Adapter from Arduino: https://store.arduino.cc/arduino-usb-2-serial-micro
I'd guess this would do the trick as well?

Now, does it mean I need to put the Oak/ESP in flash mode, etc.? How do you guys do it?

Also, if I then wanted to flash the device OTA, I just need to add that capability inside of my sketch? Did I get it right? Any example?

Thank you

[dynek]

OK P2 -> GND apparently but then I get:

Code: [Select]

Executable segment sizes:
IROM   : 227612          - code in flash         (default or ICACHE_FLASH_ATTR)
IRAM   : 26768   / 32768 - code in IRAM          (ICACHE_RAM_ATTR, ISRs...)
DATA   : 1252  )         - initialized variables (global, static) in RAM/HEAP
RODATA : 672   ) / 81920 - constants             (global, static) in RAM/HEAP
BSS    : 24880 )         - zeroed variables      (global, static) in RAM/HEAP
Sketch uses 256304 bytes (24%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1044464 bytes.
Global variables use 26804 bytes (32%) of dynamic memory, leaving 55116 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 81920 bytes.
esptool.py v2.8
Serial port /dev/cu.usbmodem14101
Connecting....
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
Crystal is 26MHz
MAC: 5c:cf:[..]
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Changing baud rate to 460800
Changed.
Configuring flash size...
Traceback (most recent call last):
[..]
esptool.FatalError: Timed out waiting for packet header
esptool.FatalError: Timed out waiting for packet header


[dynek]

OK had to lower flashing/upload speed to 115200. Seems to work OK, cool stuff!

[dynek]

And finally OTA updates work! Fantastic.

I will still need to keep a way to upload the firmware from scratch, cause I would guess OTA updates could be made unavailable if the sketch has a problem.