(TECH) Upgrading/Flashing RePhone modules firmware

End-Of-Life Products & Services RePhone
#1

I’ve heard @dbelam planning to make an interface to flash Xadow modules through I2C. So, I get wondered about:

  1. is it possible at all? Doesn’t it require to support for that in existing, already flashed firmware?
  2. if so, isn’t it possible (or is it a plans, if any) to do the same for RePhone (GSM+BLE module, or maybe 3G/LTE) itself? :slight_smile:
#2

The SDK provides functions to update firmware on the rephone.

On the other hand, the I2C bootloader for Xadow modules is way different. It needs making 1-1 bootloader for the ST and Kinetis MCU-s (I think only those 2 are used in modules)
And also a standard must be set for I2C update - including functions like reboot to bootloader, check arrived flash, etc.

I am planning to make a “standard” for easy I2C sensor value acquisition and actuator control (the sensor proxy project) so I can include this function in the standard. (ideas are VERY welcome)
Last but not least, it will need an Arduino-implementation to make it spread and rewrite the existing Xadow projects to support this.

#3

Thanks for the info. But can you also describe a bit verbosely about

(in case if you don’t mean Windows-only MTK’s Firmware upgrade tool).

If you’re talking about some low-level things which can help firmware upgrade — I’d like to hear about it very much. Thanks in advance :wink:

#4

Nope, you can vm_firmware_trigger_update() to update. Details here (as always :wink: ): the API reference guide
labs.mediatek.com/site/global/de … W_FOTA.gsp

#5

Yay! Thanks a lot (dunno, how can I miss it, when grepping documentation for “firmware” keyword :open_mouth: )

Although, I’m a bit confused: documentation says

But it is unclear to me what should be considered as “image” in RePhone case: exactly image.bin file from the RePhone/W15.19.p2-uart/ directory, which has size of 4.7M, or SEEED02A_DEMO_BOOTLOADER_V005_MT2502_MAUI_11CW1418SP5_W15_19.bin from same directory, which has size of only 7K, but it is mentioned in SEEED02A_DEMO_BB.cfg, which is mentioned on the wiki :confused: .

#6

“Knowing” the complexity of a bootloader, I think the 7k comes in the firmware section. You can try, it has an USB debug port, nearly nothing can go wrong :stuck_out_tongue: