Afero offers developers the ability to send over-the-air (OTA) firmware image updates to the MCUs in their developer devices. The type of firmware image you want to update is up to you, the developer.
At a high level, this is how it works:
In addition, you'll have to prepare your application code to accept an MCU OTA update. Instructions are on this page: Handling MCU OTA Updates.
You can see that the Afero OTA Manager and the Afero Profile Editor work together to make MCU firmware OTA updates happen:
So, before you upload a firmware image, you must have used the Profile Editor to create and publish at least one device Profile that has at least one Image Type selected on the Attributes Definition window in the MCU Configuration pane, Firmware OTA Updates section. However, before a Profile can be published, the developer must have defined at least one Image Type.
Also note that:
The Afero OTA Manager is a web application, available from https://otamanager.afero.io. Sign in using your Afero developer account credentials, the same email and password you use to sign in to the Afero Profile Editor.
Before you can upload a firmware image, you must define at least one Image Type. An Image Type is a category of firmware image; you can name them however you wish but make sure you are creating a “category” or type of image, rather than identifying a specific image destined for a specific device.
Image types are shown in the OTA Manager as folders; again, you should name them based on the “types” of firmware images you plan to use for your MCU updates. Types could include bootloader, application, or any specific identifier you choose to categorize your firmware.
You can create up to 100 Image Types.
The first time you sign in to the Afero OTA Manager, you will be taken through a wizard that helps you create at least one firmware Image Type. If you know all the types you’ll be using, you are encouraged to create them all during this initial setup. You can always add more, or edit the name/description of Image Types later.
After the first sign-in wizard flow, you will be able to create Image Types from the main window of the OTA Manager:
If you want to change the name or description of an existing Image Type, you can do this from the main window. Note that once you’ve created an Image Type, that type is assigned an ID that does not change even when you edit the name or description. So, if what you want is the underlying category of the image to be different, create a new Image Type rather than changing the name on an existing type.
When you are ready to upload a firmware image, start from the OTA Manager main window.
Remember that before uploading an image, you must have already used the Profile Editor to create and publish a device Profile that has a firmware Image Type selected. You do this on the Attributes Definition window > MCU Configuration pane > Firmware OTA Updates section. Read Configure the MCU for more details.
When finished, click Next: Add info for your firmware.
On the next window you’ll add some metadata for your image: image name, description, version string, and tag(s). You will be able to search on this information later if you want to find a specific image quickly, or use one of the fields to filter your images. Press Enter after typing a tag to add more tags.
When finished, click Next: Associate Device Types.
Once you’re ready to deploy your uploaded firmware image, you do so from the main window.
The main window of the OTA Manager displays all your images. If you have a large number of images, you may want to limit the images shown:
Once you have found the firmware image you want to deploy, you’re ready to push the image to your device(s):