OTA of IoT equipment

1. What is a firmware upgrade

Firmware upgrade OTA (Over the Air Technology), namely over the air download technology, is an essential basic function of IoT Internet of Things platform. Through OTA, we can upgrade the firmware of IoT devices distributed around the world, without the need for operation and maintenance personnel to travel around. This article takes the firmware upgrade under MQTT protocol as an example to introduce the OTA firmware upgrade process, Topic and data format used for data flow.

2. Firmware upgrade OTA process

The firmware upgrade process under MQTT protocol is shown in the figure below

The topics used in the firmware upgrade process are as follows

1. The device side reports the firmware version to the Internet of Things platform through the following topics.

/ota/device/inform/${YourProductKey}/${YourDeviceName}

2. The device side subscribes to the following topics to receive the firmware upgrade notification of the Internet of Things platform.

/ota/device/upgrade/${YourProductKey}/${YourDeviceName}

3. The device side reports the firmware upgrade progress through the following topics.

/ota/device/progress/${YourProductKey}/${YourDeviceName}

3. Firmware upgrade practice

3.1 Equipment version information

In order to realize the firmware upgrade function, first of all, the device must correctly report the current firmware version, which can be viewed in the device details.

3.2 Firmware version distribution

When each device accurately reports the firmware version, we can view the version release of the full range of devices on the console.

3.3 Upload new firmware

When we need to upgrade the device firmware, we must first upload the new version of the firmware to the IoT platform and mark the new version number.

3.4 Verify Firmware

After the new firmware is uploaded, we need to filter the test equipment to verify whether the firmware is normal, so as to avoid abnormal equipment business caused by the new firmware.

After verification, you will see that the batch upgrade function becomes available.

3.5 Batch upgrade

Click the Batch Upgrade menu to enter the upgrade configuration page. We can filter the devices to be upgraded from multiple dimensions and configure the upgrade strategy.

3.6 Upgrade process

After starting the firmware upgrade task, we will see an upgrade batch. Click to enter the details, and you can see the list of devices to be upgraded.

On the upgrade batch details page, you can view the equipment status in all statuses, including: to be pushed, pushed, upgrading, upgrading succeeded, upgrading failed, and canceled.