OOBDFlash Update your Dongle Firmware Easily

Straight from the beginning the bootloader was designed to allow an easy and safe update of the firmware - but on the users side that was not really simple to flash a dongle with a terminal program and the right flash file.

So this process is now integrated into OOBDFlash

The final plan is to integrate this flash function directly into the apps, but first the process needs to be under control - so OOBDFlash is also a proof of concept of an automated tool.

Without any command line option, OOBDFlash runs the following sequence at start:

1. download the latest firmware archive file from the public OOBD download server
2. searches inside that archive for the latest firmware binary
3. starts a Bluetooth Discovery to find all dongles around
4. lets the user select the dongle he wants to update
5. flashes the firmware
6. reboots the dongle

So basically an update can be done with minimal user interaction

OOBDFlash is set up as command line program without a graphical UI. This, together with some command line options, allows it to run OOBDFlash also from a script or even as part of a makefile.

The options are:

java -jar OOBDFlash.jar [-d BT-MAC] [-f firmwarefile | -u Download-URL | -l Archivefile]

When giving the Bluetooth Dongle MAC address as 12 character long hexadecimal string like 00112233445566, this address is taken directly to address the Dongle and no further Bluetooth Device Discovery is made

When given, that file is directly used as binary firmware file for the flash process instead of any archive file source

Overrides the build in Download- URL for the firmware archive

Uses a local file as “downloadable” firmware archive. Very similar to option -u, but while -u needs a correct URL syntax, -i handle files as normal file path names

Behind a firewall like in a cooperate network, OOBDFlash might need to have a proxy to be able to download the firmware archive file. If needed, the two entries in the file OOBDFlash.props need to be uncommented and filled with the correct values for proxyhost and proxyport

#OOBDFlash.props
# Configfile OOBDFlash program
# to use these settings, uncomment and change the values

# if behind a corporate firewall, you might need a proxy to download the archive
#httpProxyHost myproxyhost.example.com

# the port 
#httpProxyPort 83

Under Windows it happens that the Bluetooth connection fails permanently. This can be fixed when (unpairing and) pairing the dongle with the Windows Bluetooth manager first. This unfortunately destroys the idea of a quick ad-hoc flash process, so we working on it…