Sensor.Community flashing tool

Modified flasher to burn the Wifi credentials at once.

spiffsgen.py added and kindly modified by @DeeKey

config.json example:

{
   "SOFTWARE_VERSION":"NRZ-2020-133",
   "current_lang":"FR",
   "wlanssid":"Livebox-7E78",
   "wlanpwd":"i0c_YSNS",
   "www_username":"admin",
   "www_password":"",
   "fs_ssid":"airRohr-2509507",
   "fs_pwd":"",
   "www_basicauth_enabled":false,
   "dht_read":false,
   "htu21d_read":false,
   "ppd_read":false,
   "sds_read":false,
   "pms_read":true,
   "hpm_read":false,
   "npm_read":false,
   "sps30_read":false,
   "bmp_read":false,
   "bmx280_read":true,
   "sht3x_read":false,
   "ds18b20_read":false,
   "dnms_read":false,
   "dnms_correction":"0.0",
   "temp_correction":"0.0",
   "gps_read":false,
   "send2dusti":true,
   "ssl_dusti":false,
   "send2madavi":true,
   "ssl_madavi":false,
   "send2sensemap":false,
   "send2fsapp":false,
   "send2aircms":false,
   "send2csv":false,
   "auto_update":true,
   "use_beta":false,
   "has_display":false,
   "has_sh1106":false,
   "has_flipped_display":false,
   "has_lcd1602":false,
   "has_lcd1602_27":true,
   "has_lcd2004":false,
   "has_lcd2004_27":false,
   "display_wifi_info":true,
   "display_device_info":true,
   "debug":3,
   "sending_intervall_ms":145000,
   "time_for_wifi_config":600000,
   "senseboxid":"",
   "send2custom":false,
   "host_custom":"192.168.234.1",
   "url_custom":"/data.php",
   "port_custom":80,
   "user_custom":"",
   "pwd_custom":"",
   "ssl_custom":false,
   "send2influx":false,
   "host_influx":"influx.server",
   "url_influx":"/write?db=sensorcommunity",
   "port_influx":8086,
   "user_influx":"",
   "pwd_influx":"",
   "measurement_name_influx":"feinstaub",
   "ssl_influx":false
}

Binary builds and downloads

Our main target is having working prebuilt binaries for users to simply download and run, to avoid all the setup below. See releases to download the software for your system.

Note: you need drivers for the USB2serial chipset:

• Drivers for NodeMCU v3 (CH340)

  • Windows (Windows 10 should be able to automatically download these; 2018/09/04 v3.4 mirror)
  • MacOS (2018/09/04 v1.4 mirror)

• Drivers for NodeMCU v2 (CP2102)

  • Windows 10, Windows 7/8/8.1 (Windows 10 should be able to automatically download these)
  • MacOS

On Linux you should not need drivers, as they are usually already there, but you need to check that you as user have the permission to use the serial devices (otherwise you likely see an error like serial.serialutil.SerialException: [Errno 13] could not open port /dev/ttyUSB0: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/dev/ttyUSB0').

• Debian/Ubuntu: add your user to the group dialout with sudo usermod -a -G dialout ${USER} (you may need to restart the desktop to apply your new group settings).

Using the software

Linux users: Please check that the downloaded file is executable. Otherwise set the executable bit with chmod u+x <filename of download>

To flash a device:

1. connect the ESP8266 with a USB cable to your computer (micro-USB)
2. launch the downloaded software
3. check/select the serial device
4. select the firmware (latest_<COUNTRYCODE>.bin should be fine for any setup)
5. press button Upload
6. wait for a few seconds to finish the flashing procedure
7. take a note of the Sensor ID written in the Window status bar at the bottom - you will need it to register the sensor

If you want to delete/reset all settings on the device (e.g. the Wifi credentials) you can use the Erase Flash button (exists in software version 0.2.2 and above).

Screenshots

Further steps

Now your device is flashed, you may now

1. connect the sensors to it,
2. configure the WiFi (connect your computer/smartphone to the AP feinstaubsensor-<sensorID> and open up http://192.168.4.1/ in a browser) and
3. finally register the sensor at https://devices.sensor.community/ with your Sensor ID

Building the software

Linux

Currently Linux builds require Python 3.6 (but 3.7 and 3.9 seems to work fine as well), GNU make and Qt Linguist tools. Following packages should suffice on Ubuntu (tested on Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04):

sudo apt install qttools5-dev-tools pyqt5-dev-tools qt5-default python3-pip python3.6 make

On Fedora (tested on Fedora 31):

sudo dnf install qt5-qttools-devel python3-devel make
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/lrelease-qt5 /usr/bin/lrelease

If you want to build in a python virtualenv (recommended) you should create one with

pip install virtualenvwrapper
mkvirtualenv -p "$(which python3)" airrohr-firmware-flasher
# deactivate # to leave the virtualenv later
# workon airrohr-firmware-flasher to re-enter virtualenv

Then, to install python dependencies and build the binary use:

make deps dist

The built binary will be dist/airrohr-flasher.

Windows

Currently Windows builds require Python 3.6 installed system-wide and added to %PATH%.

To install python and cygwin dependencies and build everything use deploy\windows-build.bat batch script.

MacOS

Currently MacOS builds require Python 3.6, dmgbuild tool (pip3 install dmgbuild) and Qt SDK installed (just the "Qt > 5... > macOS" part in installer) with following added to $PATH (check version part):

export PATH="$HOME/Qt/5.11.1/clang_64/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin:$PATH"

Then just install dependencies and build everything using:

make deps dmg

Binary build debugging

In case an error occurs in early stages of application startup, user will be presented with a "Failed to execute script airrohr-flasher.exe" message. In order to see actual source of that error, console flag in airrohr-flasher.spec can be switched to True. In Windows this will make application output a proper stack trace to cmd popup.

Development

Both build & runtime requirements are defined in requirements.txt file. In order to install these use the following command:

pip install -r requirements.txt

To manage dynamic UI and translation binaries generation we use a very simple GNU make-based build system.

To simply build everything needed to run airrohr-flasher.py run:

make

To build and run use:

make run

To remove all build artifacts use:

make clean

All requirements are set up using wildcards, so, in theory, Makefile shouldn't need much changes in near future.

Translations

All translation files are located in the i18n folder. The files have to be named with the language name accourding to https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qlocale.html#Language-enum (part after QLocale::).

The translations can be done with the following tool: https://github.com/thurask/Qt-Linguist/releases (Windows binaries, sources available)

Manual translation can be done by editing the .ts file.

If english texts are added or changed

In order to rebuild *.ts files use:

make i18n-update