Comment by ustad

2 days ago

“Finally, the firmware now supports authenticated OTA updates, so future builds can be installed through the browser instead of connecting the board over USB.”

What does that mean?

OTA = over the air. ie online updates you’d expect of a more polished product

  • But the browser is involved. Can the browser do OTA to esp32?

    • The browser connects to a webserver running on the ESP32. Over wifi -> over the air. OTA doesn't mean headless or automatic

    • I believe the ESP32 runs a small web server that supports WebSerial (?), if you can reach it over WiFi or somesuch, you should be able to upload the new firmware blob that way.

I have about 30-40 esp32 / esphome type devices running. Typically to flash or update a device, you would plug it into your usb port.

esphome can also be flashed "OTA" which just means compiling your project locally, then pushing the binary over tcp/ip and giving an instruction to install it.

With https://github.com/esphome/device-builder you can run a network of multiple esphome builders so you can update many devices at the same time "OTA" (TCP/IP).