[Feature Request] OTA Update Capability for Companion Nodes

[tonyallen1960]

Many of our users use a companion node as a fixed station at home usually placed in a high position not easily accessible.
Being able to do OTA updates, as per Repeaters, would help greatly.

[mannkind]

It would be incredibly useful to be able to force the start ota equiv. of repeaters on companion nodes.

• The other mesh has this functionality baked-into the firmware
• I'm lazy and physically needing to update all my companion nodes with a laptop is no fun (or in the case of a T114, physically putting them into OTA mode)
• It'd be helpful when converting between device types (repeater -> companion -> repeater) for reasons (e.g. getting a non-overlapping pub key prefix)

[beachmiles]

Please add this feature to companions, don't see any reason why it's only repeaters that have this function.

[txkbaldlaw]

Agree on need for this. I have a 3d-printed car-top solar companion node on my vehicle. I really don't like having to take the whole thing apart and risk wallowing out the screw holes. Being able to trigger DFU mode remotely would be ideal.

[txkbaldlaw]

I was able to get a draft working solution for this, but before I created a PR for it, I want to see if @liamcottle has a conceptual problem with how I did it.

Is there any reason NOT to use currently unused command slot 53 in examples/companion_radio/MyMesh.cpp for a specific remote DFU enable command, or would you rather I put it in at the end in slot 62?

[liamcottle]

@txkbaldlaw probably best to go with 62 for now, will look into why 53 was not used/reserved.

When I orignally looked into adding support for companion OTA, I was able to get the board into OTA mode using a BLE companion with a new command to enable it, but the nRF DFU app would always fail to flash the firmware.

Interested to see the PR :) Would be awesome to get companion OTA support. If it works, I'd add a section in the app to enable it and link to the firmware downloads etc to make it easy pz.

[txkbaldlaw]

@liamcottle I had to rework it when I got home, so sorry for the delay. It worked at the office. Got home, and it didn't.

I think I've got it now. See #2078