Over-the-Air Updates For IoT Devices
IoT-based devices enable users with complete monitoring, control, and seamless connectivity with microcontroller-based hardware communication through the Internet. In the early days of IoT devices, a new challenge emerged to update & manage these remotely connected devices. It isn’t always possible to manually update the firmware of remote devices, especially when there is a need to update a large set of devices altogether. OTA (Over-the-air) device firmware updates allow reconfiguration, improvisation, and bug fixing for microcontroller’s firmware via the Internet.
What Is Over-the-Air Device Firmware Update?
Over-the-air, updates refer to upgrading firmware algorithms of microcontroller-based embedded hardware through the internet. A device management system can release updated firmware to embedded IoT devices that carry OTA update provision and wireless connectivity. OTA is a handy provision for the abrupt software development life cycle allowing constant upgrade and improvisation to the device.
OTA update is essentially delivering new firmware to the existing IoT hardware remotely. There are several scenarios where OTA update could be a significant benefit, such as:
Firmware application upgrade & introducing software features
Developers can release new features through OTA as they keep progressing through the software development lifecycle.
Fixing run-time bugs or firmware errors
There is always a chance for a few minor bugs that can occur runtime in any IoT system; thus, OTA could be of great advantage to fix them.
Regular security patches for IoT ecosystems
Adversaries or breachers always attempt to jeopardize wireless systems. OTA update makes these IoT systems robust with constant security patches.
Low-power optimizations for microcontrollers
IoT devices operate on mobility and rely on battery power; as such, continuous power optimization is something that every product engineering team works on for a better user experience.
Scalable updates with a click to the fleet of IoT devices
IoT products or wearables sold commercially can not be manually updated one after another. In which case, updating them through OTA could be effortless for brands and consumers.
How Does OTA Update Work?
Microcontrollers-based OTA updates take place through Cloud or a Server that acts as a device management system releasing the OTA update. The IoT device with internet connectivity downloads the new firmware through a cloud architecture or a mobile phone and stores the firmware update in the device memory. These IoT devices may download the updates from the Internet via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, NB-IoT, LTE, Bluetooth, or LoRa network connectivity.
The server would send the binary file to the microcontroller that will be executed for the new firmware update. When the device restarts or initiates the bootloader, the bootloader will update the existing firmware with a new one using the binary file made out of the latest source code.
In conclusion, OTA is an essential and complementing functionality to the IoT ecosystem. The best part about OTA updates is that any IoT system already consists of a server to a client communication channel that makes OTA updates viable and convenient. However, there are challenges to OTA updates that have to be considered for development, such as security/authenticity of the source and fallback system to avoid any device failure while installing the new firmware application. There is no single fit for every IoT device's needs, and hence any OTA firmware updates have to meet the hardware requirements perfectly. If done right, OTA updates would create tremendous value to IoT systems.