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Build the Watcher Development Environment

ESP-IDF Installation​

Please refer to espressif's official installation guide.

Please be noticed that the factory_fw example is based on exactly the version v5.2.1 of IDF.

mkdir -p ~/esp
cd ~/esp
git clone --recursive https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf.git

We strongly recommend you make the alias get_idf for the IDF environment initialization if you're using the macOS or Linux.

First Build​

Get the IDF env​

get_idf
idf.py

If you've installed the IDF correctly, after the idf.py command you will get a help printing of idf.py tool.

$ idf.py
Usage: idf.py [OPTIONS] COMMAND1 [ARGS]... [COMMAND2 [ARGS]...]...

  ESP-IDF CLI build management tool. For commands that are not known to idf.py an attempt to execute it as a build system target will be
  made. Selected target: esp32s3

...

Set the chip target to esp32s3.

idf.py set-target esp32s3

Build the project​

idf.py build

The code for the latest factory firmware is in example/factory_firmware.

cd example/factory_firmware
idf.py build

Flash​

Plug the SenseCAP Watcher to your PC or laptop with a USB data cable.

PLEASE NOTE!!!

ONLY the USB port on the bottom (on the side) has data transmission

The USB port on the back only provides power to the device.

When you connect the Watcher with a proper data cable and from the proper USB C port, you will get 1 USB device entry on your PC, and also 2 UART devices. They're the UART connected to the ESP32S3, and the UART connected to the Himax SoC. There's no observed pattern that which SoC will use which UART. So please try the following command with every UART device until you see log printings. 

idf.py --port /dev/ttyACM0 monitor

Please replace /dev/ttyACM0 with the correct UART device name on you operating system. e.g. on MacOS it looks like /dev/tty.wchusbserial56F3067xxxx, and on Windows it looks like COMx`. And again if you don't see the progress of the log printing, try next UART.

PLEASE NOTE!!!

The partition named nvsfactory contains critical factory data for the device to work, please be careful that you don't erase that partition. So it's strongly recommended that you backup this partition before you issue any flash operations.

We're gonna use the esptool.py to do the backup. This tool is part of the IDF installation, so it should be already there if you passed through the IDF installation.

# Linux / MacOS
which esptool.py

# Windows
where esptool.py

Now let's backup our nvsfactory partition.

esptool.py --port /dev/tty.wchusbserial56F3067xxxx --baud 2000000 --chip esp32s3 --before default_reset --after hard_reset --no-stub read_flash 0x9000 204800 nvsfactory.bin

Once you finished the backup, it's time to flash our firmware.

idf.py --port /dev/ttyACM0 -b 2000000 app-flash

Use the subcommand app-flash to only flash the application partition, that will protect your nvsfactory partition, and most importantly it will save your time.

Monitor the log output​

idf.py monitor

Use ctrl + ] to exit the monitoring.

Tech Support & Product Discussion​

Thank you for choosing our products! We are here to provide you with different support to ensure that your experience with our products is as smooth as possible. We offer several communication channels to cater to different preferences and needs.

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