ESP8266 Community Forum

Hi,

I have been working on a project using the ESP-12 module. So far everything is pretty much as i like it to be apart from one thing. Updating the PICs firmware controlling the WiFi module.
Currently this is setup using a USB to serial adapter plugged into a PC. The device i am working on will be difficult to unplag and take to a PC and in todays world Updating via WiFi is just something people expect to see.

Is it possible, without changing any firmware on the WiFi Module to use it to update the PICs firmware?
While i am asking, can the WiFis own firmware be updated over air too?

I look forward to seeing what can be done.

The esp8266 could update a PIC via the esp8266 uart to a bootloader installed on the pic that also uses a (connected to the esp8266) uart.
The esp8266 can be updated over the air (OTA). That leaves serving the PIC programs hex code from somewhere. It could potentially be stored in the flash attached to the esp8266 if there is space or alternatively from a pc server with the pic hex code to the esp8266 client and them onto the PIC bootloader.

I'm doing exactly that with an Arduino - upload a new hex file via HTTP, cache it in the ESP flash and then reset the Arduino and upload it using the bootloader protocol. No reason the same thing couldn't be done for the PIC. If you're interested in some code as a starting point you can take a look at:

https://github.com/mirobot/mirobot-wifi

Cheers,
Ben