Flashing Konnected Firmware

Flashing is the process of loading firmware on to the device using a computer connected with a USB cable.

You may need to flash your Konnected device to update the firmware, change to a different firmware platform, or recover from a failure. This article describes a few ways to do it.

Use a data-quality micro-USB cable

Some USB cables do not transmit data! If your device is not detected by your computer when plugged in (and any necessary drivers are installed), you may be using a charging-only cable.

Install USB Device Drivers

Some Konnected products require different drivers on different operating systems. Find your driver using this chart:

EASY OPTION: Flash using the Konnected Flash Tool from your web browser

The easiest way to flash is using our web-based Flash Tool at install.konnected.io to quickly and automatically flash your device with the latest Konnected firmware for your product. Use Chrome or Edge browser (does not work in Safari!).

1. Go to install.konnected.io
2. Select your product
3. Select your desired firmware platform
4. Select a build option (if available) and click CONNECT
5. Plug in your device and select the USB serial port. On Windows this shows up as COM3 or COM4 or similar. On Mac it will show up as cu.usbserial or cu.usbmodem.
6. Click Install [productname] to begin the installlation.

Flashing tips and troubleshooting:

• Power. Some USB ports may not provide enough power to the device during flashing. Plug in the 12V power supply or PoE (on the Alarm Panel Pro) while the USB cable is also connected to the computer.
• Zone 6: (6-zone Alarm Panels only) Temporarily remove any wires on Zone 6. This zone must be open during flashing.
  
• USB cable: Check that you're using a data-quality USB cable.

ADVANCED: Flash using command line tools

The latest Konnected firmware binaries are distributed for free and available to download from GitHub or from our website. These are the "factory default" firmware builds and are the same generic firmware images that are pre-loaded on Konnected devices at the factory.

Download Firmware

Download the bin file for your product and desired platform:

Install Python 

Python 3.7 or newer is a prerequisite. If you're not sure if you have python installed, open a Terminal window and type:

python --version

or 

python3 --version

If you have python installed, this command should output Python 3.12.3 or similar. If not, install Python before continuing. Download Python for Windows (be sure to select add Python to PATH option) . Mac users can use the Python that comes with Xcode command line tools by running xcode-select --install in a Terminal window.

Install esptool.py

esptool.py is the command-line tool provided by Espressif for communicating with the ESP chips in Konnected devices.

Install esptool using pip:

pip install esptool

Verify that esptool is installed correctly:

esptool.py version

Flash the downloaded firmware

In Terminal, run the esptool.py write_flash command from the directory that you downloaded the firmware binary:

esptool.py --port=COM3 --baud 46800 write_flash --flash_mode dio 0x0 konnected-firmware-X-X-X.bin

The --port option is your serial port. Usually like COM3 on Windows or /dev/cu.usbserial-XXXX on Mac.

The konnected-firmware-X-X-X.bin is the full path to the downloaded firmware binary.

The output should look something like this:

esptool.py v4.7.0
Serial port /dev/cu.usbmodem21201
Connecting...
Detecting chip type... ESP32-S3
Chip is ESP32-S3 (QFN56) (revision v0.2)
Features: WiFi, BLE, Embedded Flash 8MB (GD)
Crystal is 40MHz
MAC: 64:e8:33:60:87:20
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Configuring flash size...
Erasing flash (this may take a while)...
Chip erase completed successfully in 1.9s
Compressed 1390960 bytes to 859228...
Wrote 1390960 bytes (859228 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 8.2 seconds (effective 1357.4 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.

Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...