Upgrade PineTime to InfiniTime 1.0.0

From PINE64
Revision as of 04:12, 3 May 2021 by Pfeerick (talk | contribs) (Initial blurb)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Page under construction, information subject to review and feedback.

Congratulations on receiving your new PineTime!

From the factory, it ships with InfiniTime 0.7.1, and an older bootloader. So you're probably wondering now how to go about upgrading your watch to the latest and greatest version of InfiniTime. To those that of us that are developing stuff for it, its pretty easy and straightforward, but like with all technology, it is a bit tricky.

You basically want to 1) Update InfiniTime to 1.0.0 2) Update the bootloader to 1.0.0 (that they are the same version is only coincidental) 3) Install the recovery firmware

The reason for installing the updates in this order, is because newer versions of InfiniTime have a more robust bluetooth update process, and since we're updating everything over update, the less retries you have to do the better (as it will sometimes disconnect mid update, and you'll need to try again, and possibly restart the watch a few times as well). The recovery firmware is new to the bootloader 1.0.0, so it's best to update that last.

So how do you do this? Where do you start? Well, with a sealed PineTime, your only option is via Over The Air (OTA) Device Firmware Update (DFU), which is done via Bluetooth. There are a couple of different ways you can do this. If you have an Android device, you can use Gadgetbridge or NRFConnect to do this. Otherwise, if your laptop or desktop computer has bluetooth, you can use Siglo. You can also use Siglo on your Pinebook Pro or Pinephone if you happen to have those devices.


Update InfiniTime

pinetime-mcuboot-app-dfu-1.0.0.zip.

Update the bootloader

To update the bootloader, you want to flash reloader-mcuboot.zip.

Install the recovery firmware

To install the recovery firmware, you want to flash pinetime-mcuboot-recovery-loader-dfu-0.14.1.zip.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes during the update process, the connection will drop, and the update will fail. Your PineTime isn't broken, most likely the bluetooth link dropped out for a moment, so just try again. If it keeps failing, try restarting the watch by holding the power button down for approximately 8 seconds. Or try with another device, just in case there are compatibility issues.

Version 1.0.0 of InfiniTime is merely the first version that was considered sufficiently feature complete and stable enough for daily use. This isn't to say there aren't still bugs present ('cause there are!). So there are a few bugs still present in the update process and the bootloader. One unfortunate bug appears to be that sometimes when the watch tries to restart after an update, the bootloader locks up, and the watch won't turn on. In this case, you will need to wait until the watch battery goes flat, in order to force the watch to reset. This will most likely involve waiting for a week, and then when you put the watch on the charge cradle, it will power up and you should be right to try again.