June 12, 2020 Software Update

Yesterday we deployed a new version of the FarmBot web app and released FarmBot OS v10.1.2. Here’s the roundup of what’s new:

New device settings panel

We’re on a quest to move most of the app experience into the Farm Designer page where context of the FarmBot and the garden is highest. With yesterday’s update, you’ll now find all of the settings previously located on the Device page in the settings panel on the Farm Designer page.

During the move we also did a small bit of re-organization to better group related settings. To help you find the settings you’re looking for, there is a new search box at the top of the panel.

Last, we changed the labelling of ENDSTOPS to LIMIT SWITCHES to reduce confusion about those settings and that type of hardware with “hardstops”.

Calibration is now Find Axis Length

In the past few weeks we’ve seen an increase in the number of users who have thought that “Calibration” was an absolutely necessary step in setting up their FarmBot, and also something that they should do regularly.

Because “Calibration” is only a process that automatically finds the length of an axis and set the home position, we’ve decided to rename it to better indicate the function that actually gets performed:

• CALIBRATE buttons are now FIND LENGTH buttons.
• AXIS LENGTH inputs are now SET AXIS LENGTH inputs.
• The CALIBRATE sequence command is now FIND AXIS LENGTH.
• The documentation has been updated accordingly.

Now it is easier to understand that FIND AXIS LENGTH is the automatic version of SET AXIS LENGTH, but they accomplish the same thing.

Set Zero is now Set Home

In the same vein as the change above, we have renamed SET ZERO buttons, labels, and the sequence command to SET HOME. Now it is easier to understand that FIND HOME is the automatic version of SET HOME, but they accomplish the same thing.

OTA Write Verification

The underlying software system responsible for applying over-the-air updates now includes a write verification process that ensures the integrity of the update. While this bug was tricky to track down because of reproducibility difficulties, we thank all of our users who reported that their FBOS updates mysteriously failed, as that is what helped us find and fix this critical issue.

I’d like to thank Frank Hunleth, the maintainer of fwup (the underlying system), who added the write verification code.

Other improvements

• Firmware settings are now disabled when the bot is busy, preventing you from making changes at a time when the Arduino/Farmduino might not get the message.
• Sequence step click-and-drag is now disabled when highlighting text in the step title. This allows for an easier time making edits to that field.
• Fixed an issue where the main nav links were laggy when changing from the bolded to de-bolded state.
• Fixed issues related to scheduling regimen events.
• Improved error logging in the take-photo farmware.
• Improved the handling of long tool names in the tools panel.
• Improved the network quality % OK ping indicator.