March 6, 2021 Software Update

Last week we updated the FarmBot web app and released FBOS v13.0.1. Here’s what’s new:

New message broker protocol

One of the least tested and problematic parts of FarmBot OS has been the AMQP messaging implementation. Starting with FBOS v13.0.1 we are switching from using the AMQP protocol to MQTT. This change will improve system reliability, test coverage, and maintainability from a software development perspective.

While this change will be seamless for most of our customers, some network firewall configurations (such as those at schools and universities) may be blocking the port required for MQTT communication (TCP port 8883). If you begin experiencing issues after upgrading to v13.0.1, please send your IT department our updated documentation explaining exactly what is needed to get FarmBot back up and running.

In-app feedback form

You can now submit feedback to us from the app’s Help (?) panel. Just go to the panel, select Get Help from the top dropdown, and find the Provide feedback form.

Settings panel updates

We cleaned up the settings panel to hide a handful of settings that are typically only used by advanced users and people with DIY FarmBots. We did this because we were having to troubleshoot a high number of installations where the user changed settings they shouldn’t have and/or didn’t fully understand.

You can still find these advanced settings by turning on SHOW ADVANCED SETTINGS from the Parameter Management category or from the search bar. Additionally, we have updated our software documentation to indicate which settings are behind the advanced toggle.

Miscellaneous

• Updated the Servo command’s tooltip and documentation to indicate that you may need to sue this command in combination with a Wait command so that the servo has a chance to reach its destination before FarmBot moves onto the next step in the sequence.
• Performed a big upgrade to the database with planned downtime over last weekend.
• Improved the default values recommended for Express bot Stall Detection and removed the beta label. We would still like to improve the performance of our firmware in this area, so let us know if you are having any issues!
• Incremented our developer and software documentation hubs to v13.
• Added documentation for a new Lua helper: new_sensor_reading().