October 12, 2023 Software and Documentation Update

This week we deployed a new version of the FarmBot web app and a new version of FarmBot OS. Here’s what’s new:

Style improvements

We’ve improved the styling and hover effects of the popups and E-stop button in the main navbar to be a little cleaner. We also added icons to the popups which improve visibility when using a small screen.

New open educational resources

We’ve added a tranche of new content to the FarmBot Open Educational Resources hub, providing our education customers with additional free lesson plans, video content, and easier to access links to our other learning resources.

While most of the new content is aimed at grades 3-6, it can also serve as a starting point for adaptations for higher grade levels. If you’re interested in bringing FarmBot to your school, check out our education landing page and get in touch at sales@farm.bot!

Miscellaneous

• Improved the error handling behavior when using the photo_grid() Lua helper with an uncalibrated camera.
• Improved the display of internal FarmBot OS jobs for tasks such as taking photos and over-the-air updates.
• Updated various FarmBot OS dependencies including the message broker client to improve the reliability of connections.
• Updated the message broker to improve the reliability and security of connections.
• Updated the Genesis firmware to ensure the rotary tool control pins are turned off on boot.
• Fixed a bug where tools and point grids were getting auto-deleted right after creation.
• Fixed a bug in the time calculation for when a FarmBot OS update should occur.
• Increased the default TIMEOUT AFTER setting from 120 to 180 seconds for all three axes to better accommodate XL bots moving at slower speeds.
• Removed an erroneous job that would show on new or demo accounts.

Security updates (important for self-hosted web app admins)

The latest version of the FarmBot web app patches a security vulnerability that was brought to our attention by the GitHub Security Lab. At this time we do not have any reason to believe this vulnerability was exploited on my.farm.bot. If you host the FarmBot web app on your own server, it is recommended to update to the latest version as soon as possible. Additional information can be found on GitHub.