Provisioning devices and getting them onto end-user WiFi networks

[justind000]

I have been looking at how to provision a Toit device. I am looking from the perspective of an end-user who has received a device that has been programmed with Toit and now has to set it up to work at their location.

How does the end-user enter their WiFi settings at this point? The end-user shouldn't need to interact through Toit's console or CLI as they bought a device and just want it to work with a simple setup process.

Here a some ideas to accomplish this:

• The product provider could have a website which gives instructions to connect the device to a computer using a USB cable then goto a website (in Chrome, Edge or Opera for Web Serial support). That website has the end-user enter setup information. This method could be used in native apps as well, removing the browser limitation.
• Espressif offers several provisioning options in the IDF.
  • Smartconfig - Press a button on the WiFi router while putting the ESP32 in a mode to receive the WiFi information. This is quite easy, but not everyone has a Smartconfig-capable router.
  • Easy Connect - Scan QR codes on both router and Toit device. Similarly to Smartconfig, requires Easy connect-enabled router.
  • Unified Provisioning: Uses either WiFi (self-hosted access point), BLE, or serial interface to connect and exchange information in protobuf format. All three methods require a dedicated website or app to handle the communication and user-interaction. The WiFi access point method is troublesome as most devices don't like to be connected to a WiFi network that doesn't provide internet access and will complain/disconnect.
• Outside repos that implement the access-point and BLE method exist as well. Some also provide a website that is device-hosted for the user to provide WiFi information.

I have tried most of the methods and they all worked. Espressif provides sample apps to use the Unified Provisioning and they work. I think the most reliable method is the BLE version. As mentioned above, the access point method (both Espressif and outside repos) creates a WiFi network for the user to connect to. My phone complains about it not having internet access, as does my computer. I need to tap/click a few times to tell it to stay connected.

I was hoping to get a conversation going regarding other methods or ideas, experiences etc. Also to see if there is any interest on the Toit side to implement a particular method for this use-case, as any method will require additional code, but also some rewrites to the WiFi connection logic (what to do if no WiFi).

[kasperl]

Hi @justind000! We're definitely interested in exploring this with you. Should we try to figure out how to make the BLE based WiFi configuring work? I believe we have most of the building blocks.

[dashcraft]

I'd like a standard similar to:
https://www.improv-wifi.com/

Which is straightforward and open source

[floitsch]

Agreed. I don't think we looked at this particular library, but we had something similar in mind.
The biggest problem is that you still need some other approach as iOS devices don't support it.

[justind000]

That's very similar to the Espressif system discussed prior in this thread.

There is a link to an (at this point old) working implementation of it with links to the Espressif apps as well.

[dashcraft]

I have a react native application that implements improv-wifi for android and ios, i can make it open source and publish it if we can get this in.

[kasperl]

We have added support for establishing a WiFi in Soft AP mode on the ESP32. Together with some simple DNS server code, you can use this to create a provisioning flow.

See https://github.com/toitlang/pkg-dns-simple-server/blob/10476712e5140d40b9f593530aca50045ba41671/examples/captive_portal.toit#L65. Once you have the new WiFi credentials through some sort of form post, you can install them by doing a call to wifi.open --save --ssid="bestwifi" --password="donttell".

/cc @justind000

[kasperl]

We have added support for establishing a WiFi in Soft AP mode on the ESP32. Together with some simple DNS server code, you can use this to create a provisioning flow.

See https://github.com/toitlang/pkg-dns-simple-server/blob/10476712e5140d40b9f593530aca50045ba41671/examples/captive_portal.toit#L65.

Once you have the new WiFi credentials through some sort of form post, you can install them by doing a call to

wifi.open --save --ssid="bestwifi" --password="donttell"`

This will save the credentials if we can successfully connect to the network and use the credentials for future attempts to connect to the network.

(I originally posted this as a reply to a comment, but I decided that it's meaningful to make this a separate comment)

[kasperl]

Yes, @dashcraft - finally :)

The captive portal example - https://github.com/toitlang/pkg-dns-simple-server/blob/main/examples/captive_portal.toit - shows the hardest part which is establishing a WiFi network and answering DNS queries.

[dashcraft]

Nice, so this opens up the ability to do ble onboarding of wifi credentials as well using wifi.open --save --ssid="bestwifi" --password="donttell"`

[kasperl]

Indeed!

[ojmason]

Will this persist if the ESP32 device is powered down?

[erikcorry]

Yes, that's what the --save option does.

[kasperl]

The sample project https://github.com/kasperl/toit-zygote shows how to pull all this together.