Monitor-Buddy 1.1.0

Monitor-Buddy 1.1.0 gives your Buddy a setup page in your phone's language, and keeps your Wi-Fi when you update. It also fixes a freeze that hit anyone who opened a serial monitor.

What's new

• The setup page speaks your language. The Wi-Fi setup page now follows your phone's language: English, Spanish or German, with a menu to switch. It's built into the Wi-Fi library now, so there's no separate page to upload any more. (#13)
• Your Wi-Fi survives updates. Until now, flashing a new version could upload the setup pages again, and that wiped the saved Wi-Fi. That upload step is gone. Your saved Wi-Fi and brightness stay on the board, starting with this update. (#13)
• Wi-Fi reconnects without stalling the screen. When the Wi-Fi drops, the Buddy now reconnects in the background. Before, each reconnect attempt froze the face for up to 2 seconds. In testing, a router restart didn't interrupt the face or touch at all. (#13)
• No time-sync wait at start-up. Without internet, 1.0.2 waited up to 4 seconds on CONNECTING for the Wi-Fi library's own time sync. The Buddy keeps its own clock, so that sync is now switched off: the face appears as soon as Wi-Fi connects, and weather, stock and GitHub retry in the background until the internet is back. (#13)

Changed

• The BOOT button now forgets only the Wi-Fi. Holding BOOT for 5 seconds or more at start-up clears the saved Wi-Fi and keeps your brightness. To reset everything, open the setup page and press erase. This comes from the newer Wi-Fi library. (#13)

Fixes

• No more freezes after closing a serial monitor. If you opened a serial monitor and then closed it, the Buddy slowed to a crawl: no blinking, a frozen clock, swipes and taps ignored, until you restarted it. The cause was the USB serial waiting for a reader that had gone away. It never waits now. (#12)
• Brightness is saved once per drag. A brightness drag used to write to flash on every step. It now saves once, 2 seconds after you let go, and not at all if you end up where you started. (#11)

For tinkerers

• The serial status line now ends with the uptime and the reason for the last restart, e.g. up=93s rst=1. A restart that happened while no monitor was open still shows up later.
• Monitor-Buddy now uses AyresWiFiManager 2.5.0 from the IdefixRC fork, instead of the original 2.0.2. Thanks to ayresnet for the library this builds on.

Documentation

• README §4.8 "Updating to a new version": a short how-to for updating, replacing the old "Portal files" section.
• README §4.10 "Everyday controls": corrected for the BOOT change above. It now explains where BOOT is (next to RESET, so check the labels), that it only counts while the Buddy starts up, and the 2–5 second hold that opens the setup hotspot.

Updating an existing Monitor-Buddy

1. Download Monitor-Buddy-1.1.0.zip from the Assets below and extract it to a new folder. Copy your config/config.h over from your old folder, so you keep your settings.
2. Flash it the same way as before: README §4, Flashing the board. There is no filesystem upload any more.
3. That's it. The Buddy keeps its Wi-Fi and reconnects by itself. On its first start it removes the old setup page left over from earlier versions, and from then on the setup page follows your phone's language.

Download

Monitor-Buddy-1.1.0.zip is the curated build package. It holds only the files needed to build and flash: firmware, PlatformIO config and config template. The setup-page HTML and the upload script are no longer part of it. The auto-generated Source code archives contain the full repository.

Hardware

Unchanged: a Waveshare ESP32-C6-Touch-LCD-1.47, one 3D-printed holder (Monitor-Buddy_flat or Monitor-Buddy_recess), and a USB-C cable.

Full changelog: v1.0.2...v1.1.0