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Settings and Updates

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Wells Riley edited this page Oct 26, 2026 · 10 revisions

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On a phone or computer on the same Wi-Fi as AirWriter, go to http://airwriter-xxxx.local/, with the four characters from the setup network's name. An AirWriter set up before this version stays at http://imagewriter-xxxx.local/.

If the page doesn't open:

  • Type http://, not https://.
  • Look up AirWriter's address in your router's list of devices, and use that.
  • Check that your phone isn't on a guest network.

The page has no password, so anyone on your Wi-Fi can open it.

Settings

Changes save immediately.

Item Settings
Printers Your printers and their settings. See Printers.
AirPrint AirPrint on or off for all printers, and each printer's address for adding it by hand on a Mac. See Setup.
AppleTalk Connections for vintage Macs. See Vintage Macs (LocalTalk).
Wi-Fi Network, IP address and host name
About Firmware version and updates, restart, erase, and DIP switches

Wi-Fi

  • Wi-Fi network. Press Change…, pick a network, type its password and press Join. AirWriter restarts on the new network in about half a minute. If it can't connect, setup starts again after about a minute.
  • Host name. The name in AirWriter's address, without .local. Letters, numbers and hyphens only. A new name takes effect after a restart.

After a rename, phones and computers may show the old name for up to an hour.

About

  • Version. The current firmware, with Check Now.
  • Update automatically. Installs new firmware once a day, when nothing is printing. Off by default.
  • Install from a file. See Updating from a file.
  • Erase All Settings… Erases Wi-Fi, printers and settings, and starts setup again.
  • Restart… Restarts AirWriter after the current page.
  • DIP Switches. The current position of each switch. See DIP Switches.

Firmware updates

New firmware is published on the project's Releases page. Only firmware I've signed installs.

Press Check Now under About, then Install when an update is available. Installing takes about a minute; keep AirWriter plugged in. Your settings stay as they are.

Updates wait for printing to finish.

Updating from a file

  1. Download airwriter-esp32s3.bin from the Releases page.
  2. On the settings page, open About and press Choose File… next to Install from a file.
  3. Choose the file. AirWriter restarts when it's done.

Recovery

If an update doesn't start properly, AirWriter goes back to the previous version at the next restart. If AirWriter won't start at all, use the power-up factory reset.

Custom firmware

A custom build signs firmware with your own key, and the first build shows how to make one. An AirWriter running your build only installs firmware signed with your key. To go back to my releases, flash one over USB:

esptool.py --chip esp32s3 erase_region 0xf000 0x2000
esptool.py --chip esp32s3 erase_region 0x12000 0x2000
esptool.py --chip esp32s3 write_flash 0x20000 airwriter-esp32s3.bin

To verify a release against the public key in the repository:

espsecure.py verify_signature --version 2 --keyfile firmware/keys/airwriter-release.pub.pem airwriter-esp32s3.bin

This documentation is licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0.

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