New Omega Console: Release J1

[Lazar Demin]

Hey everyone,
You may have notice last Thursday (January 14th) the Omega firmware was upgraded to version 0.0.6 and the Console is now Ando J1. Here's the info on this release:

Console Updates

Right off the bat, you will have noticed the new Resistor Calculator App! We found it very handy to have a resistor calculator when hacking hardware, there's more important things to memorize than colour bands!

The calculator allows you to:

• specify a resistance value (including kΩ and MΩ) and it will display the colour bands on the resistor
• or: use the drop-down menu to specify the colour bands, and it will display the resistance value

You can select the tolerance values, as well as choose between four-band, five-band, and six-band resistors.

We've also made the Settings App more intuitive to use. Namely, it provides additional visual feedback when carrying out any back-end tasks:

• During the firmware upgrade it will show a download progress bar and then display a message telling you what to expect while the firmware is being installed
  • The Omega's LED will begin flashing at the start of the upgrade sequence and will only go back to solid when the upgrade is complete
    
• The WiFi and AP settings will also show loading icons when applying any changes, which will disappear when the changes are done

And last but not least, the OLED, PWM, and RELAY Control Apps will now display error messages when the particular expansion cannot be found:

Firmware Updates

Based on some of the discussions we've seen on the community, we've also included the following kernel modules in the Omega firmware:

• kmod-bluetooth
• kmod-gpio-irq - enable interrupts from gpio, expect some updates to fast-gpio soon
• kmod-usb-audio and kmod-sound-core

Firmware Change-Log

The change-log containing the information on the differences between each version and build is now available: https://wiki.onion.io/Firmware-Changelog

For now, we're going to keep it on the wiki but it will get it's own home very soon. Going forward, we will be attaching dates to the build notes.

Road-Map

We know you've been wanting to see what's waiting around the corner regarding the Omega, so we've been hard at work putting together the road-map for Omega and Console development. Expect that to be ready next week!

As always, happy hacking!

[Kit Bishop]

Cool Had got it already, but still cool
Particularly like that there is now a Change Log

[Andrei Railean]

Thanks for the update and the change log. I guess now that kmod-bluetooth is in, we'll have a quick tutorial on using the BLE dongle. Can't wait.

[T NT]

@Lazar-Demin

Cool and I saw those changes in the last update Also pleased to say I tested a USB audio device and it works reasonably well. I say reasonably because when playing straight wavs at high bitrate it can stumble andstutter a bit but not all the time. Restart the stream an it will work. Sounds like an USB IRQ /Buffer issue to me. However as madplay works perfectly playing mp3s with no errors and wavs take up so much space who cares?

Really nice Calculator app though. In fact I am loving all the apps so far. Any idea when the App store will go live? Looking forward to seeing what will appear.

Keep it up!