Matter Software Update with Silicon Labs Example Applications

This page outlines the steps for a scenario that demonstrates the Over The Air (OTA) Software Update functionality of Matter.

Over The Air (OTA) Software Update functionality is enabled by default for all Silicon Labs example applications.

Hardware Requirements

Software Requirements

Setting up OTA Environment

  • OTA-A, the running image: a regular application built with the default/older software version value. This application will be updated to the one with a higher software version. In the OTA Software Update process it acts as the OTA Requestor.

  • OTA-B, the update image: a regular application built with a higher software version value.

  • Chip-tool: the controller that announces the OTA-Provider’s address to the application thus triggering the OTA Software Update.

  • OTA-Provider: the server that carries the update image and from which the OTA Requestor will download the updated software.

  • Bootloader: Silicon Labs Gecko Bootloader image that supports OTA; supports the external (SPI-flash) or the internal storage option.

Setting up Chip-tool

The chip-tool binary is a part of the Silicon Labs’ Matter Hub Raspberry Pi Image available as a part of the Release Artifacts page. If you are planning to run chip-tool on the Matter Hub you may skip the rest of this section.

If you have not downloaded or cloned this repository, you can run the following commands on a Linux terminal running on either Linux machine, WSL or Virtual Machine to clone the repository and run bootstrap to prepare to build the sample application images.

  1. To download the SiliconLabs Matter codebase, run the following commands.

     $ git clone https://github.com/SiliconLabs/matter.git

  2. Bootstrapping:

    $ cd matter
$ ./scripts/checkout_submodules.py --shallow --recursive --platform efr32
$ . scripts/bootstrap.sh
# Create a directory where binaries will be updated/compiled called `out`
$ mkdir out

    To control the Matter application you will have to compile and run the chip-tool on either a Linux, Mac, or Raspberry Pi. The chip-tool builds faster on the Mac and Linux machines so that is recommended, but if you have access to a Raspberry Pi that will work as well.

  3. Build the chip-tool

    $ ./scripts/examples/gn_build_example.sh examples/chip-tool out/standalone

This will build chip-tool in out/standalone.

Setting up OTA-Provider

The chip-ota-provider-app binary for a Raspberry Pi is a part of the Artifacts package available with the Matter Extension release. If you are planning to run the OTA-Provider on a Raspberry Pi there is no need to build it.

  • To Build OTA-Provider app for Linux Platform, run below command in the matter repository.

    scripts/examples/gn_build_example.sh examples/ota-provider-app/linux out/debug chip_config_network_layer_ble=false

Matter OTA Images

  • To create and Build matter OTA from matter code, need two different applications to build mentioned below:

    • OTA A

    • OTA B

Build OTA A Application

  • Matter OTA-A Application will be used to flash on the matter device.

  • In matter cloned directory run below commands to build an OTA A application.

For RS9116: 

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/rs911x_lighting_A BRD41xxx disable_lcd=true use_external_flash=false chip_enable_ble_rs911x=true --wifi rs9116

For WF200

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/wf200_lighting_A BRD41xxx chip_build_libshell=false --wifi wf200

For SiWx917 NCP

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/siwx917_lighting BRD41xxx disable_lcd=true use_external_flash=false --wifi SiWx917

For SiWx917 SOC

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/SiWx917_lighting BRD4388A

Note: Matter OTA-A application will be having software version as 1 by default in third_party/silabs/BUILD.gn file.

Build OTA B Application

  • Matter OTA-B application will be used to create gbl & OTA file.

  • Open the file third_party/silabs/BUILD.gn from matter code cloned directory and modify sl_matter_version = 1 to any number.

Note: Make sure always sl_matter_version should be greater than sl_hardware_version

  • After Modifying software version build OTA B application using below commands for EFR boards

For RS9116: 

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/rs911x_lighting_B BRD41xxx use_external_flash=false chip_enable_ble_rs911x=true --wifi rs9116

For WF200

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/wf200_lighting_B BRD41xxx chip_build_libshell=false --wifi wf200

For SiWx917 NCP

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/siwx917_lighting BRD41xxx disable_lcd=true use_external_flash=false --wifi SiWx917

For SiWx917 SOC

./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh examples/lighting-app/silabs/ out/SiWx917_lighting BRD4388A

Running the OTA Download Scenario

  • Create a bootable image file (using the Lighting application image as an example):

    commander gbl create chip-efr32-lighting-example.gbl --compress lzma --app chip-efr32-lighting-example.s37

Note:- Using LZMA compression when building the .gbl file ( passing --compress lzma parameter to the commander gbl create command) further reduces the downloaded image size.

  • Create the Matter OTA file from the bootable image file:

    $ commander ota create --type matter --input chip-efr32-lighting-example.gbl --vendorid 0xFFF1 --productid 0x8005 --swstring "2.0" --swversion 2 --digest sha256 -o chip-efr32-lighting-example.ota

Running OTA Provider

  • Locate ota-provider terminal and start the Provider app passing to it the path to the Matter OTA file created in the previous step:

  • In a terminal start the Provider app and pass to it the path to the Matter OTA file created in the previous step:

    $ rm -r /tmp/chip_kvs_provider

    ./out/chip-ota-provider-app  --KVS /tmp/chip_kvs_provider -f chip-efr32-lighting-example.ota

Setting up OTA-Requestor

  • Before running ota-requestor app flash the bootloader binary images for Silicon Labs Devices.

Flash Bootloader Images

  • Bootloader binaries will be flashed using Simplicity Commander only. It will support EFR32 NCP Boards only.

  • Silicon Labs Devices will supports below Bootloader variants for EFR32 Boards.

    • Internal Storage Bootloader

    • External Storage Bootloader

  • To Flash the Bootloader Binary along with the application for Silicon Labs Device, refer Flashing Binaries

Running OTA-Requestor

  • In a separate terminal run the chip-tool commands to provision the Provider:

    $ ./out/chip-tool pairing onnetwork 1 20202021

    $ ./out/chip-tool accesscontrol write acl '[{"fabricIndex": 1, "privilege": 5, "authMode": 2, "subjects": [112233], "targets": null}, {"fabricIndex": 1, "privilege": 3, "authMode": 2, "subjects": null, "targets": null}]' 1 0

  • For Matter over OpenThread, bring up the OpenThread Border Router and get its operational dataset, for Matter over WiFi bring up the AP.

  • If the application device had been previously commissioned, hold Button 0 for six seconds to factory-reset the device.

  • Commission the device. For Matter over OpenThread:

    $ ./out/chip-tool pairing ble-thread 2 hex:<operationalDataset> 20202021 3840

    where operationalDataset is obtained from the OpenThread Border Router.

    For Matter over WiFi:

      ./out/chip-tool pairing ble-wifi "node_id" "SSID" "PSK" 20202021 3840

  • Once the commissioning process completes enter:

    $ ./out/chip-tool otasoftwareupdaterequestor announce-otaprovider 1 0 0 0 2 0

  • The application device will connect to the Provider and start the image download. Once the image is downloaded the device will reboot into the downloaded image.

Additional Info

Developers can find more resources on Silicon Labs Matter Community Page.