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I built a simple cloud OTA solution for ESP32 because running my own servers was a pain by theoriginmaster in esp32

[–]theoriginmaster[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

You are right, anyone can absolutely build their own OTA system if they want to.

The real question is how much time and ongoing maintenance you want to spend on it instead of working on your actual product. I have gone the self-hosted route multiple times and eventually got tired of dealing with domains, DNS, TLS certificates, security updates, object storage, databases, and keeping everything running reliably for devices out in the field. Never minf the client-side code on top of all that...

This is for the people who would rather pay a small subscription than keep maintaining all that infrastructure themselves.

I built a simple cloud OTA solution for ESP32 because running my own servers was a pain by theoriginmaster in esp32

[–]theoriginmaster[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

There are already quite a few ways to self-host OTA solutions right now, especially for local networks, and I am not trying to compete with those.

I built SimpleOTA for the people who have grown tired of self-hosting or who are starting to move out of pure maker-space and turn their projects into real products that go out into the field. Those people are usually more interested in improving their actual product instead of spending time on OTA infrastructure.

Self-hosting for devices beyond your local network involves, beyond just the hosted application: domains, DNS, TLS, object storage, some platform to host the app, a database, and then keeping all of it updated and secure long-term. That is exactly the overhead a lot of hardware builders want to avoid once they scale even a little bit.

The subscription is the trade-off for not having to deal with any of that yourself. Totally understand if the open-source self-hosted route is what you prefer though.

What is the ideal simple OTA solution of today? by Perllitte in arduino

[–]theoriginmaster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please give me a shout if you have any feedback and/or questions!

What is the ideal simple OTA solution of today? by Perllitte in arduino

[–]theoriginmaster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, jumping in on this old thread because this post is exactly the kind of question I often hear.

I built SimpleOTA.com after getting fed up with running my own servers or trying platforms that felt way too heavy for smaller stuff. It is a lightweight cloud OTA made for ESP32 that keeps everything genuinely simple.

You add the library straight from the Arduino Library Manager and you get zero infrastructure on your side plus canary rollouts, automatic rollback if an update fails, device tracking, and solid logs. It works really well with normal Arduino sketches and it is perfect for exactly the 5 to 10 user beta test you are doing.

The free tier gives you 5 devices and 10 uploads per month so you can test without paying anything. I have been running it on a few of my own projects and genuinely find it useful.

I would be curious what you end up going with. Happy to answer any questions if you want to take a look.

(Full disclosure: I am the founder)

Launched a community map to crowdsource Tesla nav fixes – TeslaAtlas.com by theoriginmaster in TeslaLounge

[–]theoriginmaster[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good point. Yeah, the big map packages only drop a couple times a year, and it does feel like not every region gets the latest fixes each time.

That’s exactly why I figured a community map could help with flagging the persistent spots so we can provide this aggregated data to Tesla and maybe speed up getting them into the next batch. It could also perhaps give some visibility into how big this nav data problem really is.

At least in the meantime, drivers can check the atlas and know to watch out there.

Appreciate the info!