Unable to Update Bangle.js 2 Firmware Using the App Loader

Hi there,

I'm new here and new to the bangle.js. I just want to preface this by saying I think it's great and I'm looking forward to seeing how the bangle.js evolves in future.

Anyway, so I just received my bangle.js 2 a couple of days ago and I've just been toying about with it. I installed some apps and I've read quite a few posts on the forum here.

I read a post about firmware updates the other day and decided to see if I was running the latest firmware on my new watch. My current firmware version is 2v12 and the bootloader is 2v12. I saw that 2v.13 and 2v.13.16 firmware versions are both available and tried uploading each of these to my bangle.js 2 using the app loader.

Unfortunately, none of these are uploading to the watch. I initially tried uploading the firmware on my android phone using Bromite (a chromium browser) and and then on Chromium itself. Each time the firmware uploads about a 1/4 of the way and then stops. A couple of times it did go about halfway but then also stopped. I also tried uploading with my VPN turned off but I got the same result. I can connect to the browsers and upload apps just fine on android (Bromite & Chromium) but it seems to have difficulty uploading firmware to the watch for some reason.

No error messages are visible when the upload stops. Maybe I'm being impatient and the firmware upload is a long process? I have left it for up to 10 minutes at times without any progress so I doubt it, but maybe the upload process is much longer than I think it is. Please let me know how long it should take :)

I also jumped onto my laptop which runs the latest version of Fedora and tried to get web bluetooth running on Chromium too but so far I've had no luck. I installed the latest version of BlueZ on my laptop. I then followed the guide on Espruino to configure web bluetooth for Chromium browsers on linux. When I checked for web bluetooth on the Espruino Web IDE, it mentioned that the web bluetooth API was available but was not supported by the browser.

Not sure what else to do now. I done a factory reset on the watch too and I'm still getting the same results when I try to update the firmware. Is there a way I can get web bluetooth working on fedora to give it a go on my laptop? Or is there something I can do to update the firmware on android?

Any help would be much appreciated :)

Okay, so just as I posted this I logged onto a family member's laptop to help them with something and had the bright idea to try uploading the latest firmware on there. (:

The laptop runs Windows 10 and I used Google Chrome. It worked first time with no issues. Wish I'd thought of trying that before I made this post.

Anyway, I'm still curious if anyone has any ideas about why the firmware upload failed originall on my laptop and on my phone. I don't really fancy using Windows or Chrome or someone else's device to update the firmware every time (but at least I know it works if I have no other alternative).

Anyone here have any luck updating the firmware using Chromium or Chromium based browsers on Fedora or Android? Or would anyone using Android or Fedora be willing to test it out to see if they can get it to work?

My phone is a Pixel which runs the latest version of GrapheneOS in case that is also relevant.

Sorry for the long post so far. I find this all so frustrating and interesting all at once, so I can't help but get carried away :)

Sorry about your issues updating firmware... I did actually just (yesterday) make some changes to both the app loader and the firmware which should have really helped things and they only went live to banglejs.com/apps late yesterday. It's possible that just refreshing the app loader now would make things a lot more reliable for you.

Was the app loader definitely in the foreground all the while during the update?

If you have it in a tab and then you switch away from the tab, Chrome often pauses that tab after a while, which eventually will cause things to time out and fail.

Anyone here have any luck updating the firmware using Chromium or Chromium based browsers on Fedora or Android?

I use Linux (Mint/Ubuntu) and Android here daily and I have no issues. Did you flip the 'experimental web features' chrome flag to on?

It might also be worth trying to install just the normal Chrome (not Chromium). Some people have reported that makes a difference on Linux.

Updating firmware worked fine on my chromium on Ubuntu after enabling both chrome flags.
Sometimes I do need to pair the watch first in the bluethooth manager before it wants to connect in chromium.

Hi @Gordon, thanks for replying.

I did enable both chrome flags as mentioned on Espruino yesterday, and I also definitely had the app loader in the foreground while uploading too.

I gave it another go today on my laptop with Chromium installed and you'll be pleased to hear that I did manage to upload the firmware (first time). I tried it on Chrome and ungoogled Chromium too just out of interest. Chrome worked but for some reason ungoogled Chromium didn't. Not sure why it worked today, but I'm happy it did. Maybe something to do with the update that went live late yesterday?

I also tried it again on Android and still couldn't get it to work, even on Chromium and Chrome. Not sure why, maybe it's a limitation of GrapheneOS?

Is it possible I need to enable the chrome flags on Android too or is that just a Linux requirement?

I'll keep investigating and see if I can get it to work on my phone. Thanks again for your help :)

Thanks @edb I tried it today and got it working on Chromium on Fedora so I'll count that as a win :)

I did actually try your suggestion of pairing the watch with the bluetooth manager before I attempted to upload the firmware, so maybe that helped. I'm not sure what fixed it but I appreciate your suggestion anyway.

Thanks again :)

Is it possible I need to enable the chrome flags on Android too or is that just a Linux requirement?

No, it should 'just work' on Android, HOWEVER since GrapheneOS seems to market itself as a privacy related OS it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they disabled stuff like this by default (if not permanently)