Notecard Firmware Releases

v7.5.2 (November 22, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-7.5.2.17004$20241202101642.bin
• Notecard WiFi v2: notecard-s3-7.5.2.17004$20241202101642.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-7.5.2.17004$20241202101642.bin
• Notecard for LoRa: notecard-wl-7.5.2.17004$20241202101642.bin

Changes:

1. This is the first Developer Firmware release to support Midband Notecards.
2. Support for multiple SSIDs for WiFi-capable Notecards via the text argument.
3. Added a new feature to card.location.track that allows _track.qo Notes to carry a user payload.
4. The response to a card.status request now returns the effective inbound and outbound sync period in the inbound and outbound fields, respectively.
5. The response to a card.status request now returns a sync field that indicates if the Notecard has ever synced with Notehub.
6. Improvements to DFU error reporting.
7. Improvements and bug fixes for the interactions between Notecard and Starnote.
8. Bug fix for Notecard Outboard Firmware Update with STM32L5 MCUs.

note

v7.5.1 of the Notecard for LoRa firmware contained a bug that affected firmware updates via sideload. v7.5.2 fixes that issue and aligns version numbers for all other firmware binaries.

v7.4.2 (August 29, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-7.4.2.16888$20240827231908.bin
• Notecard WiFi v2: notecard-s3-7.4.2.16888$20240827231908.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-7.4.2.16888$20240827231908.bin
• Notecard LoRa: notecard-wl-7.4.2.16888$20240827231908.bin

Changes:

1. Added support for toggling AUX_EN with the environment variable _aux_en.
2. Added support for the card.io API mode:"+busy" argument on Notecard LoRa.
3. Added ability to disable the onboard LED (as part of the card.io API).
4. Allow attn mode to be changed while re-arming.
5. Replaced brownout detection RTC reset with app level RTC check.
6. Added a fix for Notecard WiFi v2 Soft AP mode.
7. Improvements to the DFU state machine.
8. Improvements for Notecard LoRa sync times.
9. Added support for Notecard XP.
10. Added support for non-XP Notecards in the Notecarrier XP.
11. Fixes an issue with Notecard LoRa that resulted in the device loading invalid firmware when updating from a 6.x to a 7.x firmware release.

v7.3.1 (June 24, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-7.3.1.16689$20240621172824.bin
• Notecard WiFi v2: notecard-s3-7.3.1.16689$20240621172824.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-7.3.1.16689$20240621172824.bin
• Notecard LoRa: notecard-wl-7.3.1.16689$20240621172824.bin

Changes:

1. Improved reliability of Starnote-to-Notecard communications.
2. Significantly improved I2C reliability on Notecard WiFi v2.
3. Improved reliability of Notecard Outboard Firmware Update for STM32-based MCUs.
4. Expanded Notecard Outboard Firmware Update support to include additional STM32 chip varieties.
5. General improvements to the responsiveness and reliability of Notecard firmware updates.
6. First release to support the Mojo power monitor.
7. Added new var APIs, var.set, var.get, and var.delete, for an easier way to manage DB Notefiles.

v7.2.2 (April 10, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-7.2.2.16518$20240410043100.bin
• Notecard WiFi v2: notecard-s3-7.2.2.16518$20240410043100.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-7.2.2.16518$20240410043100.bin
• Notecard LoRa: notecard-wl-7.2.2.16518$20240410043100.bin

Changes:

1. Improved support for Starnote and non-terrestrial networks (NTN).
2. Various Notecard LoRa improvements and bug fixes.
3. Improved network stability for Notecard WiFi v2.
4. Improved Notecard Outboard Firmware Update for STM32 targets.

v7.2.1 (March 6, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-7.2.1.16425$20240305202032.bin
• Notecard WiFi v2: notecard-s3-7.2.1.16425$20240305202032.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-7.2.1.16425$20240305202032.bin
• Notecard LoRa: notecard-wl-7.2.1.16425$20240305202032.bin

Changes:

1. Added support for Notecard LoRa.
2. Added support for Starnote and non-terrestrial networks (NTN).
3. Fixed a bug where the "files" array wasn't being respected for the card.attn request's "files" mode.
4. Augmented the response to the note.template request to identify if metadata will be included with Notes. Metadata is included by default for cellular and Wi-Fi transports, but not for LoRa or NTN.
5. Increased the maximum payload size for non-templated Notes from 250 to 256.
6. Improved JSON number handling for very large and very small numbers.
7. Reduced power consumption when tracking a journey with the card.motion request.
8. Improved time to recover from ECONNABORTED network errors.

v5.3.1 (September 18, 2023)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-5.3.1.16292$20230917203639.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-5.3.1.16292$20230917203639.bin

Changes:

1. Adds support for efficient binary data transfer with card.binary.
2. Adds the ability to validate Notecard responses with a CRC check.
3. Adds Outboard Firmware Update support to hosts that support MCUboot bootloader.
4. When USB-connected, adds additional retries before a network registration penalty box is initiated.
5. Added the _fw_download_always_enabled reserved environment variable to override host behavior and always allow DFU operations.
6. Added the ability to automatically return to the preferred SIM selection after a user-defined number of hours when using an external SIM and SIM failover.
7. Reduced the amount of time it takes to perform a Notecard DFU.
8. Fixes the erroneous return of {io} in response to a corrupted message sent as a command.
9. Fixes possible contradictory card.location status response when card.location.mode is set to "mode":"off".
10. Preserves the host DFU metadata in the event of a host restart.

v5.1.1 (April 5, 2023)

Firmware: notecard-5.1.1.16026$20230511152328.bin and checksums

1. All web requests now offer an async argument. The new argument allows you to send web requests without waiting for a response from Notehub.
2. The hub.signal request now provides a seconds argument for handling timeouts.
3. You can now schedule automatic Notecard Outboard Firmware Updates with the _dfu_period environment variable.
4. The Notecard can now restart hosts in a variety of ways using the _restart_host_use_attn, _restart_host, _restart_host_every_hours, and _restart_host_no_activity_hours environment variables.
5. The hub.sync.status request now returns machine-readable codes to allow for better tracking of the Notecard's sync process. (You can try this for yourself by running a hub.sync request in the In-Browser Terminal.)
6. The hub.sync.status request no longer includes time or completed in its response until after the first device sync.
7. The card.aux request now provides a ms argument you can use to debounce state transitions under a provided duration.
8. The card.aux.serial request now provides way of notifying a host when the Notecard downloads host firmware.
9. Wi-Fi configuration is now saved before device reboots.
10. The Notecard has a new algorithm for voltage averaging to reduce swings due to modem current draws.
11. A bug is fixed that prevented switching the rate with the card.aux.serial request.
12. Various download speed improvements to Notecard Outboard Firmware Update.

v3.5.2 (November 2, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-3.5.2.15620$20221031190539.bin and checksums

1. Reduce hub.set continuous mode data usage from ~4KB/hour to ~2.5KB/hour for apps requesting immediate inbound Notefile sync by specifying sync:true.
2. Improvements to Notecard Outboard Firmware Update and a bug fix for STM32 hosts with inverted boot.

v3.5.1 (October 7, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-3.5.1.15545$20221118160948.bin and checksums

1. The card.motion.sync request now allows you to sync on orientation changes (instead of motion changes) by passing a threshold of 0. With this mode enabled, motion events now include a tilt field to show the number of orientation changes since the previous event.
2. Added the ability to get alerts if USB power is connected or disconnected through the card.voltage request.
3. The Notecard now automatically triggers a sync when its file system is full.
4. Added a {wifi-unavailable} error when making a card.wifi request on cellular Notecards.
5. Added 15 minutes as a minimum session length for Notecards in continuous mode.
6. Fixed an issue where no-sat tracking notes could inadvertently appear when using external GPS.
7. Fixed an issue that could cause loss of cmd requests if sent in rapid succession.

v3.4.1 (August 3, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-3.4.1.15128$20220811230306.bin and checksums

1. Added card.aux.serial to expose various capabilities over the Notecard AUX pins.
2. Added support for streaming of Notecard accelerometer data.
3. Enhancements to env.get and env.set to fetch a group of variables, and query variables by modified time.
4. Added env mode to card.attn to monitor environment variable changes.
5. Added auxgpio mode to card.attn to monitor AUX GPIO changes.
6. Added time field to env.modified to query for environment variable changes since a known epoch time.
7. Added threshold to card.location.mode response when not 0.
8. Added limit to card.aux to disable concurrent modem use when using an external GPS receiver.
9. Added on, seconds, and off to hub.set to enable temporary continuous mode when performing web transactions.
10. Enable GPS/GNSS activation even if Notecard time has not yet been set from a successful cell network connection.
11. Change GPS/GNSS hdop to float.
12. Allow GPS/GNSS seek even if the Notecard is in a cellular network penalty box.
13. Add penalty box errors to status returns for GPS/GNSS and Network connectivity.
14. Ensure hub.sync.status returns extended service failure errors in response.
15. Restart continuous mode session if inbound notification is sent to the Notecard.

v3.3.1 (May 23, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-3.3.1.14612$20220518212851.bin and checksums

1. Autonomous reporting of GPIO state with card.aux. See Using AUX GPIO Mode for more information.
2. Addition of usb, gps, wifi, and cell to the response object of card.status which indicates the associated component is powered on.
3. Adding unsigned types of uint8, uint16, uint24, and uint32, to Note templates.
4. The card.motion.mode API's sensitivity settings have been updated to use 25Hz sampling, providing improved performance.
5. The "best location" in Notehub will remain the most recent GPS location, as long as the device has not moved and an adequate GPS signal is established (instead of reverting to cell tower location after 72 hours of no GPS activity).
6. In tracking applications, daily charging minutes added to _track.qo Note template.
7. The card.wireless API is now supported on Wi-Fi Notecard.
8. Wi-Fi Notecard error messages improved when there are Wi-Fi connection failures.
9. Addition of the _restart_no_activity_hours reserved environment variable.
10. Miscellaneous other minor improvements and fixes.

v3.2.1 (February 2, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-3.2.1.13982$20220821154627.bin and checksums

1. note.template payloads and strings can now be variable-length.
2. Added verify:true to note.template to return the current template on a Notefile.
3. web.post now supports payload fragmentation and reassembly at Notehub.
4. card.attn adds verify:true to show the current attention mode configuration.
5. card.attn adds mode: disarm,-all to clear all monitored conditions.
6. AUX UART baud rate is now configurable via a card.aux request.
7. Added GPS HDOP to card.location response in status and threshold fields.
8. Major rewrite of JSON marshalling/unmarshalling logic to reduce runtime memory needed and allow the Notecard to sync a much larger number of non-templated Notes.
9. Miscellaneous sync and power management improvements and minor fixes.

v1.5.6 (October 8, 2021)

1. Added the web.delete API.
2. Added seconds as an optional parameter on all web requests as an override to the standard 90 second timeout.
3. Support for bidirectional Notehub.io certificate verification during TLS authentication.
4. A random, unique, Note ID can be created and returned on a note.add if the supplied Note ID is "?".
5. file.stats now takes an optional "file" parameter that returns the stats for the specified Notefile only.
6. note.add, note.update, and note.delete all accept the verify:true parameter to immediately save the Notefile change to flash.
7. dfu.status adds an err string property. If used along with "stop":true, this sets the host DFU to an error state with the specified string.

v1.5.5 (May 27, 2021)

1. Enhancements to support Notecard-related features in the Airnote product.
2. Added support for end-to-end encryption of Notes through Notehub.
3. Add GNSS Horizontal dilution of precision (HDOP) support, including waiting for location to converge to configured HDOP before recording _track.qo notes, and adding the HDOP to the _track.qo body.
4. If sync:true is specified in card.location.track, an immediate sync occurs every time a track note is added.
5. card.version now accepts a field api: major-version that defines, for compatibility purposes, the major version number of the notecard firmware that the host was developed to use. In the response, the api returns the current firmware's version number.
6. Added _tri_gps_failure environment variable as a triangulation configuration option for Notecard to first try GPS, then fallback to using cellular triangulation if it is unable to make a GPS fix.
7. Fix to improve the accuracy of card.voltage readings.
8. Corrected behavior of heartbeat reporting in card.location.track.
9. Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements to MCU/SBC host reliability, continuous mode operation, and external SIM support.

v1.5.3 (February 24, 2021)

1. Notecard I2C request/response reliability improved when the I2C bus is shared among multiple devices.
2. Added rearm and wireless modes to card.attn.
3. Implemented minutes as a new response to card.location.mode to return the currently-configured ring-fence debounce period.
4. To allow for long-range enclosed transportation use cases, Implemented an enhancement to suppress motion-induced Notecard wake up when repeated network connectivity failures occur.
5. Added a warning to _health.qo if battery voltage is low or dead, at most once per day.
6. Implemented a card.random function to obtain a single or buffer full of random numbers from the Notecard hardware RNG.
7. Miscellaneous bug fixes and reliability improvements for devices communicating over I2C and those running in continuous communications mode.

LTS v6.2.5 (August 19, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-6.2.5.16868$20240819133312.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-6.2.5.16868$20240819133312.bin
• Notecard LoRa: notecard-wl-6.2.5.16868$20240819133312.bin

Changes:

1. Reduced excessive accelerometer logging.
2. Improved modem reliability for all Notecards, along with some specific improvements for narrowband (NB) SKUs.
3. Added support for Notecard XP.
4. Fixed a bug related to Wi-Fi fallback for Notecard Cell+WiFi.
5. Added support for toggling AUX_EN with the environment variable _aux_en.
6. Replaced brownout detection RTC reset with app level RTC check.

LTS v6.2.3 (May 17, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-6.2.3.16585$20240517112300.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-6.2.3.16585$20240517112300.bin
• Notecard LoRa: notecard-wl-6.2.3.16585$20240517112300.bin

Changes:

1. This is the first LTS version to support Starnote and non-terrestrial networks (NTN).
2. This is the first LTS version to support Notecard LoRa.
3. Improved Notecard Outboard Firmware Update for STM32 targets.
4. Fixed a bug where the "files" array wasn't being respected for the card.attn request's "files" mode.
5. Augmented the response to the note.template request to identify if metadata will be included with Notes. Metadata is included by default for cellular and Wi-Fi transports, but not for LoRa or NTN.
6. Increased the maximum payload size for non-templated Notes from 250 to 256.
7. Improved JSON number handling for very large and very small numbers.
8. Reduced power consumption when tracking a journey with the card.motion request.
9. Improved time to recover from ECONNABORTED network errors.
10. Fix output of trace on AUX after Notecard DFU.

LTS v6.1.1 (January 3, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-6.1.1.16332$20231222144855.bin
• Notecard Cellular (black), Notecard Cell+WiFi: notecard-u5-6.1.1.16332$20231222144855.bin

Changes:

1. This is the first LTS branch to support the Notecard Cell+WiFi.
2. Allow the Notecard to wake the host (or send a Note) when the Notecard's motion status changes from "moving" to "stopped" (or vice versa). Learn how to configure this feature in this guide.
3. Added Notecard Outboard Firmware Update support to the Notecard WiFi v2.
4. Added the _usb_disable reserved environment variable to allow for remotely disabling the Notecard's USB port to prevent tampering.
5. A call to hub.sync.status will return scan:true if triangulation data was sent to Notehub in the most recent sync.
6. The LED on the Notecard Cell+WiFi and Notecard WiFi v2 will blink red when Wi-Fi is active.
7. A call to card.location will now return cell tower location or triangulated location of the most recent session if GPS not available.

LTS v4.4.4 (September 27, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-4.4.4.4015707$20240926192723.bin

Changes:

1. Fix excessive logging when exiting the penalty box.

LTS v4.4.3 (July 12, 2024)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-4.4.3.4015706$20240710130004.bin

Changes:

1. Increased the likelihood of retaining the Notecard's time when recovering from a power brownout condition.

LTS v4.4.2 (November 30, 2023)

Downloads:

• Notecard Cellular (green), Notecard WiFi v1: notecard-4.4.2.4015704$20231130201039.bin

Changes:

1. Errors reported by the onboard accelerometer are no longer sent to Notehub by default.
2. Fix to prevent host MCU from re-downloading host firmware upon restart.
3. Fix possible contradictory card.location status response when card.location.mode is set to "mode":"off".
4. Fix an issue where, after an inbound Notefile was retrieved, using "sync":true in a note.add request didn't actually initiate a sync.

LTS v4.4.1 (May 15, 2023)

Firmware: notecard-4.4.1.4015700$20230505180038.bin and checksums

1. Fix to preserve dfu.status metadata values after Notecard restarts.
2. Fix incorrect cellular penalty box data in the card.wireless.penalty and hub.sync.status seconds responses.

LTS v4.2.1 (March 3, 2023)

Firmware: notecard-4.2.1.4015688$20230227005219.bin and checksums

1. Decrease duration of Wi-Fi penalty box if in continuous mode or on USB power.
2. If hub.set mode changed to "off" while the modem is powering up, modem will quickly and gracefully shut down.
3. Fix to make hub.set mode:"dfu" idempotent.
4. Fix to keep the Notecard modem from powering on after a hard reset if mode:"off".
5. Fix to keep the Notecard online if in continuous mode and OTA DFU has been paused.

LTS v4.1.1 (December 7, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-4.1.1.4015681$20221206134917.bin and checksums

1. Annual Long Term Support (LTS) release. For additional details and our LTS policy see this section. Includes all features in developer release 3.5.2 as well as the items below.
2. Service failure retry & penalty box fixes.
3. Clear files on card.attn when mode is disarm.
4. Return current serial baud rate in response to a card.aux.serial request.
5. ATTN Watchdog fixes for computing polling intervals and resets.
6. Improvements related to JSON array and string handling in Notecard requests.

LTS v2.4.1 (Feb 6, 2023)

Firmware: notecard-2.4.1.2014024$20230127210448.bin and checksums

1. Enhance card.attn to add -all option and improve watchdog timing.
2. Show extended service failures in hyb.sync.status requests.
3. Improve timing accuracy of card.location.track heartbeat events, and prevent spurious heartbeat events if motion has occurred.
4. Fix to ensure that Wi-Fi signal and SSID always show for card.wireless requests and in _session.qo Notefiles.
5. Fix to keep the Notecard online when in continuous mode and DFU has been paused.

LTS v2.3.1 (June 14, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-2.3.1.2014013$20220613194620.bin and checksums

1. Added additional programmatically testable error codes to JSON responses.
2. Support for open SSIDs on the Wi-Fi Notecard.
3. Enhancements to long term robustness for always-on devices.
4. Miscellaneous enhancements for DFU timeouts, card.motion.mode sensitivity settings, GPS location updates.
5. Addition of the _restart_no_activity_hours reserved environment variable.

LTS v2.2.1 (March 1, 2022)

Firmware: notecard-2.2.1.2013856$20220219214539.bin and checksums

1. Send Wi-Fi usage data to Notehub in session data.
2. Add Wi-Fi usage data to card.version.
3. Light red LED to register SoftAP button push, and when in SoftAP mode.

LTS v2.1.1 (November 15, 2021)

Firmware: notecard-2.1.1.2013839$20211117220152.bin and checksums

1. First Long Term Support (LTS) version. For additional details and our LTS policy see this section.
2. Added support for local-only Database Notefiles via a .dbx extension. These Notefiles reside on the Notecard and do not sync to Notehub.io.
3. Miscellaneous fixes for DFU, Notehub connection management, and penalty box behavior.