Arduino Uno R4 WIFI firmware

Projects Networking, Protocols, and Devices
1

I'm trying to try out some of the examples for the Uno R4 WIFI board and I'm having a basic error with some of the Wifi sketches. One example I'm trying to run is the WiFiTime example. When it runs, I get the error "Make sure your WiFi firmware version is at least 0.5.0". With the Firmware Updater in the IDE version 2.3.4, the latest firmware I can see is 0.4.1. Is there a newer version of the board firmware, or the IDE, that I haven't found? How do I update to 0.5.0?

2

The 0.5.x are prereleases and as such not available in the IDE, but you can download and install the firmware manually.

Update your board

To flash the firmware the board needs to be in ESP download mode. This can be done manually or using the unor4wifi-updater script.

Alternatively you can also use the download.sh script to update the firmware using the arduino-cli. Also in this case the download.sh script should be invoked after putting the board in ESP download mode.

3

Thanks. What does "ESP download mode" mean? I downloaded the Release 0.5.2 from Github and tried running the install.sh script. It doesn't appear to be able to connect, though the TX LED on the board flashes occasionally.

[kraig@kraig-optiplex3010 unor4wifi-update-linux]$ sudo ./update.sh
Start flashing firmware
[2025-02-17T21:13:21Z INFO ] 🚀 A new version of espflash is available: v3.3.0
[2025-02-17T21:13:21Z INFO ] Detected 2 serial ports
[2025-02-17T21:13:21Z INFO ] Ports which match a known common dev board are highlighted
[2025-02-17T21:13:21Z INFO ] Please select a port
✔ Remember this serial port for future use? · no
[2025-02-17T21:13:32Z INFO ] Serial port: '/dev/ttyACM0'
[2025-02-17T21:13:32Z INFO ] Connecting...
[2025-02-17T21:13:32Z INFO ] Unable to connect, retrying with extra delay...
[2025-02-17T21:13:33Z INFO ] Unable to connect, retrying with default delay...
[2025-02-17T21:13:34Z INFO ] Unable to connect, retrying with extra delay...
[2025-02-17T21:13:34Z INFO ] Unable to connect, retrying with default delay...
[2025-02-17T21:13:35Z INFO ] Unable to connect, retrying with extra delay...
[2025-02-17T21:13:36Z INFO ] Unable to connect, retrying with default delay...
4
  • Note: To reprogram the ESP32 module, you need to short the ESP_Download pin to GND while resetting the board. This will put the ESP32 module in a bootloader state where you can establish a connection to it and reprogram the module.

Above from Arduinos own support pages.

5

Thanks.
Now I get "No board connected" message. At least the board still works in standard mode.

[kraig@kraig-optiplex3010 unor4wifi-update-linux]$ sudo ./update.sh
Cannot enumerate, try direct open
No board connected
Cannot put the board in ESP mode. (via 'unor4wifi-reboot')
6

Here's my "manual update, no shell scripts involved" notes for Linux:

  1. Install esptool.py if not already done (pip3 install esptool).
  2. Download latest firmware from Releases · arduino/uno-r4-wifi-usb-bridge · GitHub
  3. Extract the bin file from the firmware subdirectory in the zip.
  4. Short bottom left and bottom centre pins on 3x2 header near USB connector before powering on.
  5. Remove jumper after applying power.
  6. Erase flash with: esptool.py --chip esp32s3 --port <your port> erase_flash
  7. Write flash with: esptool.py --chip esp32s3 --port <your port> write_flash -z 0 <extracted file.bin>
7

Thanks. In this link I found advice to power off the PC: https://forum.arduino.cc/t/arduino-uno-r4-wifi-recognized-as-esp32-devices/1177896/8

After doing that and going through the firmware flashing steps again, the WiFiTime example works!