This Blog will explain the sample application appliance.c that comes with the WICED SDK.

Thanks to  David Armour for putting this together.

The Appliance application demonstrates how a simple web page can be used to send information to a UART when a button on the webpage is clicked. The application mimics a very basic user interface to control a home appliance such as a washing machine or dryer.

See attached presentation.

WICED SMART™
Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices for Bluetooth SMART

The Cypress WICED SMART™ Software Development Kit eases development effort and simplifies the implementation of wireless connectivity in an array of consumer, medical, fitness and home automation devices. It is a complete cable replacement for connecting to smartphones, tablets and PCs.

Developers use the WICED SMART™ development kit to create secure Bluetooth SMART wireless applications. The development kit consists of:

• WICED SMART™ small form factor development board (with coin cell holder)
• Software development kit
• Quick Start documentation
• Proximity reference board complete with sensors

The WICED™ SMART Development System enables Bluetooth SMART connectivity for:

• Home, Health and Fitness (Proximity tags, Asset tracking, Heart Rate Monitors, Pedometers)
• Sensors, Home Monitoring and Control (Weight scales, Fitness equipment, Blood Pressure Monitors, Fitness Wrist Bands)
• Consumer (Toys, Games, Pet Tracking, Shoe Sensors)

WICED SMART™ Development Kits

Broadcom provides a WICED SMART™ Software Development Kit and is working with partners to deliver turnkey hardware solutions to enable Bluetooth Smart connectivity.

• Allows access to peripherals, timers, stack and profiles
• Supports ARM RealView RVDS and CodeSourcery G++ Lite tool-chains
• Supports development on Linux, Windows and OSX
• Integrated with an Eclipse IDE
• Includes example applications

Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth SmartBridge™)

Use the WICED Development System to create secure embedded wireless networking applications on an existing product microcontroller, or on an additional WICED module that includes a microcontroller. Either way, the comprehensive and size-optimized WICED application library and embedded Wi-Fi driver work together with a Broadcom® embedded wireless LAN chip to provide seamless wireless connectivity. Apple MFi HomeKit ready and Universal Bluetooth Smart to WLAN bridge designs are also available.

If you need ultra low power wireless, use the included WICED SmartBridge™ API to provide seamless data aggregation and internet connectivity for WICED Smart devices as well.

The WICED™ Development System enables Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth bridging for:   

• Home, Health and Fitness (Cameras, Speakers, Washers, Dryers, Fridges, Ranges)
• Sensors, Home Monitoring and Control (Weight scales, Fitness equipment, Blood Pressure Monitors, Thermostats, Security Cameras, Alarms, Light switches)

Find out more in our WICED™ Frequently Asked Questions section: View FAQ

What is WICED?

• WICED™ (Wireless Connectivity for Embedded Devices) is a development system that vastly reduces the effort required to add wireless connectivity to embedded devices. The SDK enables developers to quickly create network connected applications targeted for low-resource microcontrollers. Apple MFi HomeKit ready and Universal Bluetooth Smart to WLAN bridge designs are also available.

What's included in WICED™ Studio/WICED SDK?

The WICED Studio/WICED SDK includes :

• An open source build system and toolchain based on GNU make.
• A GUIDE based on Eclipse CDT that seamlessly integrates with a programmer and single-step, thread-aware, debugger based on OpenOCD and gdb.
• A complete software stack that includes advanced security and networking features such as SSL/TLS, IPv4/IPv6 networking, and mDNS/Bonjour.
• Production ready example applications.

Which Operating Systems does WICED Studio/WICED SDK run on?

• WICED Studio/WICED SDK runs on all major operating systems including Windows®, Mac OS X and Linux.

How much does the WICED Studio/WICED SDK cost?

• The WICED Studio/WICED SDK are both available free when developing applications on microcontrollers connected to Cypress Wi-Fi products.

Which RTOS & Network Stacks are available within WICED Studio/WICED SDK?

• Two options are available: a commercial option which is provided as linkable object files, and an open source option. Both options are free when used with microprocessors connected to a Cypress Wi-Fi chip. The commercial option, ThreadX/NetXDuo from Express Logic, provides full IPv4 and IPv6 networking functionality. The open source option, FreeRTOS/LwiP only provides IPv4 networking functionality.

What if I want to use a different RTOS or Network Stack?

• The WICED™ API abstracts the RTOS & networking stack in an attempt to avoid the need for developers to interact directly with these software components. The abstraction layer is written to minimize the effort required to port to other RTOS & Network Stacks if desired.

Does the SDK support Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS)?

• Yes. WPS 1.0 and 2.0 are supported. The WPS supplicant runs on the microcontroller.

How much Flash and RAM does my application need?

• Application resource requirements vary depending on networking and security features required by the application. Most applications require at least 512kB Flash memory and 64-128kB RAM.

Where do I buy WICED™ evaluation boards?

• WICED™ modules and evaluation boards are available from Cypress, Module Partners and Franchised Distributors.
  • IoT Solutions Guide
  • Purchase a WICED Wi-Fi Development Kit

Does WICED™ support SSL/TLS security?

• Yes. WICED™ supports TLS up to version 1.2. Coupled with the included http client and http server modules, WICED™ supports full HTTPS encryption. The SSL/TLS supplicant runs on the microcontroller.

Which Microcontrollers are supported by the SDK?

• The SDK supports a range of STM32 microprocessors from ST Microelectronics, the SAM4 series from Atmel and Kinetis K60 from NXP/Freescale. Support for microprocessors from additional vendors including Cypress is in progress.

Does the WICED™ SDK support Wi-Fi Direct?

• Full Wi-Fi Direct finctionality is supported in the WICED SDK. The console app provides all the reference functionality including GO/GC; the stack will be WFA certified in the near future

Does the Wi-Fi security supplicant run on the microcontroller?

• The IEEE 802.11i supplicant within WICED is implemented via the BESL library and runs as a combination of software on the MCU and firmware on the WLAN device to offload aspects of the handshake.

Many "snips" or applications require you to associate to an existing router so you can obtain an IP address, ping devices, send traffic, and various other things.

This is simple to do by editing the wifi_config_dct header file.

In the directory on the left side of the IDE in the application you are running, there is a header file "wifi_config_dct.h" listed.

     For example: <WICED-SDK>/apps/snip/apsta/wifi_config_dct.h

If you open this in the editor window and scroll down, you will see the CLIENT_AP_SSID and CLIENT_AP_PASSPHRASE" define values.

Simply edit these to match your router credentials and save the file.

In the example below, the SSID broadcasting is ASUS and the PASSPHRASE is 12345678.

Compile, download and run the target and you will have success associating the the AP.

In the terminal window you will see the association details and the IP address:

As you know from reading the Quick Start Guide the USB port on the module acts as a power source, an interface to the IDE, and also provides serial port communications.

This allows you to use a terminal emulation application such as TeraTerm, PuTTY or CoolTerm (OS X) to communicate with the device from the USB port on your PC.

After installing the terminal emulator of your choice you will need to know which COM port it is on. In the device manager of Windows you can see this.

Next you will need to configure the emulator (PuTTY is used here).  In the case above it is on COM5 so you will need to go to the Serial port settings of your Terminal Program and change it to COM5. The setting default is probably 9600-8-1-N but should be changed to 115200-8-1-N, shown below. Next go to the Session category on the left side and make sure that Serial is chosen as the connection type and then open the terminal.

When working correctly, you will see the ">" prompt and output to the terminal.

When you press the reset button on the module, you will see output to the terminal window, and some useful information depending on what you are running.

Note: Sometimes the terminal has to be reset.  If you are not getting any output, close the terminal, reopen and setup serial port again.

Greetings,

From time to time we will blog useful information here related to WICED WiFi.

We would like to keep this interactive, so if you have suggestions on what you would like to see here, please comment or message me.  We will keep things generic, so everyone can benefit.

EXAMPLES:

• Tutorials on using WICED modules along with the development environment (IDE).
• Step by step guides to show applications running on the WiCED modules
  • iperf
  • wifi scanning
  • Ping
  • APSTA
  • Powercycle
  • and other examples from the SDK.
• Roadmap information for SW and HW as it becomes public

What is WICED SMART™?

• WICED SMART™ is a very low power family of pin compatible modules, which when paired with the included software development kit, vastly reduces the effort required to add Bluetooth Smart (previously known as Bluetooth Low Energy) wireless connectivity to embedded applications. The WICED SMART™ SDK enables developers to quickly create applications targeted for low power embedded devices connecting to Bluetooth Smart devices such as smart phones and tablets.

What is included in the WICED SMART™ SDK?

The WICED SMART™ SDK includes :

• Documentation and links to an open source build system and tool chain based on GNU make
• Guide to using a GUI IDE based on Eclipse and links for SW
• A complete software/application library that includes support for all Bluetooth Low Energy functionality and profiles
• Documentation and header files
• Production ready example applications

How much does the SDK cost?

• The SDK is available free for use with the Broadcom WICED SMART™ Development Kit.

Which Operating Systems does the SDK run on?

• The WICED Smart SDK runs on 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows. Support for OS X and Linux support was added in the SDK 2.x release.
• Note: You will also want to make sure you download the latest FTDI USB to Serial Driver as well: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
• Note that the WICED Sense evaluation platform utilizes a Silicon Labs USB to Serial device, and you can find the drivers for it here: USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers | Silicon Labs

Which version of the Java Runtime Environment is Required?

• The WICED SMART SDK utilizes a 32-bit version of an Eclipse based IDE which requires a 32-bit version of JRE to be installed. If you have the 64-bit JRE installed you will need to install the 32-bit version as well. The JRE is designed to allow both 32 and 64 bit variants to be installed on the same system.

Is the stack included with the SDK?

• Broadcom’s WICED SMART™ solution is designed for ease of use and rapid prototyping. A complete BT 4.1 stack together with several profiles and applications are embedded in ROM. Hooks to exercise the stack and profiles are provided in libraries provided with the SDK library. A complete solution that includes a stack, profiles, libraries and examples makes it easy to write Bluetooth Smart applications with the WICED SMART SDK.

How much Flash and RAM does my application need?

• Since the BT 4.1 stack is already embedded inside Broadcom Bluetooth Smart chips, applications have access to a large percentage of the RAM available on the chip. The actual RAM available for an application depends on the chip and firmware being leveraged.

Where do I buy WICED SMART™ evaluation boards?

• WICED SMART™ modules and evaluation boards are available from Broadcom, ODMs and third-party distributionPartners
• Order Here: WICED Smart Partners

Does WICED SMART™ support any Smartphone or Tablet applications?

• Yes. Smartphone and Tablet apps with a multi-purpose GUI to benchmark WICED SMART™ applications are available for iOS and Android.

Does the WICED SMART™ SDK enable Bluetooth Smart data aggregation and connectivity to the internet?

• Yes. When used in conjuction with the SmartBridge™ feature of the WICED Wi-Fi SDK, data from Bluetooth Smart devices is aggregated and bridged to the internet with Broadcom Wi-Fi. Alternately, Bluetooth Smart data may be bridged to the internet using a custom smartphone or tablet application.

Where do I get support?

• General support for the WICED Smart™ Development System is available on the WICED SMART™ forum and through our distributionPartners

Questions:

1. Why do I get continuous data flow from the USB-UART Bridge of CY8CKIT-042 even if the Tx and Rx terminals of the bridge are not connected?
2. Why does the input buffer of the USB-UART Bridge overflow on CY8CKIT-042? 

Answer: If the physical connections of the USB-UART Bridge (shown in Figure 1) are made before opening the COM port interfacing applications such as hyperterminal, PuTTY, TeraTerm, or any other software application that reads data from the KitBridge COM interface, you might run into a UART read buffer overflow condition in the Bridge. This condition occurs when there is continuous data transfer from the UART connections of the bridge, but the PC does not read this data until the COM port interface application is invoked. If buffer overflow happens, you will observe continuous inflow of data in the COM port interface software even if there is no communication on the UART side of the KitBridge. The current bridge firmware does not clear the buffer overflow flag when it is set and hence the inflow of data through the COM port interface continues even if the physical connections to the UART (Tx, Rx) are removed.

This issue is found in the KitProg firmware revision 2.02 and got fixed in the later version of the KitProg. It’s recommended that you upgrade to the latest version of the KitProg.