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Over-the-Air (OTA) Updates

Incurs Usage

Deploying OTA updates incurs usage costs after exceeding the free tier. See Golioth pricing for more information.

The Golioth Over-the-Air (OTA) firmware update service enables quick, secure deployment of firmware packages to IoT devices throughout the world. The Golioth API enables easy management of firmware deployments, including multi-part binary bundles, enabling updates for devices as diverse as smart speakers, digital signage, machine learning enabled sensor systems, multiple processor embedded devices, and more.

Our OTA feature is highly flexible, allowing to not just update your main firmware, but sub components like the Cellular Modem firmware, update an on device Machine Learning model or even sending custom binaries required for your application as part of a deployment.

Packages and deployments can be accessed from Golioth Web Console, the Golioth REST API, or by using the goliothctl dfu subcommand.

Details for OTA manifest, path, and status

For more information on how the Golioth server and IoT devices communicate with each other about Over-the-Air updates, see the OTA section of our CoAP reference:

Concepts​

Packages​

A package is an upgradeable software component on your embedded device. Packages can represent executable firmware or static assets like images, AI models or sound files. Each package has a version history and a set of metadata to let you categorize and track changes to each software component in your project.

Artifacts​

An artifact is the binary content of a single package version. Artifacts are uploaded to Golioth as files and distributed to your devices by being included in Deployments.

Deployments​

Deployments are bundles of artifacts that are distributed to the devices in your project. A deployment can contain any number of artifacts, each targeting a specific package on your device. Each deployment should contain all the packages your devices need to operate correctly, even if you don't update all of them every time.

Cohorts​

A cohort is a group of devices that all receive the same deployments. A device can only belong to one cohort, and each cohort will only have one active deployment at any time. Adding a device to a cohort will immediately emit an event to the device telling it to upgrade its packages to the versions in the active deployment.

Use Cases​

Here are some ideas on what can be created using our OTA Service.

  • Push new feature your devices in the field.
    • Your product can be constantly evolving, so you can be constantly pushing new firmware securely to your fleet.
  • Fix critical issues in your fleet of devices
    • Security patches, critical bug fixes, etc.
  • Edge computing scenarios
    • A critical part of an edge computing scenario, is improving you Machine Learning model and updating devices with that latest optimized model.
    • Push timeseries data to LightDB Stream, improve your ML model and upload it as an Artifact on our platform that can be part of a subsequent OTA deployment.
  • Digital billboard
    • Any kind of file can be uploaded as an Artifact and added as part of a subsequent OTA deployment, so you can push digital assets like images and videos to your devices.