I just got my Core. I connected to it at home. I brought it to work today. My core is blinking green. How do I set the network credentials if Tinker won’t connect because I’ve flashed another program? Basically, how do I get into the core? I tried this:
“Is it blinking green and not getting to cyan?Try it again by holding the MODE button on the core until it begins flashing blue, then double-check your network name and password.”
I held down the reset button on the core (15 seconds) and never got to “flashing blue”…
You can add up to 7 credentials by going into listening mode (blinking blue) like you described. At this point you should be able to transmit the credentials using the Tinker mobile app, regardless of the code on the Core. To get in to listening mode, simply hold down the MODE button until it starts blinking blue.
Let us know if this worked for you.
Hey Moors! Thanks for responding. I was able to reset the core (blinking blue) but Tinker won’t connect. I believe that’s because I flashed it with template code (blinker) I pushed from the site. How else can I contact the core if Tinker will not?
If it's in blinking blue, just tap the WiFi sign in the Tinker mobile app, to add the credentials again. That should work, even though you've got the blinker code instead of the Tinker code.
The adding of the credentials is independant of the functionalities of controlling your Core. It is therefor not mandatory to run the Tinker code in order to insert new credentials.
Could you please explain what you mean by that in a bit more detail?
You could always connect the Core over USB and insert the credentials using the CLI, if Tinker for some reason shouldn't work. The CLI is recommended anyhow, since it'll greatly increase your production, if you know how to use it!
The core is connected to my Laptop (MacAir) via USB. I’ve tried to access the Core via my iPad2 / WiFi using the correct credentials… Right now it’s flashing blue. I’ve scoured the site
For pro’s like you, this stuff has become second nature. For a complete newb, it’s disorienting; I’m talking about all the instructions on the site. It’s hard to tell what to applies to my core’s current state, and what the current state of my core is.
So, according to your list:
“2.) When you are in Listening mode, you can simply send in Wifi credentials”
where is the interface on my Laptop (or iPad2) that shows me the core? I have tried to enter network credentials many many times through the iPad2 app (Tinker) and it won’t connect. I have also hit the “Reset” button twice, and then tried to re-authenticate.
Thank you for your help. Sorry for the hassle. But understand, from a sales and marketing perspective, this conversation / my plight, is gold to Spark… My virgin experience with your product should be telling. Just sayin’…
When the core is in listening mode it is waiting for wifi credentials from at least two different sources.
Via SmartConfig (Tinker App) - Doesn’t always seems to work (for me at least)
Via Serial. If the Core is connected to your computer and blinking blue it should show up as a Serial device. Open it up using a terminal app and type “w”. This will prompt you for a SSID. Enter it and press enter. It should then prompt you for either a password (if the deep update hasn’t happened) or a security type. Follow the prompts and it should connect.
Let us know if you can’t get the serial part to work!
Also no one has asked, what kind of network to you have at work? Where I work, for instance, we have Enterprise certificate-based network security and Spark cannot handle that.
Find out the "device" name of the USB device. Executing the command
ls /dev/tty.*
will print the name of all of the tty devices (devices that are likely to have "terminal-like" behavior).
Check the device's documentation to find the serial configuration. The most important fact is baud rate, but you may need to know data bits, stop bits, parity, and control flow. (9600 baud, Data Bits: 8, Parity: none, Stop Bits: 1, Control Flow: none)
Use the "screen" program to talk to the device, specifying the device name and serial configuration. (this might be the hard part given that there are no instructions on how to do this)
To quit the serial session, type Control-A Control-\.
“Terminal” on the Mac is a shell window, not a serial terminal. You need a serial terminal program like CoolTerm on the Mac–that is the one I use.
There are about a zillion ways to do this including Spark CLI and using Unix command line stuff, but I think you will be better off with CoolTerm–it’s easy. You core will not show up as a serial device until you are in listening mode since even though it might be plugged into USB, it does not declare itself to be a USB device until some special code runs on the core that start the serial port.
@robby, have you actually had a look at the link @bko had give a few posts up from this?
There it states quite clearly, what Brian patiently repeated above:
For Mac users, either CoolTerm or screen work.
For Linux command line usage, GNU Screen works great. (On OS X, the command line invocation might look something like screen /dev/cu.usbmodem1411 9600. On Ubuntu, it looks something like screen /dev/ttyACM0 9600. Device location may vary, poke around in the /dev directory if you don't find it immediately)
How-toPlug your Spark Core into your computer over USB. When the Spark Core is in Listening Mode, open a serial port over USB using the standard settings, which should be:
Baudrate: 9600
Data Bits: 8
Parity: none
Stop Bits: 1
Once you've opened a serial connection, you have two commands at your disposal by hitting either w or i on the keyboard. Here's what they do:
w: Set up your Wi-Fi SSID and password
i: ("i" as in identify) Read out the Spark Core ID
NOTE: If you connect your Core over USB the first time, you will also need to manually claim your Core to connect it with your account. Please see the section below on claiming your Core for more details.
Please do read the suggested sources to relieve the Elites and the Spark team from answering already multiple times answered questions.
@ bko! Thanks for all the insight! I’m so leery nowadays with “freeware”… As a programmer myself, I like / demand on getting paid for my work, because I have to pay the government so they can start wars on my behalf… Anyway… What I’m saying is, I’m skiddish about freeware like CoolTerm because they’re making a buck somehow for their code, probably by sucking data off my machine, selling it, or using my rig for DDOS, Whatever. For instance: FileZilla… Gee, I wonder if all those “updates” I’m prompted for do?
I’ll look into another solution for a serial connection to the core and get back to you. Again, thanks for helping me out :>
I could be mistaken, but I believe you can also use the Spark CLI for this, which runs on node.js which I hope you find trustworthy enough to use on your machine.
There actually are honest people who give their time and knowledge away for free - see this forum for example.
A lot of the people here don’t get paid for answering - your questions, too.
But if you are a programmer yourself, whipping up your own lightweight serial monitor should be a no-brainer
On the other hand if you have a look at open source projects you may find that there actually is no catch in a lot of them.
Please don’t generalize that everybody who gives something away for free, must be a criminal!
Seems like everything has heated up a bit again. I think people, you included, as jumping to some serious conclusions. Let’s all try to cool down a little.
I think @ScruffR’s no-brainer comment was more meant come across as general feeling that sometimes people do give things away for free (opensource software for example) with no ulterior motive (though I will admit, like you sometimes I am wary of “free” software from a source I don’t recognize) but if you are however unwilling to give any free software a chance then you can always “do it yourself.” I think that particular view could be conveyed as inflammatory but I don’t think he meant to offend.
That being said if you do decide to sell your core and never look back I’m sorry to see you go. If you are willing to give it another try then I will be here to happily answer your questions. In the future I would probably try to keep comments like the one which could be viewed as accusing free software providers of embedding malware to yourself. A lot of the developers on this forum have ties to the open source community and I can see why someone would become offended by such remarks. Let’s all try to be as civil as possible so we can get back to do what we came here for: doing cool stuff with the SparkCore.
