Tapo C100 documentation ?

[silah]

Hello

Sorry if I am missing something obvious. I have a Tapo C100 camera that I would like to try Thingino on. On the project website, the link to the firmware is dead. The Wiki doesn't mention it at all and I have googled, checked youtube, checked what I could find in this repo but there seems to be absolutely no guides / indications of how to flash Thingino on C100.

Am I missing obvious something somewhere ? Does anyone have a link to documentation or something ?

Thanks

[sstepansky]

Hi!
There are multiple ways to install a new firmware.
You can check the wiki page here.

Maybe the link on the website is broken because a new tapo c100 variant has been added recently. Now there's the t31l and the t23n variants with different sensor and wifi chip.
Check the Github releases page.

[silah]

Yea I read the Wiki page but I guess you gotta really know your embedded devices before getting started with this.

I had kinda hoped for more of a step by step to be honest, something for people who haven't done much with embedded devices before but wanted to liberate their cameras.

Only part I was comfortable doing was the SD card route and that didn't work, but no instructions on how to troubleshoot or where to look (and for what). The camera did attempt to update, but it didn't complete.

Im not complaining. I was just hoping that something a little more "beginner friendly" was out there but I get that its a lot of effort and I don't expect anyone to go out of their way to create that.

[sstepansky]

Yes, some knowledge of your device is needed. At least SoC, sensor and wifi chip. Vendors tend to change components without notice, so there may be more than one variant of the same model.

The camera did attempt to update, but it didn't complete.

What have you tried? How do you know it did attemp to update?

[silah]

Yea I get that I will have to make sure the firmware is compatible with all the HW alright which is fine, I just wish there was a little more of a step-by-step.

I suppose I can't be sure if it was updating, but according to the manual a particular kind of flashing of the LED indicates a firmware update is taking place, and that kind of flashing happened when I went with naming the firmware autoupdate-full.bin on an SD card

[sstepansky]

Well, I tested the magic filename method outlined here and it fails due to a bug in the code... At least in my particular version...
I guess they don't bother fixing the bug because they want you to use the app...

So I guess in order to install some other firmware at least you'll need to open the camera housing and flash the rom chip or get a serial console to interact with the bootloader.

Do you have a serial adapter? And a programmer? This one can do both, is cheap and is well tested.

[silah]

Ill try that way on mine, but failing that I'll pick up a CH341A and give that a go. Thanks