Willow Components¶

Willow Application Server¶

The Willow Application Server (WAS) is a web-based component that facilitates dynamic configuration, Over-the-Air (OTA) updates, and basic monitoring.

Willow Web Flash¶

Willow Web Flash is a web-based component that facilitates the initial flash of the Willow firmware image on supported hardware. It uses the Web Serial API, which is only available on secure websites. As any secure website requires TLS certificates, which is not something we can expect end users to deal with themselves, we provide a public instance of Willow Web Flash. It will require entering your Wi-Fi credentials, as they need to be injected in the Willow firmware image before flashing it, but these credentials will never leave your browser. Willow Web Flash is based on Espressif's esptool-js, and is 100% open source. You can inspect the source to validate our claim the Wi-Fi credentials never leave the browser.

How it works¶

Using Willow with WAS consists of a few steps:

deploy WAS from our published container image
configure your Wi-Fi credentials, the WAS URL for your Willow device(s), and the Willow settings
head to Willow Web Flash from the link provided in WAS and flash Willow
once the initial flash via Willow Web Flash is done, Willow can be updated Over-the-Air from WAS, and using Willow Web Flash should only be needed for recovery in case something goes wrong

We have tried to make the experience as easy as possible. * we try to guess the WAS URL * we check connectivity for the various URLs configured in WAS * we pass the WAS URL to Willow Web Flash and save it in local browser storage (for security reasons we do not pass the Wi-Fi credentials)