v2.9.7

v2.9.7 is an OpenMV-specific release focused on dramatically faster and more reliable firmware flashing through the built-in bootloader, with high-speed USB support, a hardened serial driver, and batch video conversion. It remains built on Qt Creator 4.0.2 (no rebase in this range), and there are no breaking changes for existing projects.

Highlights

  • Faster firmware flashing. The built-in bootloader now batches non-posted USB packets and uses high-speed (480 Mb/s) endpoint sizing instead of one slow padded packet per chunk with a fixed delay after each.

  • OpenMV Cam H7 Pro DFU support is now recognized (OMV4_H7_PRO_32768_SDRAM), along with the high-speed bootloader.

  • Hardened serial driver for 480 Mb/s high-speed mode, with 64 MB read/write buffers and graceful recovery when the OS stalls returning data.

  • Batch Convert Video. Selecting multiple source files now converts them all at once after a single prompt for output settings.

  • Release notes preview. The Install Latest Development Release dialog now downloads and shows the GitHub release notes before asking to flash.

New features

  • The Convert Video tool now supports batch conversion: selecting multiple source files prompts once for an output folder, format, rescale width, and frame-skip, then converts all files at once (864a0babd).

  • The Install Latest Development Release dialog now downloads the GitHub release page and displays the rendered release notes (the page’s markdown-body section) in a read-only scrollable view before asking to flash, behind a Downloading progress dialog (3a7805b4f).

Other changes and improvements

  • Faster bootloader flashing. Firmware flashing through the built-in bootloader is dramatically faster, using batched non-posted USB packets and high-speed (480 Mb/s) endpoint sizing instead of one slow padded packet per chunk with a fixed delay after each (c2910aeef, 66031209e, a82783208, a5e185d96, 3d0b2e98b).

  • Hardened serial driver for 480 Mb/s high-speed mode: 64 MB read/write buffers, Windows SetupComm buffer sizing on open, and graceful recovery (zero-fill) when the OS accepts USB data but stalls returning it to the application (d0b3bcdb7).

  • Firmware flashing now runs faster on Windows and Linux by skipping the macOS-only endpoint padding and sync-query packets used to work around macOS USB behavior (711281155).

  • The serial terminal now draws a blinking text cursor (75e52095d).

  • Bootloader/DFU recovery wording now describes a DFU bootloader reset that repairs the regular bootloader, guiding the user to remove the BOOT/RST jumper and reconnect rather than implying a direct firmware upgrade (9e436cdc0).

Bug fixes

  • Fixed firmware programming reliability on Linux and on VMs: flash write/erase success is now AND-accumulated across batched packets, the port flush() return is ignored, and stalled bootloader transfers re-issue the correct query for bootloader vs normal mode (a82783208, f76406597).

  • Fixed a crash when removing stale board USB VID/PID mappings by erasing the iterator after, not before, the dependent map lookups (5950b0851).

  • Corrected the auto-loaded helloworld.py path and the post-registration instructions to the new examples layout (Examples > HelloWorld instead of Examples > OpenMV > Basics) (def9b7dad).

Platform and tool support

  • Qt Creator base: 4.0.2.

  • Added DFU support for the OpenMV Cam H7 Pro (OMV4_H7_PRO_32768_SDRAM) and recognition of the high-speed bootloader serial number 000000000010 (c2910aeef).

  • Updated the bundled OpenMV firmware to v4.3.2 and refreshed the per-board firmware images (firmware.bin plus firmware.dfu, firmware.hex, or firmware.uf2 depending on the board), bootloader, and UVC images. OPENMV2, OPENMV3, OPENMV4, OPENMV4P, OPENMVPT, NICLAV, and PORTENTA ship firmware.bin/firmware.dfu; NANO33 ships firmware.bin/firmware.hex; ARDUINO_NANO_RP2040_CONNECT ships firmware.bin/firmware.uf2. Brand-new firmware, bootloader, and UVC images for the OpenMV Cam H7 Pro (OPENMV4_PRO) are now bundled for the first time (08ac2e33f).

  • Reorganized and expanded the bundled examples, including a new top-level 00-HelloWorld, a TensorFlow object-detection example, and many Arduino Portenta-H7, Nicla-Vision, and Nano-RP2040 board-control, sensor, WiFi, Bluetooth, and low-power examples (08ac2e33f).

Breaking changes

None. This release is fully backward compatible with existing projects and workflows.