v4.8.10#

v4.8.10 adds support for the OpenMV AE3 board and refreshes the bundled AI toolchains, updating the Ethos-U Vela NPU compiler to 5.0.0 and the ST Edge AI tools to 4.0.0. This release remains based on Qt Creator 14.0.2, with no rebase, and contains no breaking changes.

Highlights#

  • OpenMV AE3 Alif Ensemble E3 board is now supported, including alif_tools bootloader/DFU programming and per-core Ethos-U55 NPU acceleration.

  • Ethos-U Vela NPU model compiler updated from 4.2.0 to 5.0.0, rebuilt against the Python 3.13 ABI.

  • ST Edge AI (stedgeai) model conversion tools updated from 3.0.0 to 4.0.0 on all platforms.

  • Faster connection fallback: the IDE now gives up on a failed camera connection after 2 reconnect attempts instead of 10.

New features#

  • OpenMV AE3 Alif Ensemble E3 board support (internal codename “AE3 classic”). Adds the AE3 / OPENMV AE3 SBL2 board type, with the IDE display name OpenMV AE3 SBL2 (VID:PID 37C5:16E3), alif_tools bootloader/DFU programming, a dual-core (HP/HE) romfs layout, and per-core Ethos-U55 Vela NPU acceleration configs (High Performance Core ethos-u55-256, High Efficiency Core ethos-u55-128). The board is a hidden/DFU-programmed target reached via its bootloader VID:PID mappings rather than a normally listed selectable connect target (adbed3825).

Other changes and improvements#

  • Reduced the maximum number of automatic camera reconnect attempts from 10 to 2, so the IDE gives up faster on a failed connection (2ddecec53).

  • Updated the bundled Ethos-U Vela NPU model compiler from 4.2.0 to 5.0.0 on Windows, Linux, and macOS arm64, rebuilt against the Python 3.13 ABI with the regor and mlw_codec binaries recompiled and the bundled numpy updated to 2.4.4 across all platforms (be9d29d9d, 04c73f187, 93260af21, a58458cfb, a6e1ac7ed).

  • Updated the bundled ST Edge AI (stedgeai) model conversion tools from 3.0.0 to 4.0.0 on Windows, Linux, and macOS arm64 (1a727567c, 8dcfd8472, 27aabc740).

Platform and tool support#

  • Qt Creator base: 14.0.2.

  • New board: OpenMV AE3 SBL2 (Alif Ensemble E3), a hidden/DFU-programmed target programmed via alif_tools with dual-core Ethos-U55 NPU acceleration.

  • Ethos-U Vela NPU compiler: 4.2.0 -> 5.0.0 (Windows, Linux, macOS arm64), reinstalled against the Python 3.13 ABI.

  • ST Edge AI (stedgeai) tools: 3.0.0 -> 4.0.0 (Windows, Linux, macOS arm64).

  • Bundled numpy (Vela environment): updated to 2.4.4 on all platforms.

Breaking changes#

None. This release introduces no user-visible workflow or behavior breaks, and existing projects continue to work unchanged.