class WLAN – control built-in WiFi interfaces¶

The WLAN class drives the on-board WiFi radios on modern OpenMV Cams. The same class wraps two different underlying drivers depending on the board’s WiFi MCU:

CYW43 (Infineon CYW43xxx Murata WiFi module). Used by the OpenMV Cam N6, OpenMV Cam RT1062, Arduino Portenta H7, Arduino Nicla Vision and Arduino Giga R1 WiFi.
NINA W10 (u-blox NINA-W10 / ESP32-WROOM). Used by the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect.

The two drivers expose the same method names but differ in a few arguments and the set of accepted config() keys. Differences are flagged below.

The OpenMV cameras with a legacy WINC1500 WiFi shield (M4 / M7 / H7 / H7 Plus / Pure Thermal) use WINC instead.

Example usage:

import network

# Enable the station interface and connect to a WiFi AP.
nic = network.WLAN(network.WLAN.IF_STA)
nic.active(True)
nic.connect("your-ssid", "your-key")
while not nic.isconnected():
    pass

print(nic.ipconfig("addr4"))

Constructors¶

class network.WLAN(interface_id: int = WLAN.IF_STA) → None¶

Create a WLAN interface object.

interface_id selects which interface to operate on:

WLAN.IF_STA – station / client mode. Connect to an upstream access point with connect(). This is the default.

WLAN.IF_AP – access-point mode. Configure the AP with config() and accept client connections.

The same physical radio backs both interfaces; constructing one does not preclude the other.

Methods¶

active(is_active: bool | None = None) → bool¶

Bring the WiFi radio up or down.

With no argument, return the current state – True while the radio is up, False otherwise.

active(True) powers the WiFi MCU, loads its firmware (CYW43 fetches the firmware blob from flash; NINA validates the currently flashed firmware version) and brings up the lwIP netif for this interface. All other methods – connect(), scan(), ipconfig() and friends – require the interface to be active.

active(False) powers the radio back down. On the STA interface this also disassociates from the current AP and releases the netif.

connect(ssid: str, key: str | None = None, *, security: int = -1, bssid: bytes | None = None, channel: int = -1) → None¶

Associate the STA interface with the given access point.

ssid – the network SSID (string or bytes).

key – password / pre-shared key. Pass None for an open network.

security (keyword-only) – one of the SEC_* constants. -1 (the default) auto-selects: SEC_OPEN when key is empty, SEC_WPA_WPA2 otherwise.

bssid (keyword-only, CYW43 only) – restrict the association to the AP with this 6-byte MAC address. Ignored by the NINA driver.

channel (keyword-only) – preferred radio channel. Default is “let the driver choose”.

disconnect() → None¶: In STA mode, disassociate from the currently associated access point. The interface stays active; call connect() again to re-associate, or active() (False) to power the radio down completely. No-op when not currently associated.

isconnected() → bool¶

In STA mode return True when associated with an access point and an IPv4 address has been obtained from DHCP (or assigned statically through ipconfig()). Returns False while the link is still in the authenticating/associating/DHCP phase.

In AP mode return True when at least one station has joined.

scan(*, passive: bool = False, ssid: bytes | None = None, bssid: bytes | None = None) → List[Tuple[bytes, bytes, int, int, int, int]]¶

Scan for nearby access points and return a list of 6-tuples:

[0] SSID (bytes; empty for hidden networks).

[1] BSSID (6-byte MAC, bytes). Convert with binascii.hexlify().

[2] Channel number.

[3] RSSI in dBm.

[4] Security mode (one of the SEC_* constants).

[5] Reserved (always 1).

All keyword arguments are CYW43-only:

passive – if True, use a passive scan instead of the default active probe-request scan.

ssid – restrict the scan to one SSID.

bssid – restrict the scan to one BSSID.

Scanning is only meaningful on a STA interface.

status() → int¶

status(param: str) → Any

Query connection status.

With no argument, return the link status as a small integer (driver-specific encoding – truthy means “associated”).

With a string argument:

"rssi" – in STA mode, return the current RSSI in dBm.

"stations" – in AP mode, return a list of connected stations. CYW43 returns [(mac_bytes,), ...]; NINA returns [ip_string, ...].

ifconfig(config: Tuple[str, str, str, str] | None = None) → Tuple[str, str, str, str] | None¶

Get or set IPv4 interface parameters as a 4-tuple of (ip, subnet, gateway, dns) dotted-quad strings.

Note

Prefer ipconfig() for new code:

nic.ipconfig(addr4="192.168.0.4/24", gw4="192.168.0.1")
network.ipconfig(dns="8.8.8.8")

ipconfig(param: str) → Any¶
ipconfig(**kwargs: Any) → None: Get or set IPv4 / IPv6 interface parameters. The CYW43 driver delegates to the standard lwIP implementation and supports the full set of keys documented on AbstractNIC.ipconfig(). The NINA driver implements a smaller per-interface subset – dhcp4 and has_dhcp4 (read-only), plus addr4 and gw4 for get / set.

config(param: str) → Any¶

config(**kwargs: Any) → None

Get or set WiFi-specific interface parameters.

With a single positional string argument, return the value of that parameter. With keyword arguments, set one or more parameters at once – changes that affect a running AP cause the AP to be cycled down and back up automatically.

Example:

# Set up the access-point name and channel.
ap.config(ssid="My AP", channel=11)
# Query params one at a time.
print(ap.config("ssid"))
print(ap.config("mac"))

CYW43 driver – gettable parameters:

"antenna" – antenna selector (int).

"channel" – current channel.

"ssid" / "essid" – the current SSID (string).

"security" – the AP’s auth mode (one of SEC_*).

"mac" – interface MAC address (6 bytes).

"pm" – power-management value.

"txpower" – transmit power in dBm.

"hostname" – DHCP/mDNS hostname. Deprecated; use network.hostname() instead.

CYW43 driver – settable parameters:

antenna=<int> – antenna selector.

channel=<int> – AP channel.

ssid=<str> / essid=<str> – AP SSID.

key=<str> / password=<str> – AP pre-shared key.

security=<int> – AP auth mode (one of SEC_*).

pm=<int> – power management mode (one of PM_NONE, PM_PERFORMANCE, PM_POWERSAVE).

monitor=<int> – enable monitor / all-multicast mode.

txpower=<int> – transmit power in dBm.

trace=<int> – internal driver trace bitmask.

hostname=<str> – DHCP/mDNS hostname. Deprecated; use network.hostname() instead.

NINA driver – gettable parameters:

"ssid" – the current SSID (string).

"security" – the AP’s auth mode.

"mac" / "bssid" – interface MAC address (6 bytes).

"fw_version" – a 3-tuple (major, minor, patch).

NINA driver – settable parameters: the call forwards to connect() and accepts the same keyword arguments (ssid, key, security, channel). Only valid on the AP interface.

deinit() → None¶: Power-cycle the WiFi MCU and release every resource the driver holds (firmware buffers, lwIP netif, SPI/SDIO bus). After calling this the WLAN object must be reconstructed before use. Use this rather than active() (False) when you need a full reset (for example, before re-flashing the radio’s firmware or to recover from a wedged driver state). CYW43 only.

send_ethernet(buf: bytes) → None¶: Inject the raw Ethernet frame buf directly into the driver’s transmit path, bypassing the IP stack. Intended for L2-only consumers – bridging, custom EtherType protocols, and similar. The frame must include destination/source MAC and EtherType (no FCS – the hardware appends it). CYW43 only.

ioctl(cmd: int, buf: bytearray) → None¶: Issue a driver-specific control command. cmd is the numeric ioctl code defined by the underlying radio firmware and buf is a mutable buffer used for both the command payload and the response. The set of valid cmd values is driver-specific and not portable between CYW43 and NINA. Used mostly by low-level test scripts and chip-bring-up code.

Constants¶

IF_STA: int¶: Station / client interface identifier. Pass to the constructor to select STA mode.

IF_AP: int¶: Access-point interface identifier. Pass to the constructor to select AP mode.

SEC_OPEN: int¶: Security value for an unencrypted network. Available on both drivers.

SEC_WPA_WPA2: int¶: Security value for WPA / WPA2 with a pre-shared key. The default when a key is supplied to connect(). Available on both drivers.

SEC_WPA3: int¶: Security value for WPA3 (SAE) with a pre-shared key. CYW43-only.

SEC_WPA2_WPA3: int¶: Security value for the WPA2 / WPA3 transition mode. CYW43-only.

SEC_WEP: int¶: Security value for WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). Provided for compatibility with legacy access points – WEP is cryptographically broken and should not be used on new deployments. NINA-only.

OPEN: int¶: Back-compat alias for SEC_OPEN. New code should use SEC_OPEN. NINA-only.

WEP: int¶: Back-compat alias for SEC_WEP. New code should use SEC_WEP. NINA-only.

WPA_PSK: int¶: Back-compat alias for SEC_WPA_WPA2. New code should use SEC_WPA_WPA2. NINA-only.

PM_NONE: int¶: Pass to config(pm=...) to disable WiFi power management. CYW43-only.

PM_PERFORMANCE: int¶: Pass to config(pm=...) to enable WiFi power management tuned for performance. CYW43-only.

PM_POWERSAVE: int¶: Pass to config(pm=...) to enable WiFi power management tuned for maximum battery life. CYW43-only.