Updating dualETH-PixelControl firmware

Last updated

The firmware updater is a browser-based tool that flashes new firmware onto your dualETH-PixelControl board over USB. No drivers, no installer — just a Chromium-based browser and a USB cable.

Open the updater at https://expanseelectronics.com/updater.

Browser support

The updater uses the Web Serial API, which is only available in Chromium-based browsers:

  • Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Arc — supported.
  • Firefox, Safari — not supported, and there are no plans for Web Serial in either.

If the page can't talk to the serial port, it shows a banner at the top with the reason.

Flashing a new version

  1. Connect the board to your computer with a USB cable. The board does not need to be in any special bootloader mode — the updater handles the reset sequence.
  2. In the Version dropdown, pick the firmware you want. The most recent release is tagged "— latest".
  3. Click Connect and select the board's serial port from the browser prompt.
  4. Click Flash. The download and write progress show in the bar; the device reboots into the new firmware automatically when finished.
  5. Press the physical reset button on the board once. The post-flash auto-reboot doesn't reliably load saved settings from EEPROM — a clean reset does. Skip this and the device may come up with default settings instead of yours.

If something goes wrong, the log at the bottom of the page shows the full output from the flasher.

The v6 → v7 MAC address change

If you are upgrading from a v6.x firmware to v7.0 or newer, the updater will show a warning banner. Read it before you flash.

v7 derives the device MAC address from the chip's factory-burned address, rather than the hard-coded value used in v6.x and earlier. After the first v7 flash, the board will appear on the network with a different MAC.

If you have any of the following, update them with the new MAC after upgrading:

  • DHCP reservations on your router or DHCP server
  • Firewall rules pinned to the old MAC
  • Network monitoring tools that identify the device by MAC

The new MAC is shown on the device's status page once it's back online.