XHC WHB04B development?

I flashed back the factory firmware to the dongle for some tests. With no program polling the pendant, pushing buttons and rotating knobs makes the dongle disconnect faster than if left alone. Somewhat surprisingly, turning the jog wheel makes the dongle reconnect faster than if left alone. So if you continuously spin the wheel, the disconnect/reconnect cycle will be much faster. I have not tried to check why, nor do I think it matters much in the end.

Also my pendant shows the F: and S: properly, so maybe it's something with the wired version. For debugging, I think the second best to a hardware USB analyser is Wireshark. It's pretty easy to monitor the USB requests/replies, and I can help with "setup" if needed. URB_INTERRUPT in is the data from the pendant and SET_REPORT is the data to the pendant (split up into 3 parts).

Yes, the STM32G030C8T6 could be replaced. Or reprogrammed in place, because that is not protected. But without the factory firmware, it's more difficult to figure out how to drive the display and the RF module. Although now that I have the dongle firmware somewhat working, the RF part for the pendant is probably pretty much the same.

The dongle mostly translates between USB on one side and 433MHz RF on the other. The microcontroller (at least in my dongle) is a CH554 and the RF module is a HW3000.

Here is the dongle firmware I am developing:
github.com/finngineering/whb04b

I would say it is mostly working. However, there are some things I would still like to improve. And for sure it needs some more long-term testing. But I do think this has the potential to be better than the factory firmware in almost every way.

Dongle is the thing we put in the usb port, right? 
What do I need to test?

You are miles ahead with knowledge about this device. I'll help were I can, like testing.

Yes, unless somebody have better terms, I prefer to call the USB part the dongle and the actual handheld device the pendant. In case of the wired version, I would presume all logic is in the pendant and the "USB part" is only a connector.

The problem for everybody else than myself is that you might have different hardware/firmware version. And if you overwrite the factory firmware with this new firmware, you can no longer go back, because you don't have the factory firmware. I could give you the factory firmware that was in my dongle, but it could be different than what is in yours. The firmware can be extracted (like I have done), but its tedious.

Anyway, I think its a little bit early for public beta testing. I will make some improvements and see if it appears stable over time. Maybe there could be some way to do at least a partial readout/verification of the factory firmware through USB.

Finngineering wrote:

... I prefer to call the USB part the dongle and the actual handheld device the pendant.

That is the usual naming since the dawn of "security dongles" started by software companies to prevent copying software and later adopted by some banks, and naming them something else... forgot what exactly, but dongle prevailed.

Had a milling session, not very long. XHC didn't crash. Doesn't say much, so I'll continue using libusb_fill_interrupt_transfer().

Ok no testing. Interesting to see how it goes, and if the firmware in the dongle is to blame.