ElegantOTA

     

The original over-the-air update library for wireless microcontrollers (since 2019).

ElegantOTA gives your microcontroller a polished web portal for over-the-air firmware and filesystem updates. Point a browser at /update, drop in a .bin, and watch it land - with live progress, transfer rate, and a capacity check that catches an oversized image before a single byte is written.

No HTML, no CSS, no JavaScript. Three lines of code.

Features

• 🔥 Quick & simple OTA procedure - firmware and filesystem images
• 📊 Live progress, transfer rate, and byte counts as the flash is written
• 🛟 Capacity check up front, so an oversized build is rejected before it half-writes
• 🔒 MD5 integrity verification and optional HTTP Basic auth
• 🌗 Light & dark portal themes, keyboard reachable, readable down to 320px
• 🎷 No need to learn HTML/CSS/JS
• 🛫 Ready to use within 3 lines of code

Supported MCUs

Platform	Notes
ESP32	Including S2, S3, C3 and C6 variants
RP2040 (+WiFi)	e.g. Raspberry Pi Pico W - requires a LittleFS partition
RP2350 (+WiFi)	e.g. Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W - requires a LittleFS partition
ESP8266	Legacy - maintained, but new projects should prefer ESP32 or RP2350

Installation

Arduino IDE

Sketch > Include Library > Manage Libraries… → search for ElegantOTA → Install.

PlatformIO

lib_deps =
  ayushsharma82/ElegantOTA@^4.0.0

; ElegantOTA supports several architectures, and PlatformIO will otherwise try
; to resolve dependencies for all of them. Without this you will hit build errors.
lib_compat_mode = strict

If you already have a .pio/libdeps folder, delete it before rebuilding.

Quick start

The whole integration is three lines - an include, a begin(), and a loop():

#include <WiFi.h>
#include <WebServer.h>
#include <ElegantOTA.h>          // 1

WebServer server(80);

void setup() {
  WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
  WiFi.begin("ssid", "password");
  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) delay(500);

  server.on("/", []() {
    server.send(200, "text/plain", "Hi! This is ElegantOTA Demo.");
  });

  ElegantOTA.begin(&server);     // 2
  server.begin();
}

void loop() {
  server.handleClient();
  ElegantOTA.loop();             // 3
}

Open http://<device-ip>/update in a browser and you have the portal.

Full sketches live in examples/ - Demo for the synchronous webserver, AsyncDemo for ESPAsyncWebServer.

Async mode

ElegantOTA can serve its routes through ESPAsyncWebServer instead of the built-in synchronous server. Enable it with a build flag:

build_flags = -D ELEGANTOTA_USE_ASYNC_WEBSERVER=1

The Arduino IDE has no way to set build flags, so there you edit ELEGANTOTA_USE_ASYNC_WEBSERVER in src/ElegantOTA.h directly. You cannot run the synchronous WebServer and ESPAsyncWebServer in the same firmware - pick one. See the async mode guide for the per-platform TCP dependencies.

Documentation

Installation, integration, security and feature guides: docs.elegantota.pro

Looking for more? Upgrade to Pro.

ElegantOTA Lite covers a solid project end to end. ElegantOTA Pro adds the pieces a shipped product tends to need:

• Two extra OTA modes - Direct Download (the device fetches firmware from a URL itself) and Auto Update (update channels)
• Toggle OTA modes at runtime
• Hardware ID & firmware version on the UI
• Whitelabel / branding
• Commercial license

It is also a fantastic way to support the time that goes into building and maintaining the library.

Available at the official store (store.softt.io).

Building a product with ElegantOTA?

ElegantOTA is built and maintained by SOFTT, an IoT product studio. When the library is one piece of something bigger, the same engineers can design the rest of it, from the electronics and firmware to the cloud dashboard and mobile app, and take it from first brief to pilot run at a fixed price. Start with a free 30-minute engineering review, see products we’ve shipped, or write to [email protected].

Contributing

Every contribution is highly appreciated. Spotted a bug? Open an issue or a pull request so it can be fixed for everyone.

Feature requests: open an issue and I’ll look at adding it in a future release.

Contributors are asked to sign the CLA, and participation is governed by the Code of Conduct.

License

ElegantOTA open-source edition is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0).

If you are planning to use ElegantOTA in a commercial project, please consider purchasing ElegantOTA Pro, which comes with the less restrictive SOFTT Commercial License 1.3.