Flashing USB Recovery Boot Header

This script flashes a special USB "Recovery Header" to the device's on-board flash memory.

Boot Header

Script allows the flashing of different boot headers. This example focuses only on the USB recovery header since other headers are not commonly used.

Some devices, like the OAK-FFC 4P can be flashed with a bootloader. By writing the USB recovery header, the device will no longer use the bootloader and will instead boot like a standard USB device (similar to OAK-1).This can be beneficial in scenarios where you want to:

Eliminate the bootloader’s extra power consumption in idle mode
Revert to a simple USB-only setup, removing advanced bootloader features

Overwriting the bootloader means the device no longer supports advanced bootloader capabilities. Only do this if you understand the implications. This can be reversed by flashing the bootloader back.

Demo

An example script might produce output like:

Command Line

1~/depthai-python/examples$ python3 flash_boot_header.py USB_RECOVERY
2Found device with name: 1.1
3Successfully flashed boot header!

Setup

Please run the install script to download all required dependencies. Please note that this script must be ran from git context, so you have to download the depthai-python repository first and then run the script

Command Line

1git clone https://github.com/luxonis/depthai-python.git
2cd depthai-python/examples
3python3 install_requirements.py

For additional information, please follow the installation guide.

Source code

Python

GitHub

1import sys
2from typing import Callable, Tuple
3from enum import Enum
4import depthai
5
6FLASH = depthai.DeviceBootloader.Memory.FLASH
7
8def main():
9    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
10        print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} [GPIO_MODE/USB_RECOVERY/NORMAL/FAST] [params]")
11        print("\tOptions:")
12        print(f"\t\t{sys.argv[0]} GPIO_MODE gpioModeNum")
13        print(f"\t\t{sys.argv[0]} USB_RECOVERY")
14        print(f"\t\t{sys.argv[0]} NORMAL [frequency] [location] [dummyCycles] [offset]")
15        print(f"\t\t{sys.argv[0]} FAST [frequency] [location] [dummyCycles] [offset]")
16        return 0
17
18    mode = sys.argv[1].lower()
19    flash_func = None
20
21    if mode == "gpio_mode":
22        # gpio mode header
23        if len(sys.argv) < 3:
24            print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} GPIO_MODE gpioModeNum")
25            return 0
26        
27        gpio_mode = int(sys.argv[2])
28        def flash_gpio(bl: 'depthai.DeviceBootloader') -> Tuple[bool, str]:
29            return bl.flashGpioModeBootHeader(FLASH, gpio_mode)
30        flash_func = flash_gpio
31
32    elif mode == "usb_recovery":
33        # usb recovery header
34        def flash_usb(bl: 'depthai.DeviceBootloader') -> Tuple[bool, str]:
35            return bl.flashUsbRecoveryBootHeader(FLASH)
36        flash_func = flash_usb
37
38    elif mode in ("normal", "fast"):
39        if len(sys.argv) != 2 and len(sys.argv) != 3 and len(sys.argv) <= 3:
40            print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} NORMAL/FAST [frequency] [location] [dummyCycles] [offset]")
41            print(f"Usage: {sys.argv[0]} NORMAL/FAST [frequency]")
42            return 0
43
44        offset = -1
45        location = -1
46        dummy_cycles = -1
47        frequency = -1
48
49        if len(sys.argv) > 3:
50            if len(sys.argv) >= 3:
51                offset = int(sys.argv[2])
52            if len(sys.argv) >= 4:
53                location = int(sys.argv[3])
54            if len(sys.argv) >= 5:
55                dummy_cycles = int(sys.argv[4])
56            if len(sys.argv) >= 6:
57                frequency = int(sys.argv[5])
58        elif len(sys.argv) == 3:
59            frequency = int(sys.argv[2])
60
61        if mode == "normal":
62            def flash_normal(bl: 'depthai.DeviceBootloader') -> Tuple[bool, str]:
63                return bl.flashBootHeader(FLASH, frequency, location, dummy_cycles, offset)
64            flash_func = flash_normal
65        elif mode == "fast":
66            def flash_fast(bl: 'depthai.DeviceBootloader') -> Tuple[bool, str]:
67                return bl.flashFastBootHeader(FLASH, frequency, location, dummy_cycles, offset)
68            flash_func = flash_fast
69
70    # Find device and flash specified boot header
71    success, info = depthai.DeviceBootloader.getFirstAvailableDevice()
72    
73    if success:
74        print(f"Found device with name: {info.name}")
75        bl = depthai.DeviceBootloader(info)
76
77        # Flash the specified boot header
78        if flash_func:
79            success, error_msg = flash_func(bl)
80            if success:
81                print("Successfully flashed boot header!")
82            else:
83                print(f"Couldn't flash boot header: {error_msg}")
84        else:
85            print("Invalid boot option header specified")
86    else:
87        print("No devices found")
88
89    return 0
90
91if __name__ == "__main__":
92    main()

C++