Kobo Mini Wifi?

[Moshe Braner]

Has anybody managed to feed data from SoftRF via WiFi to a glide computer running on a Kobo Mini?  I'm running Tophat on a Kobo Mini and can't seem to get that working.  No problem connecting if I use my phone instead (also running Tophat).

[John Verschoor]

I have a Kobo glo and a kobo nia running xcsoar, those connect to my xcvario over wifi. I have just received my t-beam supreme, i will test later today.

John

Op maandag 4 augustus 2025 om 03:57:48 UTC+2 schreef Moshe Braner:

[Mik Garwood]

Yes, I've had this working but the Kobo Mini ( not made anymore I think) seems very unreliable connecting to any  WiFi. I was originally doing tests with XCsoar and LK8000 and, although it was actually the Wifi connection that seemed to be the problem, as when it did connect the comms from SoftRF was ok. Someone then suggested using Tophat (as it replaces the Kobo operating system??) and then the wifi connected every time. I should note that I was only doing tests over a week or so and am not regularly using a Kobo Mini.

On 04/08/2025 02:57, Moshe Braner wrote:

Has anybody managed to feed data from SoftRF via WiFi to a glide computer running on a Kobo Mini?  I'm running Tophat on a Kobo Mini and can't seem to get that working.  No problem connecting if I use my phone instead (also running Tophat).

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[Nigel Bray (SoftRF)]

Top Hat is a GUI ...that runs on the XCSoar platform that runs on Android and Linux.

odd that it changed the wifi behavior 

[Moshe Braner]

The Kobo is not Android-based, I think it is Linux-based, and Tophat for the Kobo includes a modified OS kernel.  Tophat is based on XCsoar 6.8 from more than 10 years ago.  The current XCsoar may handle the kobo differently, I have not tried it.

[Moshe Braner]

The glider in which I had trouble connecting the Kobo has both an XCvario and SoftRF on a T-Beam.  Each of those creates a wifi network.  During the flight, when I connected the Kobo to the XCvario network (which it did automatically since it had it "saved") Tophat on the Kobo reported "no data", probably because the settings in the XCvario were not right for that.  So I tried to connect it to the SoftRF network, the Kobo's network selection page said "connected", but displayed the same IP address it had before when it was connected to the XCvario (192.168.4.x).  And Tophat said "not connected".

Did more testing at home now, and it appears to be a bug in that network selection mechanism.  The Kobo first connected to my home wifi (which it already stored the passkey for in the past).  I told it to "remove" that one.  Then clicked on the SoftRF wifi network in the list of networks, and clicked "connect".  After entering the SoftRF passkey (12345678), it said "connected", but displayed the same IP address it had before when it was connected to the house wifi.  And Tophat said "not connected".  Same as in the glider.  Then, I restarted the Kobo, and it did not connect to the house wifi (since it was "removed" earlier).  Instead, it connected to the SoftRF wifi (for which I already entered the passkey earlier before I shut down the Kobo).  And this time it reported the IP address 192.168.1.x as it should when connected to SoftRF's network.  And Tophat finally said it was connected and receiving data.

So apparently once it connects to a network it can't correctly connect to a different network in the same session, but it can if it is rebooted.  It needs to only know the passkey to one of the available networks, the one you want to connect to, otherwise you have no control over which one it choose to connect to.  So "remove" the one you don't want, then reboot the Kobo.

In this glider it would be best to connect the Kobo to the XCvario's network, since it can then get both the vario data from XCvario, and the GPS and traffic from SoftRF that (in this glider) is fed into XCvario by a serial cable.  I think that the best way to do this therefore is to turn off the SoftRF network so it won't confuse the Kobo.  The way to do that is:
(1) enter the XCvario wifi info (SSID and password) into the SoftRF settings
(2) boot the XCvario first, then
(3) boot SoftRF - it will then connect to the XCvario wifi instead of creating its own network

With this arrangement it also should be possible to feed the data from SoftRF into XCvario without the serial cable, via WiFi.  (See the documentation of my version of SoftRF on how to achieve that, and/or use my version of the XCvario firmware, since the XCvario is not originally designed to accept that type of data via WiFi.)

(1) is a bit annoying though, since SoftRF can only remember the info for one network.  When I take the T-Beam home I like having it connect to the house wifi, for easier access to download flight logs, update firmware, etc.  Otherwise have to connect a phone or laptop to the SoftRF wifi network.  So that's the small price to pay.

On the other hand the Kobo can have the house wifi info stored, since at the airport the house wifi will not be available, and thus that will not confuse the Kobo, while at home it will still connect to the house wifi automatically, which is useful for downloading the flight logs from the Kobo.

[John Verschoor]

It runs on both my kobo glo and kobo nia. xcsoar v7.43 

settings in xcsoar: udp port, tcp port 10110, driver flarm.

settings in softrf: nmea output udp

I did notice a few strange things on the kobo. It automatically connected to my home wifi, after disconnecting and connecting to softrf i got a weird ip adres. Had to "forget" my home network, reboot the kobo and connect to the softrf to get a valid ip adres.

Also, after every power cycle on the kobo, you need to activate wifi on the kobo. after a reset of softrf, i also needed to reset the kobo. Wifi on a kobo has always been buggy, the connection from my xcvario to my kobo via wifi has suddenly stopped in midflight a fewl times this year. But i also had four hour flights without interruption.

I just got my t-beam supreme and havent flown it yet, but ground tests seem positive!

If you need more info just let me know.

John

Op maandag 4 augustus 2025 om 18:35:54 UTC+2 schreef Moshe Braner:

[Moshe Braner]

Hi John.  Sorry I didn't notice earlier that Google for its own mysterious reasons flagged your posting for moderation.  I've now let it through.  And, I see you found the same thing I did: in short, need to reboot the Kobo to make it connect to a different network.  Thank you!

[Antoine Megens]

I've tested UDP connection at home using SoftRF MB163 firmware on my T-Beam and a Kobo Mini with XCSoar 7.43. 

Settings are the same as John posted. Seems to be working.

Op dinsdag 5 augustus 2025 om 01:19:40 UTC+2 schreef Moshe Braner:

[Moshe Braner]

Got the Kobo connected to XCvario via WiFi.  Some tips:

* boot the XCvario first, then connect the Kobo to wifi, before turning on the T-Beam

* in Tophat set up two "devices": XCvario on TCP client port 8880, and FLARM on port 8881.

That is assuming SoftRF is feeding the data to XCvario via serial port S1.  And assuming the version of Tophat modified to offer the XCvario protocol and ports 888x.  (Recent versions of XCsoar support those too.)   Otherwise, can use my version of the XCvario firmware which also offers TCP port 2000, which standard Tophat can connect to, and also offers the choice of routing the S1 data along with the vario data all into port 2000.

Alternatively, can get the data from SoftRF into XCvario and the Kobo via wifi:  In (my version of) SoftRF select WiFi client (SSID XCVario-XXXX, password xcvario-21), and TCP Client to IP address 192.168.4.1 and port 8880.  Activate TCP output as the primary NMEA output.  Also activate UDP output as the secondary NMEA output.  Then in XCsoar (or Tophat) connect to the same XCvario WiFi network.  Configure two "devices", one a TCP client on port 8880, using XCvario protocol.  The other a UDP listener on port 10110, using FLARM protocol.  Magically, it works!  Somehow the UDP messages tunnel through the WiFi router built into the XCvario (from the ESP32 libraries).