MowMate Web Installer

Flash the MowMate firmware onto your ArduMower modem board directly from this page — no PlatformIO, no esptool, no driver juggling. Your board is detected automatically, so the same button works for the ESP32 and the ESP32-S3.

Your browser cannot talk to serial devices. Use desktop Chrome, Edge or Opera — Firefox and Safari do not implement Web Serial. This page must be served over HTTPS to access the serial port.

The installer asks whether to erase the device first. Leave the Erase device checkbox unchecked to keep the spiffs partition — your saved maps, mowing schedules and settings survive the update that way. Tick it only for a board you want to start over from scratch.

Before you start

  1. Connect the modem board to your computer with a USB data cable.
  2. An ESP32-S3 DevKit can be flashed through either of its USB sockets. If one of them does not show up, try the other.
  3. Close anything else holding the port — a serial monitor, the PlatformIO terminal, or screen.
  4. Press Connect & install and pick the board's serial port from the browser dialog.

After flashing, MowMate starts an access point called ardumower-modem. Join it and open 192.168.4.1 to configure WiFi and the mower connection.

Troubleshooting

The port does not appear, or the connection fails

Put the board into download mode by hand: hold BOOT (GPIO0), tap RESET, then release BOOT, and try again. Some boards also need their USB-serial driver installed (CP210x or CH341).

Flashing fails part way through

A weak USB cable or an unpowered hub is the usual cause. Use a short cable plugged straight into the computer. If the board is wired to the mower, disconnect the Sunray serial lines while flashing.

I want to erase everything, including maps and settings

Tick Erase device in the dialog that appears after you press Connect & install. This clears the whole flash chip, including the stored maps, schedules and WiFi credentials, and then writes a fresh firmware.

I would rather flash from the command line

Download the bootloader, partitions, boot_app0 and firmware binaries from the releases page and see docs/web-flasher.md for the matching flash offsets.