Chapter 23 — OTA Updates

Push signed firmware and payload updates to your fleet from AidaIDE — canary rollouts, history per device, and vault-backed signing keys. OTA ships with the free forever workspace (unlimited Fleet Manager); Pro ($19/mo) adds the AI suite on top.

This chapter is the deep dive on Fleet → OTA Update Manager. For discovery, groups, and Deploy Lite, see Fleet Management.

What this chapter covers

Opening the OTA Update Manager
Publishing a signed release (All / Group / Selected, canary)
How aida-lite polls, verifies, and applies updates
Per-device OTA history
Signing keys (generate, rotate, deploy public keys)
Smoke-testing with the simulator or a local agent
Common OTA failures and how to fix them

Open OTA Update Manager

Open from Fleet → OTA Update Manager, Tools → Device Monitoring → OTA Update Manager, or the red OTA Update toolbar button.

OTA pushes a signed payload to fleet devices; the device's aida-lite agent downloads, verifies the signature, and applies it.

Publishing an update

Click New Release.
Drag the build artefact (for example a .zip, .tar.gz, or ESP32 firmware .bin) into the drop zone.
AidaIDE signs the artefact with your OTA private key and generates a manifest. The expected upload URL is updates.aidaide.app.
Choose roll-out scope — All / Group / Selected devices.
Optionally stage as Canary — about 10% of the selection first, watch metrics, then promote.
Click Publish.

Devices running aida-lite poll the manifest at the configured interval (default 5 minutes). When they see a newer version targeted at their group, they download, verify the signature, and apply.

OTA history

Each device's detail panel in Fleet Manager has an OTA history subtab — current version, previous version, and when the last apply succeeded or failed.

Use history when a canary looks healthy before you promote the rest of the fleet.

Signing keys

The OTA signing keypair is generated on first OTA Manager launch and stored in the credential vault.

To rotate: OTA Update Manager → Settings → Rotate Signing Key.

Old releases stay verifiable while the old public key remains on devices.
New releases require the new public key on devices first — check OTA Update Manager → Devices → Key Status before a wide rollout.

aida-lite on the device

aida-lite is the lightweight agent on each fleet device. It reports specs and health to Fleet Manager and applies OTA updates.

Ways to try OTA safely before production:

Bundled simulator — Tools → Protocol Wizard → Simulated Device registers a virtual aida-lite with Fleet Manager.
Local Linux / WSL2 / VM — install aida-lite on a box you control and enroll it in a canary group.
AidaIDE host itself — install aida-lite on the workstation for a quick smoke test.

Device agent licensing is separate from the per-user AidaIDE license (Free forever IDE + optional Pro). See Updates, Licensing, Support.

Troubleshooting

OTA Update Manager says "No updates available"

Click Refresh in the OTA Update Manager (endpoint cache TTL is a few minutes).
Confirm Settings → Network → OTA points at updates.aidaide.app.
Confirm the device is in the release's target group or selection.

OTA Update succeeded but the device did not change

Check aida-lite logs on the device (journalctl -u aida-lite on systemd hosts).
Verify the device is in the target group for that release.
Verify Key Status shows the current signing public key on the device.

Canary looks fine but promote does nothing

Confirm you promoted the same release ID (not a duplicate draft).
Refresh Fleet Manager device list — stale filters can hide the remaining cohort.

Terms & Setup

OTA Update Manager — signs artefacts and rolls them out to All / Group / Selected devices, with optional canary.
aida-lite — device agent that polls the manifest, verifies signatures, and applies updates.
Canary — stage a small percentage of the selection first, then promote.
Signing keypair — vault-backed keys used to sign manifests; rotate only after deploying the new public key.
Fleet Manager — bulk device registry that hosts OTA history and groups; see Fleet Management.

Fleet Management — discovery, groups, Deploy Lite, serial / PLC monitors
Updates, Licensing, Support — AidaIDE app updates and Free / Pro licensing
SSH Devices and Connections — interactive sessions vs fleet enrollment
Live status for the update plane: /status