Home > Edison > Current State

Making contact the first time

Serial port (USB)
Serial port (USB gadget)
Ethernet (dongle)
Ethernet (USB gadget)
Wifi AP
Bluetooth (tether)

Serial port (USB)

The simplest way to connect is to insert a USB cable into the port marked 3 and the other end into you laptop or PC and follow step 1 here.

Note: The serial port will appear as a FTDI based serial port, for which linux ordinarily has a driver built-in. On Windows you may need to acquire a driver from FTDI and install it. You then need to start a terminal. Depending on the Windows version try Hyperterm, Teraterm or similar (115200 baud, parity none).

Serial port (USB gadget)

In gadget mode, the Edison USB port works as virtual serial port. You can configure a linux host to actually create the port. Instructions are provided here.

Warning: On the Edison you need to start a terminal server on the virtual serial port to make it useful. Currently you need to login to the Edison and use agetty. Your simplest option is to connect a USB cable to the port marked 3 here.

Note: We intend to improve this by making a terminal server start on the virtual serial port automatically.

Ethernet (dongle)

Certain usb ethernet dongle drivers are already built-in (i.e. Microship SMSC95xx supporting LAN9514 4p+eth hub). Plugging in a supported dongle will immediately start ethernet on that port.

If your dongle is not supported you need to provide a kernel fragment in meta-intel-edison-bsp/recipes-kernel/linux/files/ similar to smsc95xx.cfg and add it to the linux-yocto recipe in the directory above.

Ethernet (USB gadget)

In gadget mode, the Edison USB port works as a slave (device). You can configure a linux host to provide a shared ethernet-over-USB connection to the Edison. Instructions are provided here.

Warning: The Gadget may be powered off by default. To power it on currently you need to login to the Edison and use connmanctl. If this is the case your simplest option is to connect a USB cable to the Serial port.

Note: We intend to improve this by making the gadget to either power on automatically, or by pressing the Power Button.

Wifi AP

Pressing the Power Button shortly (more then 2 sec. but less then 10) with turn the Edison Wifi AP on. The Access Point will appear as EDISON-xx-xx with xx-xx depending on the hardware address of the wlan0 device and the passphrase identical to the serial number (on the label of the Edison module).

A web server for further configuration is started that you can access for further configuration. Point you web browser to either http://edison or http://edison.local.

Warning: In AP mode the Wifi Access Point is routed to whatever other (Ethernet, Bluetooth Tether) upstream net you may have. This may be useful, while at the same time might be a security risk. You might want to change the passphrase to a secret one.

Note: Pressing the Power Button runs configure_edison from the oobe (Out Of the Box Experience)

Bluetooth (tether)

3 quick pushes of the power button (3rd button from the left marked as PWR on the Edison Arduino) makes the LED blink fast and enables bluetooth pairing without further intervention.

Some devices (computer / laptop) require pairing using a PIN, where the PIN consists of the last 6 digits from the serial number (skipping letters).

Other devices (phones) may pair without PIN.

Pairing while having Bluetooth tethering enabled will create a bluetooth connection in connman.

This starts a web server same as with the Wifi AP above.