Page 53 - Programming the Photon Getting Started With the Internet of Things
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Photon’s Firmware
The Photon board is a truly embedded device and as such does not have an operating
system like other traditional computers have. Instead, it runs on a single piece of code
called firmware, which runs whenever the device is powered on.
Traditional hardware has hard-coded software embedded in and thus it is difficult to
change or flash new firmware every time. The Photon board uses over-the-air firmware
updates to overwrite almost all of its software with a new one. The only piece of software
that is not affected when flashing the device is the bootloader, which manages the process
of uploading new firmware and ensures a successful load. The bootloader is also
responsible for the factory reset option that is provided on the Photon.
Summary
That concludes this chapter for now—hopefully you are able to connect your Photon to
the Wi-Fi network and are comfortable creating your very own applications using the
Particle Build IDE webpage. In the next chapter we will look at some of the Arduino-style
C programming concepts to understand a bit about how we can program the Photon board.
