cvhviz/CAIRN cairn-v129

Cairn 129

on GitHub

Cairn 129 fixes the time zone on the Heltec T096 and the Wio Tracker L1 family, which showed UTC whatever zone the Cairn app set, and gives the one-button boards a dashboard Home page and their own Time zone setting. The T096's TX power goes up to 18 again. The Heltec T114 gets a companion build to try, as an experimental pre-release.

Highlights:

• The time zone shows on the T096 and the Wio Tracker L1 family. The app's Time zone setting wrote a field these screens never read, so they showed UTC. It now sets the zone their clocks use, in quarter-hour steps ("5.5" is UTC+5:30), and a zone set the old way is picked up at boot. CairnOS 1.5 sets the radio's zone from your phone each time it connects (Settings › Device Info › Clock, "Time zone follows phone"), daylight saving included. The touch boards keep their own named zones (Settings › Clock › Time zone), as in 128.
• T096 and the other one-button boards: Settings › Time zone, for a radio without a phone. A fixed UTC offset ("UTC-5", "UTC+5:30"); a hold steps an hour west and wraps from -12 to +14. The Home clock follows at once.
• T096: the Home page is a dashboard. The clock sits large at the top left, with the date and the zone beside it; under it the phone link (Connected, the pairing PIN or Bluetooth off) with the GPS at the right, then the nodes heard and the newest advert's age with the uptime, and the bottom row as before (Storage low / hold: read / Queued). Without a set clock it reads "--:-- not synced / app or GPS".
• T096: TX power up to 18 again, as on the V4, V4-R8 and Tracker V2 (16 since 119). On the T096's amplifier every setting from 15 up gives about 28 dBm at the antenna, so 17 and 18 add current and heat rather than range; they are there for a board that measures low. A saved value above 18 is lowered to 18 at boot.
• Heltec T114 companion, to test (issue #44): the T096's one-button screen on the T114's 1.14" display, white on black. It builds but hasn't run on a T114 yet, so it's an experimental pre-release, not part of this one.

Checked: the T096 build runs on two T096s, and the Home dashboard and Time zone page were drawn in the screen simulator at several zones. Not checked yet on a device: the Wio Tracker L1 family's clock with the zone from the app, and the T114 companion, so please report what you see.

Update

• On Cairn 108 to 128 (L2 Pro, Heltec V4 touch, ThinkNode M9, T-Deck, T-Display SF32, T-LoRa Pager): Settings › System › Firmware update: Check, Download, Install. The new build starts on trial and goes back to the old one by itself if it fails to start. On the T-Display SF32, dock the core on the keyboard board first (it carries the Wi-Fi chip). 129 changes nothing on these boards but the build number, so there's no hurry.
• T-Deck started from an SD-card launcher: don't use Update on 121 or earlier (122 and later are fine). Copy MeshCore-TDeckPlus-Cairn129-2026-11-07-update.bin to the card and install it from the launcher, as you installed Cairn.
• Over USB on an ESP32 board: the -full.bin goes at 0x0, after Erase Flash, and erases everything. The -update.bin goes at 0x10000 and keeps your data. If the board last updated over Wi-Fi, clear the boot selector first, as in the ESP32 install guide.
• Wio Tracker L1 Pro, DV1, L1 e-ink, the room server and the T096: double-tap Reset and copy the board's .uf2 onto the drive that appears (UF2 guide), or use the Cairn app's Firmware Update over Bluetooth. Updating keeps your identity, contacts, channels and settings.
• Compact repeaters: write the -repeater-update.bin at 0x10000, or copy the -repeater.uf2. They don't update over Wi-Fi.
• Going back to 128: 129 adds no settings 128 can't read. On a T096 a TX power of 17 or 18 is lowered to 16 by 128.
• T-LoRa Pager: pick the file for your radio (it's on the box and the back label). SX1262 units take TLoraPager, LR1121 units take TLoraPagerLR1121; the wrong one runs but has no radio. The online update keeps to the radio you installed.
• A board without Cairn: write the board's -full.bin (ESP32 install guide), copy the .uf2 (UF2 guide), or run the SF32 installer (SF32 install guide).

Downloads

The compact repeater files (-repeater in the name) are rebuilt from the same tree: Heltec T096 and T114 (.uf2), and the Heltec Wireless Tracker, Tracker V2, V2, V3, V4 and V4-R8 (-repeater-full.bin and -repeater-update.bin). Cairn 129 runs on MeshCore 1.18.0, as 118 to 128 did. SHA256SUMS.txt covers every file: shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt.

Not in this release: the experimental boards (what experimental builds are). The Heltec T114 companion is new as a Cairn 129 pre-release; the LilyGO T5 E-Paper S3 Pro, the SenseCAP MeshPager X2 and the Heltec V4 + Expansion Kit V1 stay on Cairn 127.

Added

• One-button boards: Settings › Time zone, a fixed UTC offset in whole hours, for a radio without a phone.
• Heltec T114 companion as an experimental pre-release.

Changed

• T096 and the other one-button boards: the Home page is a dashboard (clock, date and zone, link and GPS, nodes and uptime).
• T096: TX power up to 18 (was 16).

Fixed

• T096 and Wio Tracker L1 family: the clock showed UTC whatever zone the app set. set tz.offset sets the zone these screens use, takes quarter hours, and get tz.offset reports the zone in force.