Is this likely to work with Bela? I know the BBGW isn't, they claim full compatibility with all capes, has anyone tried it?

We haven't had a chance to test it yet, though form the schematics it looks like Bela may work on it: this is NOT using the SPI bus that the green wireless is using.
On the other hand, it may require some drivers in order for the wireless chips to work, and they may not be available on the kernel that Bela currently runs on (3.8.13), though I have not done any research on that.

Sounds reasonably promising, I might give it a shot. Thanks!

19 days later

Not immediately successful, the BBBW boots from the latest Bela image, although (not unexpectedly) the wifi doesn't work. Unfortunately the BBBW won't boot with the Bela cape attached.

Oh that's interesting. Have you tested booting with the Bela cape attached with both the pre-flashed eMMC image and with the Bela image?

Yes, neither boots with the cape attached. The eMMC image is 8.6 so I didn't expect that to work. The Bela image does have a version of the wl1835 drivers but they're not recognizing the hardware.

2 months later

Any updates on this? Using the BBBW seems to a much more effective option than just trying to append BT / WIFI capabilities. (My project will likely require BT down the road). I don't have a BBBW right now, so I can't experiment.

We have ordered one to test, we will report back.

2 months later

Good news:
booted Debian Stretch with 4.4.61 xenomai-r98 kernel on the BBB-wireless, also managed to get the wifi chip recognized and the drivers seems to be working. Not managed to get wifi connectivity yet, but I could not get it with a USB wifi chip either (because I don't understand wpa_supplicant).

And Bela is working great on this by the way.

Actually, got the built-in wifi to work. It does not seem to have detrimental effects on the analog inputs (which was the case for the beaglebone green wifi (because the wifi module there was conflicting with some pins from the Bela cape). It does - however - make the quality of the audio input a bit worse especially at high gain levels.

    giuliomoro It does - however - make the quality of the audio input a bit worse especially at high gain levels.
    Have you spent any time to figure out why/where the noise gets into the audio?

    Any chance the wifi module is chewing up the 3V3 with high-current pulses?

      a month later

      Would say that, at this point, it's safe to get a BBB wireless to use with the Bela? Thanks

      Hi Francisco,
      there is a testing image we have laying around that should work with the BBGW, including the WiFi module, but no analog I/O because those are sharing the SPI bus with the WiFi module, so there is really no way around it.
      I will try to get it out there some time soon.

        giuliomoro thanks,

        I was really asking if I should get the BeagleBone Black Wireless.

        Unfortunately, I've put the BBGreen Wireless aside for Bela projects, but that testing image would be great.

        Cheers,


          13 days later

          giuliomoro Hi Guilio, i'm trying to use a Bela cape with a BeagleBone Black Wireless too, is there a (test) image around somewhere that might work? I don't need to use the wifi.

            Done:
            here is the Bela/BoneBlackWireless dtb.
            if you flash the image linked above, you can then put this file on the board on the BELABOOT partition and edit the uEnv.txt file in there to tell it to use this file rather than the default Bela one.

            #dtb=am335x-bone-bela.dtb
dtb=am335x-boneblack-wireless.dtb

            Then you could download this package (drivers for the WiFi module) and install it with

            dpkg -i firmware-ti-connectivity_20161130-3_all.deb

            OR you could just wait till tomorrow, as I am rebuilding the image now (with all the above changes) and will upload it on github tomorrow.