0.17.0 - WiFi, and a hotspot for when it fails
The ESP32-P4 has no radio. On boards that carry an ESP32-C6 next to it - the Function EV among them - the P4 can talk WiFi through that chip, and now it does. A new Connection setting picks Ethernet, WiFi, or the device's own access point, and you can swap between them from the status bar.
The interesting part is what happens when WiFi does not work. A KVM that cannot reach its network is exactly the thing you cannot fix remotely, so:
- if the device cannot join, it can put up its own hotspot, and keep trying the network in the background - when the network comes back, it reconnects on its own;
- joining that hotspot opens the console on your phone by itself, like hotel WiFi does, so you do not have to know an address.
Over the hotspot the console runs on plain HTTP, because a captive-portal browser will not accept a self-signed certificate. H.264 is off there; MJPEG and every setting work. Ethernet and WiFi keep full HTTPS.
One caveat on the P4: the microSD card and the WiFi co-processor share a bus, so virtual media only works in Ethernet mode.
This release also made 1080p H.264 faster on rev 3.0 and newer silicon, from about 15 to about 22 frames a second, by keeping the encoder fed and by capturing in a format both encoders can take directly.