Just a quick update to say I got in touch with Joseph at Microchip, and he was incredibly helpful. After a long chat on the phone, I made up a pogo pin adapter and had my TTN Uno up and running in minutes. Also updated some of the original RN2903-095 modules I had. It does help that I am an Aussie embedded developer that alreadyt does a lot of work with Microchip parts.
If anyone is in Sydney and needs a module reprogramed, contact me and I will try help you out - but I can’t share the files.
Unfortunately I had an early version of the LoRa Mote board that updated fine via USB, but it soon died (overheated) after I started configuring it with keys and channel mask. Not sure what happened, but I don’t think it was related to the firmware. I’ve got some of the newer revision Motes on the way from the USA, along with some of the newer RN2903A modules.
I’ve also got some Sodaq LoRaONE boards, and Joseph warned me not to program them via the pogo pins. The RESET line that carries programming voltage is directly connected to one of the Atmel mcu GPIOs, and the high voltage on that pin can kill the mcu. We need to use the firmware updater tool from Sodaq for that, but the include files must be updated to use this newer AU firmware.
It is worth noting that if you can’t do the beta/NDA thing, the Sodaq updater does include an earlier release of the AU firmware that may tide you over till there is a public release.