Glossary

These are the words the rest of the docs use without stopping to explain them.

AmebaD. Realtek's family of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, and the vendor SDK we build on. The PLAF103 uses the RTL8721DM. See the chip page.

KM0 and KM4. The chip's two processor cores. KM4 is the fast one and runs the firmware. KM0 is the small one: it boots first, picks which bank to start, and stays in charge of low-level duties.

Bank 0 and bank 1. The two places in flash where a firmware image can live. A new image goes into the other bank and is given a trial. If it fails, the feeder starts the old one again. See bank policy.

Trial and confirmation. A freshly installed image runs on trial. It becomes the image the feeder boots by confirming that it started cleanly. One that crashes or hangs during its trial is abandoned.

Stock. The firmware the feeder shipped with, version 1.1.15 on our unit. See stock firmware.

Feeding owner. The one piece of firmware allowed to turn the motor. Every feed, from a button or an app, is a request to it. It stops the motor on time and records every feed before it starts.

Journal. The feeder's record of feeds, kept in flash. Writing a feed down before turning the motor means a power cut can never make the feeder repeat a feed. Instead the feed is reported as uncertain.

Device API. The encrypted interface the feeder serves on your network. The CLI, the app and the server all speak it. See device API.

Noise. The Noise Protocol Framework, which the device API uses for encryption and to check who is talking.

Owner and member. The roles a paired client can have. An owner can do everything, including updates and adding others. A member is invited by an owner and can do less.

Pairing. How a phone or computer first gets its key onto the feeder, over Bluetooth, while you are standing next to it. See pairing.

The server. The optional self-hosted Wellfed server. It keeps long history and serves several feeders and people. The feeder works without it. See the server.

SDK. Here, usually the Wellfed SDK: the Rust runtime every Wellfed firmware runs inside. "Vendor SDK" means Realtek's AmebaD SDK underneath it.

Evidence levels. Every finding is labelled by how we know it: observed on a real feeder, recovered from firmware analysis, or modeled in tests and simulation. See evidence levels.