The "I'm a Hotspot - Connect and configure me for on-line use" is a common and acceptable approach.You think your users are able to do this? This expects an installed Python interpreter on the user's computer.The user just runs the received PythonPatcher.py, enters his credentials and the PythonPatcher issues a xxxxx_patched.bin file.
The user uploads the xxxxx_patched.bin file with esptool.py
Just look what other solutions are doing. If a IoT device is not able to connect to the WiFi, then in the most cases the IoT device starts its own Hotspot & Webserver to let the user change the settings via the Webinterface. This is more work, but also more user-friendly.
But I wouldn't have a problem with "Download and install the software. Then run 'configure' to specify connection details and upload a suitably patched '.uf2' or '.bin' to the module". I would actually prefer that having had problems connecting to some Hotspot devices, rendering them unusable.
It's merely a matter of making that convenient for users. Software installations can install minimalistic Python interpreters local to the software to allow it to do its thing. But whether that is necessary depends on the anticipated user's skill levels and what they have. If users are mostly developers using 'esptool' and other tools, I don't think "and you'll need Python" is that problematic.
Statistics: Posted by hippy — Mon Jul 08, 2024 12:26 pm