Photonicat 2 Sound Guide
Photonicat 2 uses a single buzzer to signal system events. This page lists every tone, its pitch and duration, and what triggers it.
For the indicator LED see Photonicat 2 LED Indicator. 中文版见 光影猫2 提示音说明。
The buzzer can be disabled through the host protocol. Sound and the indicator LED are controlled separately, so either can be silenced without affecting the other.
Quick reference
| Sound | What you hear | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 🔔 Two short rising beeps | beep-beep | Power on |
| 🔕 Three falling beeps | beep-boop-bop | Power off |
| 🔌 Two rising beeps, low start | beep-beep | Charger connected |
| ⚡ Bright three-note run | beep-beep-beep rising | Powering an external device |
| 🔊 Single short beep | beep | Charge current reached target |
| 🚨 Four high/low pairs | beep-boop ×4 | Over temperature, system shut down |
| 🛠 Two high/low rounds | boop-beep ×2 | Entering firmware download mode |
| ♻ Eight alternating tones | long high/low run | Entering factory reset mode |
| 🎵 Rising arpeggio, 3 s | low to high run | Data wipe succeeded, restarting |
| 🎵 Falling low tones, 2 s | high to low, sombre | Data wipe failed, restarting |
| 🎵 Bright rising motif, 2 s | short rising figure | Firmware update succeeded, restarting |
Full tone table
Frequencies in Hz, durations in ms. "silent" means the step waits without sounding.
| Sound | Sequence (Hz / ms) | Total | Trigger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power on | 1300/75 → 1500/75 | 0.15 s | Long press power button to start |
| Power off | 2000/150 → 1500/150 → 1000/150 | 0.45 s | Long press to shut down, or automatic low-battery shutdown |
| Charger connected | 432/150 → 528/75 | 0.23 s | Charger detected |
| Powering a device | 523/55 → 659/55 → 784/80 | 0.19 s | DC present and battery discharging, i.e. supplying an external device (must persist 4 s before it sounds) |
| Charge current reached | 2500/100 | 0.10 s | Charge current met the configured threshold |
| Over temperature | (2500/100 → 500/100) ×4 | 0.80 s | Temperature above limit, system powered down |
| Download mode | (3000/300 → 2000/300) ×2 | 1.20 s | From off: 3 short presses, then hold 10 s or more |
| Factory reset | 4000/300 → 1000/300 → 2000/300 → 3000/300 → 2000/300 → 4000/300 → 3000/300 → 1000/300 | 2.40 s | From off: 1 short press, then hold 17 s or more |
| MCU power-up (new bootloader) | 4000/30 → silent 1000 → 4000/200 | 1.23 s | MCU power-on self test |
| MCU power-up (old bootloader) | 4000/200 | 0.20 s | MCU power-on self test |
Pre-restart tones
These three play synchronously: the device only resets once the tone has finished, so the duration is exactly how long you wait before the restart.
| Sound | Sequence (Hz / ms) | Total | Trigger |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🎵 Wipe succeeded | 523/160 → 659/160 → 784/160 → 1047/160 → 1319/160 → 1568/160 → 2093/258 → silent 74 → 1568/135 → 2093/135 → 2637/429 → silent 92 → 2093/184 → 2637/184 → 3136/552 | 3.00 s | Factory data wipe succeeded, restarting |
| 🎵 Wipe failed | 440/357 → silent 51 → 415/357 → silent 51 → 392/357 → silent 51 → 330/765 | 1.99 s | Factory data wipe failed, restarting |
| 🎵 Update succeeded | 784/170 → 1047/170 → 1319/170 → 1568/382 → silent 102 → 1319/170 → 1568/170 → 2093/638 | 1.97 s | MCU firmware update succeeded, restarting |
Note: from firmware RA2E1260726002 these three play faster (wipe-succeeded cut from 4.89 s to 3.00 s, the other two by about 15 %). The note sequences are unchanged — only the tempo — so the wait before restart is shorter.
Notes
- Sound and the indicator LED have independent enable settings; silencing one leaves the other working.
- The "powering a device" tone requires the discharge condition to hold for 4 continuous seconds, so plugging and unplugging a charger will not trigger it spuriously.
- The watchdog is serviced normally while the pre-restart tones play, so a longer tone cannot cause an unexpected reset.