Looking at the state diagram in the documentation there is an initial “Get Squirrel 1” state after powering up. I would like to defer that server connection until after my initialization is complete, e.g. move servos to their origin position, clear displays, etc.
According to that same document it’s possible to setRescuePin() which allows going straight to Active-Offline mode. Is this feature really only available for factory-produced imps? Is there any way to achieve the same behavior with a development imp?
Your squirrel is only held off until the imp has verified that it has the latest squirrel version, or 10s, whichever comes first - but yes, the only way to get instant code execution is via the rescue pin.
Due to the increased complexity to recover a device from bad squirrel (ensuring the rescue pin is actually accessible in the design!) we currently limit setting this to factory code - though, the device does not need to be blessed and the setting is persistent, so you can set it and then continue to use the device for development as usual.