Ever updated the Firmware of Appliances? O_O

orangpelupa

Elite Bug Hunter
Legend
hmm, nowadays more and more stuff comes with ability to do firmware updates. Have you ever did that to appliances and get unexpected results?

I just updated my TV and... it deleted my settings on inactive input but saved the settings on active input. Pain in the rear to set it all over again...

I wonder what the heck happen if i updated my car, my microwave...
 
New firmware comes out for my Sonos speakers every couple months or so. With each speaker essentially being an embedded computer system, you hope they pay attention to security issues. With DDoS attacks using malware-infected consumer home routers getting popular, the problems of insecure "internet of things" devices will only increase. Today's "smart" TVs have dual core CPUs or maybe even better, as well as high-performance wired or even wireless connectivity (my samsung TV's a couple years old now and features 5GHz n-WiFi; I was also stupid enough to enable it, causing the damn thing to pop up a window telling me when it auto-updated its software, usually right in the middle of me watching a movie! Ugh.)

Powerful devices such as these will be prime targets for malware writers when they get around to exploring what - likely plentiful - glitches may hide in the resident software that can be exploited. No user would be able to even tell their TV's been infected, and would be unlikely to ever purge it out either. Usually, when your home router gets hacked, the malware stays in RAM only, meaning if you power-cycle the device it's cleaned out (but will get re-infected again of course, perhaps only within minutes.) Even if malware stays in RAM only; how often do you ever pull the power cord of your TV? Unless the power goes out where I live, the answer is "never" for me... :)
 
^^ my home router... and basically everyone i know that use my ISP and router from ISP is infected by router virus lol
dunno its from the ISP itself or not.

, causing the damn thing to pop up a window telling me when it auto-updated its software, usually right in the middle of me watching a movie! Ugh.

yikes. that is annoying. The main function of TV is for displaying stuff, they should not interrupt that.

btw my TV is only 1 or 2 year old and samsung already abandon it. Latest FW is Jan 2014 :/
 
My Fuji X-E2 gets updates quite frequently (remote wifi shooting, viewfinder latency reduction, better manual focusing aids, faster autofocus, more film simulation modes, better button customizations, mixed manual/automatic focus mode, etc). They have basically added all the important features of their newer models as firmware updates to the older models. I do respect that. Canon never updated any features of their new cameras to their old models.

I have also upgraded firmware of my Sigma lenses (yes even lenses nowadays have computers inside!). You can buy a USB dock that connects to your computer and lets you update the lenses firmware and mess up with the autofocus properties.
 
My Samsung has a quad-core processor on 5Ghz, can play downloaded games with surprisingly good graphics and a motion controller, stream from a whole bunch of sources (local and otherwise) and downloads updates all the time. I don't use ANY of the "smart" features though.
 
Updated firmware on multiple Audio Receivers, TVs, DVD players, Blu Ray Players, and GPS Maps (tomtom),. This seems to be standard fare now adays.
 
no problems after updating the firmware? it just works? awesome :D

i guess my TV is bargain bin samsung series so they dont bother to "Save" the customization :/
 
For all the tech and general usability of modern smartphone, they are annoyingly not updated as often as I would've liked. I've got exactly 1 update on my LG G Pro. A lot of low end models don't even get any update. I know they want you to buy the new model instead, but damn, it's wasting lots of good enough hardware. If it weren't for the lack of SD card, I would've bought a Nexus phone.
 
I have a dumbphone (but with FM radio and USB power. Takes SD cards but the USB is only 1.1). My amp is analog (yet it creates square waves from the input and amplifies that, so it's called a "digital amp" sometimes) ; my electric oven has a mechanical timer.

So there's not much updating of devices. I updated my vid cards's firmware!

Worst thing is not being able to tell that the water heater has stopped working. I would at least like to have an indicator light, a temperature reading would be even more fancy but I don't want it to have Internet connectivity. Even USB goes too far : that needs an OS and drivers. Smart appliances are allowed to be smart if they don't run an OS. I would like something like the Game Boy again : that's not going to be hacked.
 
Back
Top