Hardware Horrors that Firmware Upgrades Would've Fixed?

Anonymous Coward writes "I just started working for a startup that is developing a new product, which is going to have software bundled with hardware. Our company outsourced the hardware and firmware development. I reviewed the hardware product requirements and I noticed that the hardware will not support firmware upgrades from the PC. I am concerned that once we ship the product, bugs or interoperability issues will appear in the field and we won't have anyway to fix the problem short of a product recall. I have some of the management team convinced we need to change this requirement but not the person who has the authority to make the change. I'm looking for examples of past companies that got bit by a similar mistake and any other items that will help me convince the decision maker." Nobody is perfect, so why do we assume that we can design hardware that is? If it's one thing that our current experiences with software have shown it's that sometimes, an applications may take more than one version before it is perfect. Before, our ability to change hardware coding made getting perfect products out the door important, because recalls were expensive. Today, we have smarter hardware, which can be relatively simple to update. The cost of recalls, however, have not changed. So for what reason would a hardware company balk at making the need for a recall a thing of the past?

Not a problem, but.....

[Patman]

Voyetra/Turtle Beach's Audiotron home MP3 player has an easily flashable firmware. The system ships as just a player, but the firmware adds functionality such as advanced management and web-based control. Point out to your manager that it's not just for problems - it can be used for features as well!

On the down side... You can kill the product.

[grnbrg]

Flash is great, but make sure that it is failsafe.

Example -- I had 2 USR Courier modems in the mid-90s that were 'flash upgradeable'... Once the V90 standard was stable, I flashed one of them.

And killed it.

The modem was supposed to be flashable, and I did everything right, but USR had got the hardware wrong. They replaced both modems at their cost, and both the new modems flashed correctly.

There are also frequently warnings on motherboard flash programs and Palm flash programs to this effect -- if you screw up the flash, you will have a product that you *cannot* use, and must send in/replace to get functioning again.

With that in mind, make sure your product either has a flash loader, or default software image in ROM that can be accessed if the flash image is corrupt, either automatically, or by a jumper. Otherwise you may end up with angry customers who have upgraded paperweights.

Brian.