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Safe way to update Keychron mechanical keyboard firmware? (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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As noted in the title, I am trying to figure out the safest way to update the firmware on my recently purchased Keychron K1 QMK V6 keyboard. I was finally able to get the web based Keychron Launcher app to talk to my KB after using chmod to give the correct HIDRAW device read-write access but it looks like the new firmware needs another utility to be installed and only the Windoze directions are provided.

From my own online research it looks like there is a terminal-based method but it wasn't really explained. I am not super concerned about updating the firmware since the preloaded version works well enough for my needs but I am still wondering if anyone knew of a tutorial on how to do this without bricking my shiny new keyboard.

I am using Fedora 43 Workstation if that makes any difference. Thanks in advance for any tips or advice!

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[–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

Nah, it's not that risky if your tooling and process is solid. I have thousands of edge devices out in the field doing firmware updates on carrier boards from a specific manufacturer and have never had one fail or brick in update. Why? Because their tooling is absolutely fantastic and pretty bulletproof.

Even a simple {checksum>transfer>checksum>write>checksum} is pretty safe, UNLESS...you know the carrier you're flashing doesnt have the ability to do so, in which case, you definitely put a warning like this on your product because you know it has a penchant for failure.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    And I assume all of those devices have a UPS

    checksum > write > checksum

    the failure im referring to is power/other interruptions during the write process. doing a pre and post checksum is worthless if the flash fails half way through.

    if its a device that you expect to flash regularly, theres usually a recovery process or failover device, right? no way youre flashing prod devices without a dr or failure recovery.

    for a random users keyboard? simple - dont flash it if its not broken.

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