Many backers have already received their Flipper Zeros, and their number is growing by the day. At the time of writing, 23 thousand devices have already been shipped! We’re getting a ton of feedback from users and it’s amazing.
Unfortunately, there is still a considerable number of backers who are waiting for their deliveries. In this post, we will tell you how it’s going so far and give an update on shipping and production schedules. We are also providing a guide on the first launch and initial setup of your device.
This is a manual for the first launch of Flipper Zero: it explains how to update the firmware, install databases to an SD card, and more. Please read it carefully before using your Flipper Zero as it’s a rather advanced piece of hardware, and many things may not be obvious. Read the First Start section of the documentation for more details.
Flipper Zero firmware is under active development and is constantly changing thanks to community input. Therefore, it is important to us that community members understand the device’s internal architecture, how the firmware works, how to debug it and how to collect logs. We’re counting on the community to improve Flipper Zero together with us.
Power ON
As a safety precaution, Flipper travels in the box in transport mode. In this mode, power is supplied only to the internal clock of the microcontroller. You can read more about the different power modes in the Power section of the documentation.
To turn on your device, push and hold the :back: button.
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Flipper’s battery may be completely discharged, so it won’t turn on right away. Plug the USB cable to charge it and it will turn on automatically.
If Flipper doesn’t turn on after charging, try rebooting it by pressing :left: + :back: simultaneously.
Install an SD card
Keys, cards, remotes, and databases are stored on the SD card. It’s also required during firmware updates, so it’s important to install the SD card BEFORE updating the firmware. Flipper supports large-capacity SD cards, but we recommend using an SD card no larger than 16GB or 32GB. Since Flipper Zero utilizes very small files rarely exceeding 1MB in size, it makes no sense to use large SD cards. You can read more in the SD card Setup section of the documentation.
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The SD card should snap into place inside the port, in order for this to happen it needs to be pushed a little deeper into the case. You will need to push the card for it to lock inside using your fingernail or something thin. This may not always work with short nails – here is a video on how to push the SD card into the slot in such cases.
If the SD card is successfully mounted, you will find a little SD card icon on the top bar:
If your SD card fails to mount, it probably has an incompatible file system. Please format the SD card to exFAT or FAT32 format to use it: How to format SD card in Flipper.
Formatting the SD card
SD card support in Flipper’s firmware is implemented using the FatFs library. In order for it to work, the SD card must be formatted to either FAT32 or exFAT.
We recommend formatting the SD card using Flipper’s built-in format tool. You can do this by navigating to the following menu: Settings -> Storage -> Format SD Card
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What SD card to get?
Not all SD cards are made equal. High-quality branded SD cards have several physical interfaces that can be used for connecting to a device — SDIO and SPI.
There are many cheap counterfeit and off-brand SD cards on the market, which don’t have all interfaces working stably. In some cases, one SD card works fine over the high-speed SDIO interface but works poorly and is unstable over SPI. Flipper uses SPI, so it’s important to choose a high-quality branded SD card for your Flipper Zero.
All modern smartphones and computers connect to the SD card via the high-speed SDIO interface, but Flipper uses a power-saving and slow SPI interface. This interface is not as popular with cheap counterfeit SD cards and the SPI mode is often poorly implemented. Therefore, it is important to use branded original SD cards.
You can test the speed of your SD card in SPI mode by going to Settings -> Storage -> Benchmark SD Card. You can find the average SD card speed on the SD Card speed test documentation page. It’s ok if the values you’re getting are slightly higher or lower. If you’re having problems with an SD card, the best advice we can give is to simply try another one.
What is stored on the SD card?
The SD card is necessary to unleash the full potential of Flipper Zero. It stores auxiliary files that we call databases. Many Flipper Zero features will not work properly without a relevant database on the SD card. You can find a detailed description of files stored on the SD card here: flipperzero-sd-card-examples.
The databases are copied to the SD card during the last part of the firmware update process. That is why it’s important to perform the update with the SD card already in place. All user keys, signals, cards, and remotes are also stored on the SD card. You can access these files through qFlipper or through the Flipper Mobile Apps.
You can also access files on an SD card at any time by plugging it into a computer. Almost all files used by Flipper Zero are stored in plain text and can be easily viewed and edited with your favorite text editor.
Flipper Zero comes out of the factory with a very old firmware version. This version is tied to the production processes of testing and calibrating the device on the factory line. It is important to update the firmware to the latest version right after taking your device out of the box. Do not use the device running factory firmware, it is hopelessly outdated!
Update your Flipper Zero’s firmware: flipperzero.one/update
qFlipper is a desktop application for updating Flipper Zero firmware. It’s fully open-source and written in Qt. It works on all major operations systems — Windows/macOS/Linux. In addition to updating the firmware, the qFlipper application will install the databases (flipperzero-sd-card-examples) to the SD card.
Update Process Rework
Flipper Zero’s firmware update consists of several stages:
- First core firmware update (Flipper OS)
- Second core firmware update (Bluetooth RadioStack)
- Databases installation to the SD card
Right now the Flipper Zero upda
