The future of Flipper Zero development • Hacker News Board

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#151

Post by wongarsu » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 8:45 AM UTC

miki123211 wrote: post #134

pastaj36 wrote: post #105

Tough spot with community that expects firmware updates while hardware sells only once

Which is just another way of saying "this is why most developers prefer subscriptions over one-time sales"

What's funny, or maybe sad, is that this used to be a solved problem back in the CD-distribution era of software. You buy the software once (or in this case the hardware that comes with a software license). You get bugfix patches and minor updates for a year. Next year the next version releases with major new features, and you either pay the price of an update or you stay on the version you are on. Good incentives for all sides. Development stays aligned with existing users, because otherwise they just stop buying updates. And in return the developer gets predictable revenue.

Then Minecraft pioneered the model of users paying once and getting free lifetime updates. And shortly thereafter various SaaS pioneered the model of the user paying monthly while the software barely changes.

And somehow we pretend like those two business models aren't both broken, and like the first one somehow doesn't work anymore

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#152

Post by jpfromlondon » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:02 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #150

abcd_f wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they do, but an actually fair to all sides model is that of one-time sales coupled with optional paid-for updates.

That's basically a variant of a subscription, but one where the end user churns aggressively. It's worse in many ways too - it's a lot harder to gauge interest as the developer to understand how well any update will sell, and if the updates "stack", then a user only pays for the newest update to get all older features free. It's also worse from a cashflow perspective for the developer (but better for consumer) since…

I'd be surprised if the churn was as high as the subscription model.

If I buy a product and like it as-is then I don't necessarily want it to change over time.

Buy once is better, buy once with optional updates or periodic version releases is better still.

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#153

Post by throwing_away » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

hdgr wrote: post #5

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #4

> TL;DR: We've allocated resources to maintain Flipper Zero firmware and support community contributions. Is that the tldr? It sure sounds like it's still on minimal life support.

It is. As the article says, all development goals for FZ had been achieved and even overachieved - providing solid and feature-rich firmware, powerful SDK and developer tools. With that and development shift towards new products, updates to core firmare became infrequent - and we tried to address that. Src: I'm one of the developers behind Flipper Zero.

You guys have done such a good job that I've thought about buying one even though I don't need one at all just to support the project.

You've surely launched a generation of perhaps-someday-responsible hackers into the world.

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#154

Post by godelski » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

EricBetts wrote: post #130

pastaj36 wrote: post #105

Tough spot with community that expects firmware updates while hardware sells only once

It's sort of a self imposed problem as well because the community produces a bunch of pull requests, but only the corporate staff members can approve and merge them into the official firmware. It begs the question why have an official firmware if it's not at least slightly maintained.

  > why have an official firmware if it's not at least slightly maintained.

Because it's still useful to have a blessed child so that people getting into the space have somewhere to start. You could accept zero additional PRs and it would still be a useful thing to have.

The hardware is static so the rate of software rot is pretty low. It can effectively not be maintained as long as it's already in a stable state. Adding new features is cool and all but it also adds more bugs.

But the great thing is that there's a community, all using the same hardware, and people can fork. So people can still get those updates that they want. Maybe the only thing to do is create a community fork that is much more open but doesn't come with the same stability promises. But that can still be a lot of work, even if you get community maintainers

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#155

Post by rasz » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:08 AM UTC

underdeserver wrote: post #139

pastaj36 wrote: post #105

Tough spot with community that expects firmware updates while hardware sells only once

Easy fix: Allow donations, merge updates once donation pool is enough to pay for the maintainers' time.

Donating to a russian company with all the sanctions in place?

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#156

Post by abcd_f » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:11 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #150

abcd_f wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they do, but an actually fair to all sides model is that of one-time sales coupled with optional paid-for updates.

That's basically a variant of a subscription, but one where the end user churns aggressively. It's worse in many ways too - it's a lot harder to gauge interest as the developer to understand how well any update will sell, and if the updates "stack", then a user only pays for the newest update to get all older features free. It's also worse from a cashflow perspective for the developer (but better for consumer) since…

The principal difference is that things keep working if I stop paying. All other aspects are secondary.

And generally speaking there is a lot of options that are excellent for developers but complete shit for the users. That's obvious, but it's also off the point in the context of fairness.

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#157

Post by egorfine » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:12 AM UTC

I wonder whether that future includes sending me the device I initially backed on the very first kickstarter. It's been >4 years of back-and-forth with support.

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#158

Post by swiftcoder » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:21 AM UTC

asasidh wrote: post #144

Why would they not consider open-sourcing the software side ? Its not like they make any money from the software.

> Why would they not consider open-sourcing the software side ?

What part of their GPL-licensed firmware that is hosted in a public GitHub, do you consider not to be open-source?

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#159

Post by hypfer » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:29 AM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #151

miki123211 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is just another way of saying "this is why most developers prefer subscriptions over one-time sales"

What's funny, or maybe sad, is that this used to be a solved problem back in the CD-distribution era of software. You buy the software once (or in this case the hardware that comes with a software license). You get bugfix patches and minor updates for a year. Next year the next version releases with major new features, and you either pay the price of an update or you stay on the version you are on. Good incentives fo…

Are you sure that minecraft pioneered that model?

It is certainly a very well-known instance of it, but pioneered?

Re: The future of Flipper Zero development

#160

Post by hypfer » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 9:31 AM UTC

jagged-chisel wrote: post #12

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #4

> TL;DR: We've allocated resources to maintain Flipper Zero firmware and support community contributions. Is that the tldr? It sure sounds like it's still on minimal life support.

Why can't something be "done"?

That's because we haven't yet started to laugh people out of the room that get uneasy and complain when the rate of updates of something starts slowing down.