Don't upgrade from firmware 1.1.3 for now
One of our reader has alerted us that there was an issue when trying to upgrade the Parrot AR Drone firmware with the current AR Drone iPhone app found in the App Store. The app tries to upgrade older drone firmware to version 1.5. We have confirmed with Parrot that there is an issue when updating from firmware version 1.1.3 to 1.5 (the most recent one as of now). Non-1.1.3 (pre & post 1.1.3) firmware don’t exhibit this issue, so it seems that this problem is specific version 1.1.3.
Solution: Parrot has submitted a new AR Drone application on Monday, which should let users upgrade from 1.1.3 to 1.7.1 without any issues. In the meantime, it is recommended that you don’t upgrade from 1.1.3 until the new AR Drone app has been approved by Apple and is available in the App Store (we don’t know when that will be, but probably within days).
If you have upgraded your drone from 1.1.3 and now have a non-responding (or bricked?) AR Drone, your device will probably have to be reset by Parrot technicians who will basically rewrite the firmware with a wired connection.
We hope that this post will prevent AR Drone users who are still on 1.1.3 from getting a bricked drone, and we hope that those who do will see their problem solved quickly. Drop a comment to keep us posted.
Thanks to Jaime for the heads-up.
Filed in . Read more about Ar Drone, Drones, Firmware and Parrot.