@TS-Chris @TS-John @TS-Brandon @El_Duderino
“It’s possible to brick your board by attempting this so be aware you’re doing this at your own risk and we will not be able to replace a bricked board.”
Guys, this is an abhorrent stance to take on this issue. Sparkfun continues to market this LTE shield as loaded with out-of-the-box Hologram.io functionality, yet all of you are clearly aware that customers are receiving units with outdated firmware that negates all that functionality and essentially renders the shield useless as a Hologram.io device. You have all been involved in threads dating back a full year that evidence this, yet nothing whatsoever has been done about it.
So after spending $80 on a unit to test, I have now also spent over 4 hours researching how to make it work…only to find out I’m essentially on my own and risk flushing $80 down the drain, IF i can even get Ublox to give me the firmware (and something goes wrong in the update process).
To anyone just tuning in and trying to figure out why your LTE shield can’t make it past step #2 of the tutorials, Sparkfun has:
A) Been made aware through a slew of forums posts (and I assume direct support requests) that this shield has widespread issues connecting to and utilizing the Hologram.io network.
B) Barely given any actionable help to the those in the forum with such connection issues.
C) Given no warning on the product’s page that this shield may ship with outdated firmware that renders all of the touted Hologram functions moot.
D) Given no instructions or support for users to update the firmware themselves (in fact you are sending people to Ublox support for help when it’s clear from forum posts that uBlox is sending many people back to Sparkfun).
E) Told users who are brave/persistent enough to go the extra mile and try to update the firmware themselves (rather than sending it back for a refund) that if something goes wrong and it gets bricked, that’s on them and it won’t be returnable.
This is an irrefutable case of not standing behind your product and not supporting your customers, and frankly it makes us completely rethink the decision we made to designate Sparkfun as one of our company’s premiere vendors. This is not in line with the kind of company we thought Sparkfun was. Please reconsider what’s happening here.