List of products 'artificially' limited by firmware and can be upgraded?

[Musclor]

Often, manufacturers will artificially limit the capabilities/specs of their products in order to create new SKUs on the cheap (no need to reconfigure the factory - it's one same line, settings applied after manufacturing).

For example, thanks to these forums it's no big secret that the FLIR E4 (retail price: usd 949) used to be upgradable to a FLIR E8 (retail price : 3000 dollars) following a list of technical steps that aren't that difficult to follow.

Similarly, there are SIGLENT oscilloscopes that can be upgraded to versions that cost 2x more, again, courtesy of this amazing forum!

I was wondering, do you know of other products that fall into that category?

Would be fun to try and see if we can 'upgrade' them, too!

[Rick Law]

No surprise there.  Almost everything controlled by any form of firmware may fall into that category.

Back as early as late 1970's, my first post-college job was at a computer firm.  During the new-hire orientation, I got to see the manufacturing division.  I was confused by their added work and hardware to down-grade a mini computer class machine to a lower model sold at a lower price.  I asked and the department manager explained "We price based on performance, not cost."  More recently but over decade ago, I've seen HDD's  with firmware showing less available space (300+ GB lowered to and sold as 128GB).

About two years ago, I purchased a dish-washer.  I noted that their various model are almost exactly the same but with more features.  I recently replaced the failed main PCB on the dish-washer.  The main PCB just has 4 jumpers setting a machine ID which determines how it should run.  I also noted that it runs on other settings other than the recommended.  I might have been able to run it as a different machine had I took the time to test each of the 16 combinations.

The goal of a manufacturer is to maximize profit.  So, by merely firmware downgrade opens another segment of the market and I can keep most of the manufacturing lines the same, I saved the cost of supporting two manufacturing lines, more BOM, more suppliers, etc., etc.  I'd be a fool not to open up that added segment of the market as long as the ROI justifies it.

[Musclor]

Thanks for the reply @Rick Law! The example of the artificially downgraded HDD is incredible - I never heard of such a 'technique' before!
And the dishwasher example is also great - another new one to me!

I guess this links back to my question - if this is so common, do you think there's a list of such hardware somewhere? Replacing a dishwasher PCB might be involved but these price differences are not trivial either!

Cheers!

[amyk]

The list would also include every car with an ECU...

[Bud]

Some video GPU cards can be modified to a higher model with resistor changes.

[Rick Law]

Thanks for the reply @Rick Law! The example of the artificially downgraded HDD is incredible - I never heard of such a 'technique' before!
...

That was because of a BIOS limitation.  At one time, it was 128gb being max addressable.  So the manufacturer just decided to have a 128gb version that way.  Other models/manufacturer has jumper select to make a larger HDD smaller so it can be used on PC's with BIOS limitation.

You can still do that on some HDD's.   I used seagate's "seatool" to "downsize" a 500gb HDD to 480gb.  It just happen to have an unrecoverable error at the tail end so I told the firmware the drive is really just 480gb.  I replaced those drives with 2TB versions, but that 480gb drive was running well for years until pulled it offline.

[langwadt]

Often, manufacturers will artificially limit the capabilities/specs of their products in order to create new SKUs on the cheap (no need to reconfigure the factory - it's one same line, settings applied after manufacturing).

For example, thanks to these forums it's no big secret that the FLIR E4 (retail price: usd 949) used to be upgradable to a FLIR E8 (retail price : 3000 dollars) following a list of technical steps that aren't that difficult to follow.

Similarly, there are SIGLENT oscilloscopes that can be upgraded to versions that cost 2x more, again, courtesy of this amazing forum!

I was wondering, do you know of other products that fall into that category?

Would be fun to try and see if we can 'upgrade' them, too!

a PC, it can run every program made for PC it is just "artificially limited" by you having to buy a license for the software you want to run ...

[mikewax]

that's a good idea for a wiki website you could make some decent advertising revenue and get a web author to maintain it.

[wizard69]

I don't have anything to add at the moment but this would be an ideal Github or Git use.    Just create a repository/device list, to up gradable machines.    This makes me wonder if an EEVBlog Git repository might make sense.

[Bud]

I just remembered i once had a Pinnacle Systems DC10 video capture card which I converted to a higher DC30 model by substituting the drivers. That was all that needed because the cards had the same codec chip. That was back in Win 2000 time though.

[vk6zgo]

Often, manufacturers will artificially limit the capabilities/specs of their products in order to create new SKUs on the cheap (no need to reconfigure the factory - it's one same line, settings applied after manufacturing).

For example, thanks to these forums it's no big secret that the FLIR E4 (retail price: usd 949) used to be upgradable to a FLIR E8 (retail price : 3000 dollars) following a list of technical steps that aren't that difficult to follow.

Similarly, there are SIGLENT oscilloscopes that can be upgraded to versions that cost 2x more, again, courtesy of this amazing forum!

I was wondering, do you know of other products that fall into that category?

Would be fun to try and see if we can 'upgrade' them, too!

a PC, it can run every program made for PC it is just "artificially limited" by you having to buy a license for the software you want to run ...

Some years ago, I bought an "emachines" PC, my previous unit having developed some problems.

The bloody thing was supplied with a "dumbed down" version of W7, where I couldn't get administrator status, so when it crashed, which it did, regularly, the normal fixes available to W7 users weren't useable, the only way being to "go back to year zero", losing all my settings & some data.

I could remove $&€€££¥¥##£€+*!!! Norton, but every time I "fixed" it after a crash, I got the sodding thing back.

I finally "bit the bullet" & bought a copy of W7, uninstalled the "emachines" version & installed the full version.
Now everything worked, including all the "tricks" I had read on the 'Net,.
It didn't crash near as much, either, AND no more Norton!

[ebclr]

If this thread is supposed to be a list a Did see any list until now 

[Rick Law]

If this thread is supposed to be a list a Did see any list until now 

No one attempted a list because a list is too extensive and is not of practical use.

My earlier reply "...Almost everything controlled by any form of firmware may fall into that category..." was an attempt to explain why such a list is impractical.  AmyK's reply "The list would also include every car with an ECU..." further affirmed the impracticality of such list.

Any piece of something that is programmable is by definition limited by the ability of the program.  Anyone with the skills (and equipment) could rewrite the program and change the limits or operations.  Even the rovers on Mars can have a firmware upgrade and do more.

So, if the machine contains components that run off a program, you improved the program and you improved the machine.  A list of all things running off an MCU/CPU?  Life is not long enough to type that list.

[exe]

Flir e4 thermal camera, the base price is around ~1k euro. With an "update" it becomes a 3k euro camera (and even better as even the top configuration still has artifitial noise enabled, which can be disabled with a hack).

I'm personally fine to pay a bit extra for more software features as this implies more cost to develop. But I don't like when companies artificially worsen performance of hardware.

[langwadt]

Flir e4 thermal camera, the base price is around ~1k euro. With an "update" it becomes a 3k euro camera (and even better as even the top configuration still has artifitial noise enabled, which can be disabled with a hack).

I'm personally fine to pay a bit extra for more software features as this implies more cost to develop. But I don't like when companies artificially worsen performance of hardware.

how you figure hardware is significantly different?

[Circlotron]

^^ Hardware performing worse because it is under control of software that has features and functions turned off on purpose.

[langwadt]

^^ Hardware performing worse because it is under control of software that has features and functions turned off on purpose.

how is that significantly different from software with features turned off on purpose?

[ebclr]

"how is that significantly different from software with features turned off on purpose?"

It's exactly the same thing, running as decades, People are more sensitive to hardware than software

[Musclor]

Any piece of something that is programmable is by definition limited by the ability of the program.  Anyone with the skills (and equipment) could rewrite the program and change the limits or operations.  Even the rovers on Mars can have a firmware upgrade and do more.

Actually, I slightly disagree on this point - for example, I bought a TE-Q1 Pro - my understanding is that the firmware is encrypted somehow, and yes, while I understand 'in theory' you could point a laser at thing and somehow decrypt it, it's not just difficult, it borderlines the impossible. Compare this to the FLIR e4 'upgrade'...
I hope that makes sense. I guess i was referring to 'hacks' that take basic/medium technical skills to achieve.

[exe]

It's exactly the same thing, running as decades, People are more sensitive to hardware than software

There is a subtle difference. Replicating software costs nothing. So, for an end price it doesn't matter if a software module not shipped at all, or just disabled (a bit of simplification here how software shipment is done, but you get the point). However, hardware has to be paid in full by the consumer (unless it's a subscription/cloud-based device).

Does this change anything? Well, it depends on personal opinion. I personally don't like "artificial" market segmentation. It feels unfair to me. Of course, manufacturers think different.

[Rick Law]

Any piece of something that is programmable is by definition limited by the ability of the program.  Anyone with the skills (and equipment) could rewrite the program and change the limits or operations.  Even the rovers on Mars can have a firmware upgrade and do more.

Actually, I slightly disagree on this point - for example, I bought a TE-Q1 Pro - my understanding is that the firmware is encrypted somehow, and yes, while I understand 'in theory' you could point a laser at thing and somehow decrypt it, it's not just difficult, it borderlines the impossible. Compare this to the FLIR e4 'upgrade'...
I hope that makes sense. I guess i was referring to 'hacks' that take basic/medium technical skills to achieve.

Basic/medium skill is not a fixed scale.  Your "medium" may be thought of as "high" by others.  I suggest refining that as "upgrade by re-flashing the memory alone, with at most merely changing a few bytes with a hex editor of some sort."  Something like that, or define "medium/basic" so we are all on the same page.

That would still be a fairly extensive list, and of course, what is "doable" today may change anytime if/when the manufacturer suddenly switched to locking down the MCU or did some unrelated bug fix which (say for example) moved the address locations of the bytes you need to modify.  So it would still be necessary to research at the time of need so you can get the most up to day information.

[langwadt]

It's exactly the same thing, running as decades, People are more sensitive to hardware than software

There is a subtle difference. Replicating software costs nothing. So, for an end price it doesn't matter if a software module not shipped at all, or just disabled (a bit of simplification here how software shipment is done, but you get the point). However, hardware has to be paid in full by the consumer (unless it's a subscription/cloud-based device).

the HW might be small part of the actual cost and savings having a single HW might recover some of the difference 

Does this change anything? Well, it depends on personal opinion. I personally don't like "artificial" market segmentation. It feels unfair to me. Of course, manufacturers think different.

another way to look at is that those who need/want a feature pays for it, those who don't doesn't