I’ve made an offline copy of the FirmwareTools1.5 like 1 years ago, at that time the page was active. Stupid me didn’t think of coping the instructions from the page that now they taken down.
I didn’t tell support that I had it just to see how honest the company is as at the time I’ve my sensor “broke” I saw a lot of out of warranty people and all the signs of planned obsolescence taktiks were on the surface.
Have a copy of the apk I can definitely send to your email. PM me with your email can send you a APK.
Not sure but I believe if I attached it to this thread admins will take my post down.
I am actually was pissed so bad that I’ve switched anyway to Eufy camera/doorbell/lock all in one.
So far so good. The old U-lock will be used as a non-so-smart lock for another door as I don’t trust the “update” will not to be pushed again once I connect to the lock over U-tec App on the phone.
I just tried to connect to the lock to see if I could upload from it a current FW. That it had, just hit download button without having provided the software location. Didn’t wait for it to finish. Quit the APK. And just tried to unlock the lock via fingerprint and fingerprint worked.
So I believe it might not be even a FW bit some register or some variable that company set to some value and that disables the fingerprint function, and once u connect with the tool it possible wipe that variable clean and locks fingerprint comes alive. This is me just estimated from my experiment.
Anyway if somebody has old FW versions maybe it’s good idea to create a repository with the flashing tool for every other users to download - if company so desired to keep it secret let’s make it public
I managed to get my hands on an archived version - I’ve zipped up the APK + The firmware file + Instructions and are here for anyone who is interested :https://tmpsend.com/q6PReMVx
@ Igor are you saying the firmware roll back fixed your problem or it did not. ?
@Paolo
Thanks a lot!!! Will try it at home.
To answer your question : My lock was on the counter as I’ve already got my new Eufy lock in its place on the door. so I temporary connected both parts on the counter without a actual bolt part: just the main brain board part and the keypad part. Installed the batteries in the brain part and lock powered up. As i didn’t had a previous version of firmware , i just connected with the Firmwaretools 1.5 via Bluetooth to my lock.
so exact steps:
1) unplugged the bridge
2) opened the Firmware tools and searched for my U-bolt type
3) After opening the lock update screen I’ve entered my personal user code that is Admin code for my lock (I am admin so it is actual Admin code)
4) As i didn’t had any firmware file - .bin file so i just hit a next filed as blank and hit a download button
5) the APK started to do something but after some time waiting, like 2min or 3 I just simply closed it as i thought it was stack
6) Just wanted to try to see if lock worked after that and was surprised to find that now it reacted to my fingerprint and unlocked!!!
So technically i didn’t upload any new firmware, but my thinking is - that maybe by the fact of my connection with firmwaretools to the lock itself some register or variable that company possibly blocked/disabled and it corresponds to fingerprint disable behaviour gets cleared or updated/reset somehow and that actually enabled the fingerprint for unlocking.
Maybe a good idea is to upload that into permanent server for other unfortunate out of warranty and dumped/scammed by company souls. I’ve just found the quick temporary 7 days tempsend.com server to quick transfer the files. If somebody know such server please upload the tools and FW and instructions and post a link to everybody use. If U-tec hidden it to push people to buy same lock new we can help spread it among others to help them to use already purchased product as intended and save $$.
tempsend link will expire in 7 days from upload date. so it will work only for a week from now . @Paolo Thanks a lot I’ve got myself an offline copy already!!!
@igor_ch it appears some posts are being moderated
My reply :
Yes i found the same repository and hopefully will manage to dump the entire contents. Their naming convention makes no sense either so it will be trial and error and i don’t give it long until they remove it completely.
The crap they are feeding people about it being a hardware problem is standard scripted non-technical garbage - customer service agents who have no idea what they are doing feed us. The sensor functionality is being limited for whatever reason, this is completely evident from the the reaction when you connect with the play store app and enrol a new finger print - it works flawlessly when doing that.
I hope someone with in-depth coding knowledge runs into this problem and can create an open source custom firmware file for us to flash it with. This will give us a break down of the inner workings and the settings applied by the firmware updates which control the sleep/wake timers they have modified to render this a paper weight.
I’ve used a windows software, free that I Google found that actually crawled the site and copied entire content of it on my PC. Just in case so I have it.
Just Google for it I can look later what software I’ve used. But there were 4 or 5 free options and I’ve picked an easy to use one this
WebCopy by Cyotek takes a website URL and scans it for links, pages, and media. As it finds pages, it recursively looks for more links, pages, and media until the whole website is discovered. Then you can use the configuration options to decide which parts to download offline.
Hi, did you guys have to do anything special to get the FirmwareTools app to run? I’m running on an S22 with Android 13. The apk installed just fine, but when attempting to launch, the app always just instantly closes with an occasional “FirmwareTools closed because this app has a bug”.
Well on my xiomy phone it has a similar behavior like you are describing, but on my wife’s old Samsung it works fine.
Also just an idea what if you run it on PC with BlueStacks?
I’ve tried it on a Huawei running Android 10 - but it doesn’t function fully. It won’t download the firmware. I’ve even pointed it locally on the device to a location i downloaded it to. I haven’t tried a local ftp server yet.
I think it will work on older versions of Android perhaps.
Adding to the stack - I am in the same boat. Had the lock for just over 2 years, working normally (along with some quirks), then all of a sudden stops responding to fingerprints. I noticed that sometimes it will randomly respond (very very laggy) to a finger, but if it doesn’t get it on that first attempt, it will not respond again. Tried new batteries, tried checking wires. The lock enrolls fingerprints with responsiveness and no issue - which confirms for me this is software/firmware related. Would love to see a formal response/fix from U-tec.
On another note (while I try to find an old android), we should review bomb them on Amazon, and any other site where they sell the lock, until they properly address this.
