In Android 14, a known issue was identified where our UWB Beacons were unable to range with phones that had been upgraded to Android 14. This was primarily due to the channel change from 5 to 9, documented here: (UWB Android 14 channel issue), as well as alterations to the STS vendor ID fields, detailed here: (STS vendor ID fields issue).
Here at Estimote we have addressed these two issues in the new UWB Beacon firmware. Those interested in testing our UWB Beacons with Android 14 are encouraged to send us a note at contact (at) estimote com, and we will provide you with a firmware OTA to be applied to your Estimote Ultra Wideband Beacons.
How can we get the beacons updated? I can see them in the estimate cloud app, but I don’t see anything besides the beacon information. We have almost three dozen beacons that need the upgrade so we can connect to them from Android 14.
I emailed contact (at) estimote com over seven days ago but haven’t received anything back.
Theoretically the firmware could be upgraded using standard DFU tools from Nordic as the UWB beacon uses a nrf52840 MCU. The beacon exposes the Nordic DFU Bluetooth LE DFU Service, so an app to flash the firmware via Bluetooth directly should work, eg:
The only problem is that the Estimote guys don’t seem to be able or want to provide us with a new firmware. Why do we need to ask for a firmware via an email (that no one answers) instead of downloading it from some public repo? We are asking for months to get a newer firmware to support background ranging on iOS. Apple explained 1.5 years ago how to adapt a firmware and Qorvo (manufacturer of the Estimote UWB chip) also provided information how to do it, but only silence from Estimote.