Foolography Community

Hi there

I have read a few posts on this but the solution always talks about having changed battery or lens before storing the camera being the cause.

I do not do this. I take pictures, turn off the camera and put it away.
When I go to turn on the camera a few days later the battery is usually drained flat.

I am using a Nikon Z6 (latest firmware), Unleashed N2 with firmware A:1.4.8 B:1.4.10 C:1.4.2

The app is the latest version and it tells me a downgrade is available which I have not installed.

Will there be a new firmware to address this issue?

Thanks

TD

TechnoDude wrote: ↑

June 10th, 2021, 11:28 am

Hi there

I have read a few posts on this but the solution always talks about having changed battery or lens before storing the camera being the cause.

I do not do this. I take pictures, turn off the camera and put it away.
When I go to turn on the camera a few days later the battery is usually drained flat.

I am using a Nikon Z6 (latest firmware), Unleashed N2 with firmware A:1.4.8 B:1.4.10 C:1.4.2

The app is the latest version and it tells me a downgrade is available which I have not installed.

Will there be a new firmware to address this issue?

Thanks

TD

Hi TechnoDude,

We all experience the same problem with the current firmware and lack of updates. The battery drainage is a serious problem. I am not sure when this will be solved for good. Personally, I have addressed my sincery disappointments about the process and current prognose when a new firmware and App (both Android and iOS) will be provided by Foolography. At this stage I cannot say I have high hopes in a solution / release of a new firmware and App update, because my experience with Foolography have changed over a long period of time.
I don't want to sound negative or point fingers to the team of Foolography, but I have addressed these issues a long time ago. What bothers me the most is the lack of updates, both for Android and iOS. I know that some issues take more time to develop a serious and working solution of all situations, but keeping customers waiting that long isn't customer satisfaction to me.
I don't believe that the Foolography team should enter into a mode of "customer pleasing", but at least try to get a fix out sooner than they are doing now. It just takes way too long, and customers are desperately waiting for a quickfix and a lonterm solution.
I know the team is pretty busy redesigning the firmware and App, but to me it isn't going rapid enough. I rather have two or three updates to get it fully fixed, than have no updates for a long period of time and wait too long before something get released.
But this is just my opinion.

Greetings,
Unfoolishy

Hi TechnoDude,

We're aware that there are some issues with Power drain, and have actually addressed these in a Firmware update. Unfortunately, as described in some other posts, these fixes were built on top of a completely refactored Firmware, which we are currently Beta testing - but on iOS only for the time being.
Most Customers gave us the feedback that the power drain issues were gone if they turned on the camera after changing batteries/lenses!

We ran into a catch-22 with our development, which is currently hindering us from doing a proper (non-beta) release:
We started refactoring our Firmware about 1 year ago, making some very big changes in preparation for new features. For a while we duplicated bugs that we found and fixed onto the release branch as well and did some more minor releases. At some point this was no longer possible, as many bugfixes were built on top of the completely changed new Firmware.
The new Firmware also uses a new SDK from the Bluetooth Chip manufacturer, and we decided to adopt a new Bluetooth API, to address some of the issues that we have seen with the Android bluetooth stack. Unfortunately, this means that the new Firmware can only be used with a new App.
We had some personell changes on the Android team, resulting in a big delay in our Android development. At the same time, the new SDK means we have to make a big change in how we update the firmware from the Android app In other words: more work for our Android developers.
More time passed before we could finish that part, and Google kept adding to the requirements for Apps to be published. It did not make sense for us to try to make these changes on our old code, so just like with the firmware bugfixes, we had to make these required changes on the current development branch of our code. In other words, we couldn't even do an app release right now if we wanted to - we have to finish what we're working on, just to be able to meet the new requirements from google.

It's hard to believe how long these things take to implement, but unfortunately they required refactoring of the deepest core of our Android app, without any visible change to the user. It's frustrating for us, and I know it's frustrating to our users. We're working on it as well as we can, but unfortunately our Android developers only have finite amounts of time, that it's still not finished.

You will definitely get an update - I just can't say how soon. All estimates from our development team of when we can release have turned out to be completely wrong, so I simply cannot make any more promises until we're actually ready to release.


As for the upgrade/downgrade: The current production Firmware is A1.4.8 B1.4.10 C1.4.2. This is still fully compatible with the Android app even if it offers a downgrade. You do not have to downgrade.

Many thanks for your detailed reply. I work in IT so I totally get how frustrating this can be... Google are constantly moving the goalposts just like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.

I'm loving the N2 and have my own little fix for the time being... remove the battery when not using the camera! Seems to work just fine but I shall eagerly await the new updates anyway.

In the meantime... Good luck with the coding!

All the best.

TD (Happy Customer :D )

90-90 rule
“The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.”
The rule also describes the lack of skill in identifying complicated codes when the effort is being estimated. If during the first 90% of the planned project duration the time and the amount of code still match, while working on the last 10% of the code it becomes apparent that the same amount of time is required for this as for the first 90%, because the effort involved in this was completely underestimated.
Often times, this widespread condition indicates that while the planned work has essentially been completed, the task cannot be marked as complete because it is still waiting for other activity. However, it may still be a long time before it is completed.
I know what i'm talking about. Nevertheless, it would finally be time to deliver a "final release" here, because with endless apologies, customer satisfaction drops, similar to the general acceptance of Annalena Baerbock as a candidate for chancellor.

Greetings
Helmut