Hello world and welcome to Haxez, today we’re unleashing the power of the Flipper Zero by installing custom firmware. However, the first thing we need to do is ensure that the flipper is up to date. Therefore, head to the following URL and download the updater. Disclaimer, I’m not affiliated with the makers of the Flipper Zero in any way, nor is this sponsored. I’m merely making content for it because I like the device.
Updating Flipper Zero
Once the Flipper Zero desktop software is downloaded, launch it from the icon. Then, connect your Flipper Zero to your computer via the supplied USB C cable. The application should automatically detect the version of firmware that you have installed. If you’re up to date then you can skip this step. However, if you’re out of date then proceed and click the install button.
Backing Up Flipper Zero
Next, it is probably a good idea to back up your device. This can be accomplished fairly easily by clicking on the spanner menu button. There, you will have a number of options including backup, restore, erase and check for updates. All you need to do is click the backup button and save the file that it creates to a safe location.
According to the Flipper blog, the firmware update process is fairly bulletproof. However, whenever you’re updating firmware whether it’s your BIOS or you’re rooting a phone, you need to be careful. If the device was to lose power while the new firmware is being written, it could brick your device. The Flipper device seems to have a method for updating the firmware whereby the old firmware remains on the device until the firmware is installed.
Finding Custom Firmware
Now that you have updated your Flipper and have taken a backup, it’s time to find some custom Firmware. The firmware that I’m going to be installing is called the unleashed firmware by Eng1n33r. This firmware is easy to install and has a number of different additional features. Notably, the firmware includes some community applications that provide functionality like fuzzing. Furthermore, there are some games including Doom.
Downloading Custom Firmware
In order to download the custom firmware, head to the releases page on Github. There, you will see a link to a .tgz file. Click the link and save the file to a safe location on your computer. Please be advised that there is a web installer that can simplify the installation process. However, when I attempted to use the web updater it didn’t work. You need to use a Chromium-based browser but I think I had problems due to the firmware version I had installed.
Installing Flipper Zero Custom Firmware
In order to install the custom firmware, all you need to do is head back to the Flipper Desktop application. Back on the settings page, you will find an option to install from the file. Click that option and navigate to the .tgz file that you just downloaded. The desktop application will then switch to a progress bar showing you the installation progress.
Once the Flipper desktop application reaches 100% it should prompt you to say to follow along on the Flipper Zero device itself. After a few minutes, you should get a notification that the Unleashed firmware has been installed successfully. It should look similar to the image below.
Unleashed Firmware Features
I’m not going to go into all the features of the firmware in this post. Perhaps, this is something I will write another post and create another video on at a later date. It is packed with new apps including games though. If you fancy playing a bit of Doom, Tetris, or Flappy Bird in between your hacking activities then you now have the option to do that. You can see the full list of features on this page.
Conclusions
This post wasn’t meant to be a full breakdown of all the different features of the Unleashed Firmware. That is something I may go into more at a later date. The purpose of this post was to explain how to locate and safely install custom firmware. The developer has great installation instructions on their GitHub page so this article may be redundant but I wanted to create one. I’m enjoying using the unleashed firmware. It adds some great functionality. However, I will probably be looking at moving to the Roguemaster firmware in the near future.