Personally I’ve switched to updating via camera remote App. The reason is simple: it’s much faster, easier and convenient than updating via SD-Card.
So I definitely recommend to give it a try.
But how does it work?
Well, Fujifilm has given precise instruction on how to do it, but there is one thing that should be mentioned in addition to Fuji’s instruction to avoid updating via App becomes a frustrating experience.
Don’t make the error to connect your phone to the camera the same way you do it when you want to transfer images from your camera to your phone (hence connect via Wifi and fiddle around with the App and Camera to establish a connection).
Nothing of all that is needed.
You can simply leave your camera in live view. Just make sure that it has Bluetooth enabled. Everything will happen automatically and needs just few clicks once you have downloaded the firmware file on your phone.
So the process looks like this:
make sure Bluetooth is enabled on your camera and on your smartphone
download the firmware for your camera on your smartphone
once downloaded, click “update” on your phone first and then “OK” on your camera
you camera will ask you to connect via WiFi to your phone. Click “Connect” on your phone [in my video below you read “verbinden”, which is the German word for “connect”]
once connected via Wifi, your phone will start to transfer the firmware file to your camera
as soon as your camera has received the full file, it will automatically start with the firmware update [you don’t need your phone anymore once the firmware upgrade started on your camera]
switch off the camera when the camera tells you to do so
It’s very easy, and for your convenience I have made a short video that shows the process down below.
Many are afraid that there could be issues due to network instability or what not. But don’t worry about that. You only need Wifi connection to quickly transfer the firmware file from your phone to the camera. The firmware update itself is performed by your camera independently only once it has received and saved the full firmware file from your smartphone to its own memory. So don’t be afraid of losing connection with the phone during the firmware update itself. Your camera is doing its stuff by its own at that point and the smartphone is not needed anymore.
Remember:
use a fully charged battery on your camera
updates are cumulative, so no matter what firmware update you currently have on your camera, you can right away update to the latest version (hence skip intermediate firmware updates)
