Firmware, apps & Momentum
Know which capabilities come from the hardware, which come from firmware, and how to recover a working setup.
Goal
Record your current firmware, find its documentation, back up your own lab files, and explain the trade-offs of a community build. Official firmware is a complete starting point for this course. Momentum is optional.
Official firmware and community forks
The official project maintains the device firmware and its documentation. Momentum is a community fork with its own changes and release process. Verify its current feature list in its upstream repository; do not assume a video or screenshot describes your installed version.
Official firmware already supports external applications, custom Sub-GHz presets and external CC1101 modules. Those are not, by themselves, reasons you must switch. A fork may add protocol support, UI customization, or changed restrictions; evaluate the specific feature you need.
| Project | Focus and capabilities | Decision to make |
|---|---|---|
| Official | Manufacturer-maintained firmware, core device interfaces, external apps and developer tooling. | Use as a documented baseline and recovery reference. |
| Momentum | Asset packs, menu/keybind customization, extended configuration and Bad Keyboard identity options; incorporates community protocol work. | Check app API compatibility and the specific feature you need. |
| Unleashed | Additional Sub-GHz protocols and tools, including static-code enumeration, rolling-code operations and removed regional TX restrictions. | A decoder or saved rolling-code message does not guarantee replay acceptance. Verify radio limits independently. |
| RogueMaster | Combines a broad selection of community apps and firmware changes, with its own release packages. | Review the chosen package and changelog; more bundled apps means more versions to track. |
These are handheld firmware projects, not ESP32 board images. None adds absent radio hardware or makes an operation legally authorized. Treat firmware changes as experiments: record the baseline, verify a claimed difference, and test recovery.
Read the primary sources: Momentum: upstream project · Flipper: Sub-GHz hardware and menus · Flipper: reading signals and presets · Flipper: application catalog. Course review: 10 September 2026.
Board firmware is a separate choice
The official Wi-Fi Devboard runs its own ESP32-S2 firmware. Black Magic/CMSIS-DAP turns it into a debugger; Marauder enables Wi-Fi experiments; a captive-portal project runs a local AP and web page. Each needs the correct board image and, where applicable, a matching Flipper companion. See Module 18: Wi-Fi Devboard & firmware for the comparison, installation and recovery labs.
Hardware and legal limits
Software cannot add an absent radio or turn Sub-GHz hardware into a Wi-Fi interface. An external module changes the hardware path and possibly the antenna performance. Neither a module nor firmware supplies legal authorization.
Keep regional transmit restrictions enabled for the course. This is an operational choice for the labs, not a substitute for learning how radio configuration works. Presets affect demodulation; frequency, bandwidth, modulation and transmit conditions must be understood together.
Lab: make your setup reproducible
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Read the device information and record firmware project, version/build, region and date in your notebook. If on official firmware, stay there for this lab.
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Copy a small non-sensitive lab file off the SD card using qFlipper and open it on your computer. Keep private credential files outside the public course repository.
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Review the official firmware update and recovery documentation. Locate the recovery steps now, before you need them; do not deliberately corrupt firmware to test them.
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Inspect the Sub-GHz configuration and current upstream documentation. Identify a default preset and whether your build supports a user preset file. Leave transmit restrictions unchanged.
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Choose a harmless app from the official catalog, inspect its description/source/version requirements, and record why it is useful. Installation is optional; explain how to remove it.
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If you later switch firmware, first confirm a backup and recovery path, record the release source, and repeat one known lab as a regression check.
Show that you can do it
- A version and region record, plus a readable backup of a lab file.
- One verified stock feature and one verified Momentum difference.
- A recovery reference and a reasoned firmware choice.
Check yourself
Sources
Read the primary sources: Flipper: firmware update · Momentum: upstream project · Flipper: application catalog. Course review: 10 September 2026.