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SmartyCam HD 2.1 Can't Update Firmware with Surface Pro 3
Brand new out of the box. Downloaded latest RS3 software and download latest SCHD 2.1 Firmware but cannot update the camera. Error code states "SD Error". I have tried about 10 different SD cards, but the camera does not record and I cannot upload tracks. There seems to be no ability to make the update outside RS3 via the SD card as AIM no longer allows the downloading of Firmware outside RS3.
Extremely disappointing - I should have just purchased a working used one!
Last edited by Frank 993 C4S; 01-21-2019 at 03:34 PM.
Sorry about the rant. Problem solved. I saved the firmware update from RS3 to an SD card. Inserted the SD card into the SCHD and turned on the camera by pressing the center and right button. Released the center button as soon as the camera started up. Released the right button as soon as I saw the Penguin.
When I've seen this before, it's usually that the device has a firmware that is newer than the PC. You have to read the version on the PC, not available. The blue highlighted items are a giveaway that your version of RS3 is not up to do.
If you plug back in, I'm guessing you still going.to have some communication problems until the computer is updated.
When I've seen this before, it's usually that the device has a firmware that is newer than the PC. You have to read the version on the PC, not available. The blue highlighted items are a giveaway that your version of RS3 is not up to do.
If you plug back in, I'm guessing you still going.to have some communication problems until the computer is updated.
Matt - Firmware is 1.03.86 on the computer and on the SCHD. For whatever reason, it does not allow me to transfer tracks. Guess this POS is going back to AIM tomorrow.
Frank, try putting the SD card back in the camera, using a USB cable and transmitting tracks that way.
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I have had this exact experience as Frank. This is when I try to use my MS surface laptop to do it. But if I go back to an old Lenovo laptop I have, works as expected. I believe it has to do with the type of USB chipsets that newer laptops have, but don’t remember where I read this. I have tried using an external usb hub to see if that changed the problem but it doesn’t.
Frank, if you have access to an older machine, give that a try. I bet it works.
That is a solution, for sure. But still, the AiM SmartyCam is normally very reliable when everything is properly set up.
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Frank, please let us know what they find. Surprised the dealer didn’t do this stuff and check it out before you got it. I always do that and have caught odd or bad camera behavior only a few times out of more than seven hundred cameras sold. Definitely an oddball issue.
These things are miniature computers, though. They have their own operating systems, central processing units, graphics processing units and optical sensors. If they hang on boot or the OS becomes corrupted, they freeze or don’t communicate. Let us know!
I have had this exact experience as Frank. This is when I try to use my MS surface laptop to do it. But if I go back to an old Lenovo laptop I have, works as expected. I believe it has to do with the type of USB chipsets that newer laptops have, but don’t remember where I read this. I have tried using an external usb hub to see if that changed the problem but it doesn’t.
Frank, if you have access to an older machine, give that a try. I bet it works.
Matt’s exactly right, but it likely has to do with power present at the laptops USB port.
This was an issue discovered four-plus years ago by Roger Caddell, James Colborn, me and a few others when we couldn’t directly load firmware, transmit configs or tracks via the USB cable to cameras from our then new Surface Pro 3 tablets.
I’ve had this issue with a new Touchbar MacBook Pro on Boot Camp and my Dell XPS13. Have not had an issue on many MacBook Airs and larger laptops.
Customers would call and say that the updates and transmittal would work on their desktops, but not their (generally) ultrabooks or laptops.
I have had this exact experience as Frank. This is when I try to use my MS surface laptop to do it. But if I go back to an old Lenovo laptop I have, works as expected. I believe it has to do with the type of USB chipsets that newer laptops have, but don’t remember where I read this. I have tried using an external usb hub to see if that changed the problem but it doesn’t.
Frank, if you have access to an older machine, give that a try. I bet it works.
Matt - this is an interesting point. I was using a Surface Pro also but figured that I was probably not the only one in the world doing so. I sent it back to AIM and I am awaiting their diagnosis. I’m definitely not using two laptops for this camera. I’d rather go back to the first generation Smartycam instead.
Originally Posted by ProCoach
Frank, please let us know what they find. Surprised the dealer didn’t do this stuff and check it out before you got it. I always do that and have caught odd or bad camera behavior only a few times out of more than seven hundred cameras sold. Definitely an oddball issue.
Peter - I bought the camera directly from AIM as they could no longer fix my Smartycam GP and offered me a trade-in for the new one. I hadn’t planned on having to buy a brand new camera but I really had no choice. The old one worked great until I got the white screen of death with the flashing red light.
For some devices there's a difference between USB 2.0 controllers and USB 3.0 controllers that are [nominally] backwards compatible with USB 2.0. The difference only manifests with driver code for devices when the developers made some...let's say unfortunate choices in the implementation. I keep a plain old, unpowered tiny portable USB 2.0 hub lying around for when I encounter this kind of thing. Staying in the car realm, I had the same problem with the Escort 9500ci that was in my 991TT for example...connecting to that via the old hub from my Surface Pro 3 worked just fine; direct connect, not so much. I won't say power isn't the problem but the driver compatibility thing is more common...sometimes you can be tricked into thinking that power is the key just because it worked with a powered hub but in reality the hub used was 2.0 (with no 3.0 support) that just happened to also have external power...and if this is the case, and external 3.0 hub wouldn't fix it either.
12-25-2018, 03:08 PM
SmartyCam HD 2.1 Can't Update Firmware with Surface Pro 3
