A major firmware release was deployed on August 4, 2025 in the afternoon ET. Release notes are here: https://usetrmnl.com/blog/no-more-flicker
After upgrading, a few dozen TRMNL owners have reported 1 of 2 different issues. This guide helps resolve each one.
Screen is faded, too bright, or washed out
If your device is functional but the display quality has degraded, we likely need to tune our new render strategy to fit your screen's internal temperature.
Resolution: please complete this brief survey. We'll compare your device logs with your purchase date to detect potential hardware discrepancies based on the manufactured batch.
Device is non-responsive
If your device appears to have begun (or finished) an automatic firmware update, but the screen stops changing, it may have become overheated or statically charged.
Resolution A: turn off your device for 10-15 minutes, then turn it back on. Yes really, this has made everything good again for some users. There may be a static charge that needs to dissipate. It won't hurt to wait longer either.
Resolution B: if you have a USB-C cable with data transfer capabilities (not just charging - the TRMNL cable works here), visit your device settings and disable OTA Updates. Next, visit https://usetrmnl.com/flash and follow the steps to roll back to FW 1.5.12.
Resolution C: if you have Visual Studio or PIO installed on your computer, try flashing manually. Note you will also need to disable OTA Updates from your device settings if you intend to roll back to a previous version, otherwise it will loop to catch up.
Resolution D: visit your device settings page, disable OTA updates, and enable Maximize Compatibility:
Next visit the web flasher and follow instructions to flash FW1.6.3. This will update your device to this patch, which works similarly to our previous 1.5.12 stable release. You may not see any changes on your screen during the update.