Samsung will repair your bricked 2024 soundbar for free

Samsung rolled out a new firmware update for several of its soundbars last week, including the flagship Q99D, Q995D, and the Q800D. The firmware version 1020 ended up bricking soundbars, and users were confused as to why this update, which didn't have a changelog to begin with, prevented the devices from working.

The company has since acknowledged that a faulty firmware update has indeed left its soundbars bricked, and that it's offering free repairs for all affected devices. It may have been a significant issue as the company's needing to offer repairs, instead of rolling out another update to fix the matter.

Jim Kiczek, who's the head of audio at Samsung Electronics America, confirmed to The Verge that “certain 2024 soundbar devices” were left unusable by a “software update error.” The statement further added that the company is “offering free repairs for all affected units – regardless of warranty status.”

Once users had installed this software update, they found that the soundbars had become unresponsive and weren't accessible from SmartThings as well. It wasn't even possible to factory reset them, which only suggested that the firmware update had messed things up big time.

With Samsung now confirming that a physical repair would be required, it's event that this isn't something that can be addressed through another software update. Unfortunately, Samsung hasn't provided much detail as to what made the software update cause such a major issue to the affected soundbars.

Reach out to Samsung for further information about sending in your soundbar to get it fixed. Though you may have to spend a couple of weeks without it as it goes in for repair. Hopefully Samsung works on them quickly and gets them back out to owners without delay.