2014/11/04 - Fake FTDI Chips in USB/Serial Cables

Recently the "Hackaday" website uncovered a Windows automatic update was bricking USB/Serial cable that were made with counterfeit / clone FTDI RS232 chips. FTDI is the manufacturer of the USB/Serial chip that is present in the USB/Serial cable bundled with our Airconsole product and also the standalone 1.8m USB/Serial cables we sell for use directly with Windows and Mac's.

We have received assurances and have independently tested our currently shipping USB/Serial cables (units with an integrated USB female port). They do not contain clone/counterfeit FTDI chips. We source all FTDI chips from the official agent in Shenzhen for all our current shipping cables. They can safely be used on Windows PC's that have the latest FTDI 2.12 driver.

We have however uncovered a small batch of cables made in late 2013 that may have some conterfeit FTDI chips installed. There were 300 of these cables made by an alternative supplier where we have found that some of these have failed the FTDI firmware upgrade and some have passed. These cables will however continue to work with Airconsole firmware 2.55 (released today) even if broken in Windows. If you believe you have such a cable contact us for a replacement which will be supplied free of charge on receipt of the suspect unit.