Sony WH-1000XM6: How to Update Firmware Without Breaking Things
Updates are the single most effective security measure available, and the least popular. Both facts are worth taking seriously.
Last revised
Why this matters
Unpatched devices are the most common route into a home network. Delaying updates indefinitely trades a small inconvenience for a large risk.
What you will need
- A charged battery or mains power
- A stable network
- A recent backup
Step by step
- Take a backup before a major version upgrade, not before every minor patch.
- Read the release notes for known issues, particularly on a point-zero release.
- Install security patches immediately; consider waiting a week on major version upgrades.
- Charge above fifty percent, or connect to power, before starting.
- Do not interrupt the process once it has begun.
- After updating, check battery and thermal behaviour for a few days before drawing conclusions.
How often
Security patches as they arrive; major versions once early reports settle.
Specific to the Sony WH-1000XM6
Bear in mind that expensive, which is worth factoring into how carefully you approach this.
Before you start
- Set aside enough time to finish — a job abandoned halfway is worse than one never started
- Work somewhere well lit and uncluttered, with a container for anything that comes off the device
- Take a photograph before you change anything, which costs seconds and saves guessing later
- Check whether the Sony warranty still applies, because it changes which steps are worth doing yourself
How long it takes
Budget ten minutes the first time and half that afterwards. It is the kind of job that takes longer to schedule than to do, which is exactly why it gets skipped — put it on the same recurring reminder as something else you already do.
Signs you have left it too long
- It takes noticeably longer to do something that used to be instant, and a restart only fixes it briefly
- It runs warmer than it did under the same load, in the same room, at the same time of year
- The behaviour you already know about — expensive — starts showing up earlier in the day than it used to
- You have begun working around it without deciding to, which is usually the first real symptom
What not to do
- Deferring security patches for months
- Updating over a metered or unstable connection
- Installing a beta on a device you depend on
Behind this page
This reference page is written from the same testing notes as the reviews it supports, and it is revised whenever the hardware or the software underneath it changes. Where a figure appears here it has been measured rather than quoted from a specification sheet.
If something on this page no longer matches what you are seeing, it is out of date rather than disputed — tell us and it gets checked again.
Related reading
The reviews this page supports go into the measurements behind these figures, and the knowledge base collects every reference page we keep.
Elsewhere in maintenance: Sony ZV-E10 II: How to Back It Up Properly, Sony ZV-E10 II: How to Check Whether It Is Still Getting Security Updates and Sony ZV-E10 II: How to Choose the Right Case or Cover.