Brick (electronics)

Brick (electronics)

When used in reference to consumer electronics, a "brick" describes an electronic device such as a smart phone, game console, router, or tablet computer that owing to a serious misconfiguration, corrupted firmware or a hardware problem, can no longer function. The term derives from the vaguely cuboid shape of many electronic devices (and their detachable power supplies) and the suggestion that the device can only function as a large, heavy object.

The term can also be used as a verb. For example, "I bricked my MP3 player when I tried to modify its firmware."

In one common sense of the term, "bricking" suggests that the damage, often a misconfiguration of essential on-board software, is so serious as to have rendered the device permanently unusable.

However, another use of the term "bricked" is understood to describe a situation where a device is unable to function even when the device does have potential to be recovered later to a working state. In this sense, the damage may be reversible; it is only during the period that it's unable to function that the device is deemed "bricked". This is often referred to as a "soft brick" whereas an unrecoverable device is a "hard brick".