Firmware

FIRMWARE, what is it?

Firmware is the default first layer of software that is factory installed.
It needs to be in place to make sure all internal components function and can interact with each other.

For 'simple' scanning devices like handscanners and fixed mount scanners with no user input possible other than a trigger the firmware determines how the scanner operates. Many settings can be done through setup barcodes which can be scanned to alter operational behaviour of the scanner.
The best tool for this is to use Opticon's online tool Opticonfigure, which you can find here: https://opticonfigure.opticon.com/

For more advanced equipment that have a screen/display and a way to provide user input, via  an (on-screen) keyboard the firmware can be roughly compared with a PC: Windows resembles the Firmware but Windows in itself is not the software application you make use of at work on a day to day basis, but it needs to run in the background.
As 'User Applications' you would start for example a Mail Client, Word Processor or a Sheet Calculator application, but these are specific applications and are installed separately after the installation of Windows.

Firmware updates are important because they can provide enhancements, bug fixes, additional functionality and security updates.