bricked

Bricked is a term used to describe an electronic device that has become inoperable to the point that it cannot perform its intended function, often appearing as if it were a lifeless brick. The phrase is most commonly applied to devices such as smartphones, tablets, game consoles, routers, and set-top boxes, where a failure during boot or firmware operation renders the device unable to start.

There are two broad forms of bricking. A soft brick occurs when the device cannot boot properly but is still able to recover through software means, such as entering a recovery or bootloader mode and re-flashing the firmware or performing a factory reset. Soft bricks are typically repairable without hardware replacement.

A hard brick is when the device shows no life at all and cannot be accessed via recovery, often due to a corrupted boot ROM, power surge, failed update, or serious hardware fault. Hard bricks are frequently irrecoverable without professional repair or replacement.

Common causes include interrupted firmware updates, incorrect flashing of software, corrupted system partitions, power loss during updates, and hardware damage from water or electrostatic discharge.

Recovery and prevention: For soft bricks, users may restore using official recovery tools, firmware images, or factory resets described by manufacturers; for hard bricks, repair or replacement is usually required. Backing up data, avoiding updates during unstable power conditions, using manufacturer-approved software, and following official procedures can reduce bricking risk.