Updating firmware is not a concern. Your 24 word seed is your bitcoin; you can step on your Trezor or Ledger and destroy it, and restore your seed to a new one in 10 minutes. Back in business. You should be eager to update; firmware needs to be updated to incorporate new coins, new features. Case had a popular hardware wallet a year ago that is worthless now because they never updated firmware to adjust fees.
Thank you for the reminder, I forget some of the basic ins-and-outs of Bitcoin. Yeah, not being able to adjust fees is a big drawback. I only have gotten to know just the parts of the Bitcoin Ecosystem that I actually use, the rest, ah no... I am glad I have all seeds safely stored away.
I was always super hesitant to update firmwares too because with technology everything that can go wrong, always goes wrong with me. I was forced to do it because my trezor screen all the sudden just went black and became unusable out of nowhere. Of course my default feeling was that I probably wrote the seed down wrong or something like that.
When you are using a hardware wallet your seed is your bitcoin and you need to get comfortable with wiping your hardware wallet and restoring from seed so you can prove to yourself that there is no danger to firmware updates. You really do want to be on the latest firmware whatever your choice of wallet.
This.
I would recommend sending a small change on the TREZOR first when you set it up. Then wipe the device and restore using Advanced Recovery method (the safest method). If you have successfully recovered your TREZOR with some coins on it, then you will know for sure that the seed is correct.
Firmware updates do not wipe the device, unless the update went wrong (you have to redo the update) or the firmware is unofficial (device wipes itself). It is important to stay up to date, but we do not force anyone to update unless it's a security update. Knowing the seed works is a good reassurance and let's you stay updated regularly.
