Reading the scan tool instructions for recovery of firmware, and also Amazon reviews, seems like this bricking is pretty common.
Ready to try another brand, any suggestions?
Yeah, some people have problems with OBDLINK, and increasing lately it seems. Not sure if it's Android 10, or just new phone manufacturers, but the problems are increasing. Mine occationally lock up and needs an unplug to reset, some people get this constantly. But in my book, there is nothing better, of course a regular ELM327 does not have that hangup issue, but they are also 20x slower data transfer.
There are several new adapters coming, but all need changes to the apps to support them. We are currently working on supporting Josh Wardell's Can Server, which is a very interesting piece of equipment on it's own:
Products
Then I read good things about an adapter called VLINKER Wifi, this is reported to be as fast as an obdlink, and since it uses wifi it will work with IOS as well. I am planning to look into this and see if it can be the new adapter we want to reccommend, but again, needs reprogramming of all the apps so it will take some time before we can get there. I see VLINKER has a bluetooth version too, but I haven't tested the speed of it, if it's as fast as an obdlink and more stable it could be a great adapter, as it seems to be priced in OBDLINK territory.
So my best advice is to sit and wait a bit, maybe get a cheap ELM327 in the meantime. We have a list of a few adapters known to work with the Android app, and many have the list price and speed included too, so you can get a comparison:
Adapters, phones, performance vs price chart