I chatted with a customer service person online and they basically just said they don't know and that customers should just check the firmware update page on the website and do the update manually.

What I don't understand is how would a customer know to do a firmware update in the first place if the app or browser control panel says there is no firmware update available? 

What's the point of even having that option in the phone app if it won't tell you if there's one available and on top of that cannot install a firmware update manually from a phone?