Well I hate to say it, but that lock/unlock has been there for years it looks like it was added in 2015 per this thread… Two stage cuts ,
and this instruction on how to activate it has been on the Inventables FAQ page for a few about 3+ years now as well, but the update date keeps saying its received some sort of update about a week ago, but I’ve never noticed a change…
I think the dip switches are set to low power to conserve power usage, the same reason the $1=0 from factory… They are all Shipped in that configuration 
Personally I just tell people to Flip the Switches and Set $1=255 and not even bother with those lock/unlock buttons cause then ppl will inevitably click unlock and forget to click lock again b4 doing a bit swap…