diff --git a/firmware/deploy-firmware.py b/firmware/deploy-firmware.py
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index 33601e2..5bfc883
--- a/firmware/deploy-firmware.py
+++ b/firmware/deploy-firmware.py
@@ -1,9 +1,11 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+
 import struct
 from collections import namedtuple
 from datetime import datetime
 import subprocess
-from distutils.version import StrictVersion
-from esptool import LoadFirmwareImage  # required to get hash and checksum right
+import packaging.version
+from esptool.bin_image import LoadFirmwareImage  # required to get hash and checksum right
 import os
 
 # locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'en_US')
@@ -32,16 +34,16 @@ def version_number_from_git(tag_prefix='release/', sha_length=10, version_format
         return versions
 
     def tag_from_version(v):
-        return tag_prefix + v
+        return tag_prefix + str(v)
 
-    def increment_version(v):
-        parsed_version = [int(i) for i in v.split('.')]
+    def increment_version(v: packaging.version.Version):
+        parsed_version = [int(i) for i in str(v).split('.')]
         parsed_version[-1] += 1
-        return '.'.join(str(i) for i in parsed_version)
+        return packaging.version.parse('.'.join(str(i) for i in parsed_version))
 
-    version_strings = get_released_versions()
-    version_strings.sort(key=StrictVersion)
-    latest_release = version_strings[-1]
+    versions = [packaging.version.parse(s) for s in get_released_versions()]
+    versions.sort()
+    latest_release = versions[-1]
     commits_since_tag = subprocess.getoutput(
         'git rev-list {}..HEAD --count'.format(tag_from_version(latest_release)))
     sha = subprocess.getoutput('git rev-parse HEAD')[:sha_length]