14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s Band has become an essential part of the company’s hardware portfolio, so the device is already at the second generation, with a refreshed model expected to debut in the next 12 months.
b0n0n, a student at the NYU OSIRIS security lab, has discovered a way to jailbreak the first-generation Microsoft Band, which, although doesn’t allow for much at the moment, opens the door for more “third-party” improvements that could be added by the developer community.
As he explains in a post on his blog, his jailbreaking method actually allows for serving the Microsoft Band a modified update file, which could basically mean that the device might receive some other functionality that’s packed into custom binary files.
Only working on first-generation Band
The procedure involves several steps, and tech-savvy readers can find all of them in the aforementioned blog post, but for the moment, it doesn’t help do much, especially because this is pretty much the first move towards breaking into the Microsoft Band.
“With this you can then modify any of the code and data in the update to whatever you like!” the dev explains.
It’s not yet clear if the same method works on the second-generation Band 2, but since it’s based on the same update system, the chances are that it does.
“I have not bought a Microsoft fitness band 2 to test if the jailbreak will work on it yet. For people who are interested in looking into this further, there is an interesting function in the fitness band windows client, but you need to unblock it first!” he concluded.
Microsoft’s Band is already receiving new functionality thanks to third-party apps, so hopefully, such improvements will continue and pave the way for an even more advanced third generation. Most recently, a third-party app available in the store allows Tesla Model S owners to control certain features of their cars from the Band, including locking and unlocking doors or checking battery status.