Hack Your Xyloband!

I've had the privilege to go to a Coldplay concert! Last Wednesday, the twenty-first of June, Coldplay came to Belgium to the King Baudouin Stadium as part of their "A Head Full Of Dreams" European Tour. The show was one of the best I've seen so far, but that's not what this Instructable is about...

While entering the stadium, we've received these white LED bracelets called Xylobands. I've heard of these bracelets before and I knew that these only light up if they receive a radio-frequencysignal. So at the end of the concert, everybody would leave with these cool gadgets that don't work...

While we drove back home from the concert, I came up with the idea to bypass the circuitboard and to actually solder the positive and negative leads of the battery case directly to the LED-strips. While I was looking for some extra information, I stumbled upon this youtube video from JerryRigEverything who actually does the same thing as I do. So, make sure to check out his video as well!!! ( link : https://youtu.be/pfEaH0a8T54 )

To open up the Xyloband, you'll need a small screwdriver with a Philips-head. If you turn the Xyloband, you'll see that the back is hold in place with two screws. When you take these two away, you'll be able to see the two batteries and four extra screws.

Before you take out the four screws, take out the two AAAA batteries out of their case.

If you remove the four screws you'll be able to remove the front cap of the bracelet. The circular piece of plastic is easy removable by hand and isn't needed through the rest of this Instructable. Then pop those batterie clips out of the plastic piece and you'll see that the circuitboard still is connected tho the bracelet via four soldering points on each side (left and right).

Here's the part where we'll "hack" the Xyloband. First, desolder the red, positive lead and the black, negative lead from the circuitboard.

Solder the red wire as shown on the pictures.

Now, we'll insert a tiny switch. I used a second black wire I had laying around. I then soldered one side to the negative lead for the batteries. For the second wire, you'll need to make a decision about the color. The LED strip shows 3 colors, blue - red -green, as shown in the pictures.

I soldered mine to the pin that emits green light, as shown in the last two pictures.

That's all you need to do!!! Just put everything back in place and close the enclosure of the Xyloband. Just make sure that you make a hole in the front cap that is just big enough to fit the switch. I used some hot glue to hold the switch in place, but the result isn't quite as professional as I thought it would...

By adding a DIP-switch, you can play with the other colors as well. I had an DIP-switch laying around and used it on the red and blue pin. The 3 colors that came out were red - blue - pink(ish).

By using other combinations or larger DIP-switches, you'll be able to create more colors.

So, we've started with a not-working Xyloband, we've openend it up and soldered some (extra) wires to end with a functional Xyloband.

As always, questions or remarks? Drop a comment below.

J.