Disclaimer: I didn’t have Mi Band 3 at the time I did this. For testing, I borrowed the band from my friends: Luki and Avin, and some input from Willem. Props to them for helping me through this journey.

Unlike Mi Band 2 which has many 3rd party tools that offer many new functions, Mi Band 3 only has little if not none. One of the feature I think nice is to make the band as a remote control, especially to take photo and record video on the phone remotely. So there my journey to find the tool began. I found this one Android app to take selfie namely Mi Band 2/3 & Amazfit Selfie. Although we must pair the band with the app unreliably at first, it works.

Teh Moment of Truth

Wearable (or in general IoT) development is an unknown thing to me, so I thought this was a good chance to start learning. From there, I decided to learn how to “talk” with the band. I found out two amazing articles about what I just need: Mi Band 2 hack by Andrey Nikishaev, and Mi Band 3 hack by Yogesh Ojha. After I skim read each one of them, I realize this method is not for me. I don’t understand how they started it, how they found it. It seemed and still seems magic to me. If I do something without knowing it, I feel it’s just not “me” (a bit philosophical there). So I decided to throw the idea of pairing/talking to the band.

In the moment of silence, I started to sort my thoughts. Since first, I just wanted a tool that could allow the band to take photo and record video on the phone remotely. So it’s only 1-way “talk” really. Immediately I realized that one feature on the band where it “talks” to the phone that I could use. If you’re with me, that’s right, it’s the mute/unmute phone function. Some of you might still wondering… how can? Three words: ringer mode listener. I’ll let you figure it out yourself if you still haven’t.

The “half-assed” solution turned out simple and working as I wished. It satisfies my wish, and as a bonus because it doesn’t need pairing, it could also be used for any smartband, smartwatch, or any smart device that can mute/unmute your phone e.g. (Android) OS Wear watches.

If you’re interested, this app has been published on the Play Store. It’s completely free: no ads, no premium, no weird permissions. Size is just under 1MB. But the best of all is no pairing required! Tested works from Lolipop to Oreo, but should also works from JellyBean to Pie. There’s some limitations though. Because in Android we can’t send key/input event from background to another app, to make it work we have to use one of the specified camera apps, one of them is Open Camera by Mark Harman which is open source and has many customizations. Make sure to read the description in the Play Store or the HOW TO in the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=personal.narudore.remoteshutter

That ends my short but philosophical journey.
Although I often forget KISS principle when faced with new, unknown problem, at least I applied it here at the end. Keep It Simple, Stupid.